Total pages in book: 132
Estimated words: 126358 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 632(@200wpm)___ 505(@250wpm)___ 421(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126358 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 632(@200wpm)___ 505(@250wpm)___ 421(@300wpm)
I ignored the implied jab and took the bundle with a nod.
“Thank you for finding my size,” I said, determined to keep my dignity no matter what.
The upperclassmen looked surprised but only shrugged.
“Hope it fits,” he said. Next!”
From the Commissary—which was also the place to buy things like sweets between meals and razors if you needed a shave, according to Jorn-o—we went straight to what he called “The Great Dorm.”
“They used this more when there were more First-years,” he said as we stepped into the large, echoing chamber lined with cots. “Now they usually only put twenty to twenty-five cadets to a room. But this is kind of tradition—every cadet in the Academy spends his first night in The Great Dorm.”
I was glad we only had to spend one night here. The room was so big it made me feel like an ant and the rows of folding cots didn’t look very comfortable at all.
Still, it was only for one night, I comforted myself. Maybe I had done well enough on the exams that I would be in a smaller room with only one roommate by tomorrow night. Though I had to confess, I would miss Jorn-o and the rest of my new friends if that happened, it would still be better for privacy.
Speaking of privacy—or the lack thereof—no sooner had I picked a cot, right beside Jorn-o’s, than I heard another deep, tolling bell.
All around me, boys started stripping.
“Bath time!” I heard one of them whoop. “Last one to the Cook-pot is a rotten dragon egg!”
“The Cook-pot?” I raised my eyebrows at Jorn-o, who was already tugging his shirt over his head.
“Oh, that’s what we call the big hollow where all the cadets bathe,” he explained. “Hurry up and get undressed and I’ll show you.”
“Why don’t you just tell me how to get there,” I said, frowning. “I, er, need to visit the necessary room before I go.”
“The necessary room?” Bugs, who was in the cot on the other side of me, asked, laughing.
“Runt means he has to take a dump, Bugs,” Toady said, rolling his eyes. “Not surprising considering how much he ate at dinner.”
He was pushing down his trousers as he spoke and I looked away hastily, not wanting to see whatever was between his legs.
As a matter of fact, I was feeling the call of nature, and it seemed as good an excuse as any to skip the communal bath.
“Oh, well—the toilets are that way—at the end of the dorm,” Jorn-o told me. “When you’re finished, leave The Great Dorm and take the corridor on the left. That leads right to the Cook-pot.”
“Thanks.” I nodded, trying not to notice how he was completely naked now. Thankfully, he wrapped a towel around his waist—we had all been issued two towels, two washcloths, a bar of soap, and a tooth-cleaner and tooth powder along with our clothes and boots—and I didn’t have to avert my eyes anymore.
“Is everybody ready?” Leaper asked. “Okay. See you at the Cook-pot, Runt,” he said to me and the four of them trooped off, following the crowd of rowdy, shouting boys on their way to bathe.
I hung back, digging through my stack of clothes until I found one of the nightshirts I had been given. We had all been given a clothing-marker too and I spent some time putting my initials—"A.L.”—in the backs of all my clothes until at last, The Great Dorm was completely empty.
Then, clutching the nightshirt to my chest, I made my way down the middle of the two long rows of beds. Turning a corner at the end of the rows, I found myself in another loud, echoing room, this one lined with wooden stalls on one wall and rows of sinks and mirrors on the other.
Thankfully, the stalls all had tall wooden doors that went up to the stone ceiling and down to the floor, offering plenty of privacy. I locked myself in one of them and breathed a sigh of relief. This was the quietest place I had been since entering the echoing halls of the Academy—though I could well imagine it would become one of the noisiest once it filled with the rowdy First-year cadets.
Still, for now at least, I had the place to myself, and I could finally relax.
I sank down on the toilet seat and spent a moment just rubbing my temples. I could make this work, I told myself. I could hide during bathing time and just take little cat-baths in the sink when no one was looking. And I could change my clothes in one of the stalls every morning and every night. Everything would be all right.
At least I didn’t have to worry about getting my period while I was here. My monthly courses had stopped flowing months ago, after my father killed himself and Auren got sick. I figured it was grief that had stopped them, and I was grateful to be done with the messy business, which had always been extremely painful for me. No more cramps or blood meant much less chance of being found out and exposed.