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sophieswundergarten · 2 years ago

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Mental Literature

Reynie had always had a habit of "writing things down" in his mind, he found it helped him remember important details and organize his thoughts. Certain words he liked, or ideas that came to him when he didn't have pen and paper handy. Often, these little notes become lists, or, less often, letters. After all, he had no one to write to at the orphanage.

The lists he used most commonly were the ones that contained new words he'd learned. When he came across one he didn't understand, he'd go get a dictionary from the reading room (One of the few books actually available at the orphanage, and one that had sat through many years of dusty disuse until Reynie had come along), looking it up and tracing the letters with his finger until he had fully absorbed the meaning.

One day, when he was sitting outside enjoying the pleasant weather while the other children ran around on the grass and played various games amongst themselves, he found himself cataloging their names. There was Susan Pennyworth, and Thomas Deerhart, and Jane Poll, and several others that moved about, swiftly engaging in a game of tag. A boy a few years older than Reynie himself walked up to where he was sitting under the ash tree. Vic Morgeroff, Reynie noted.

"What're you doing, Muldoon?" Vic asked in a bored way. Reynie wondered for a moment why he was asking, if he seemed so disinterested.

Quickly, he went through his list of new words, excited to try one out.

"I'm just enjoying the breeze under this large, deciduous ash tree, Vic. How are you doing today?"

Reynie hoped Vic would ask him what the word "deciduous" meant, as he himself had just learned earlier that day. Maybe he would even already know what it meant, since he was older than Reynie, and they could talk about it.

Vic's eyes sharpened as he listened to Reynie's response. "What did you just say, Muldoon? If that was a swear, I'm telling the director. Don't think just 'cause you're quiet and always hiding in one of your books you won't get in trouble."

"No, no," Reynie immediately jumped to correct him, "It's not a swear word, I promise. It's a word I learned this morning, it describes the tree, since it loses its leaves in the winter, as compared to an evergreen, which doesn't."

Somehow, this didn't seem to calm Vic.

"Oh? And what makes you think you can use that word, eh? Is it 'cause you're reading all the time? Think you'll impress someone? Knowing big words doesn't make you special, Muldoon. It- It just makes you a freak, who knows too much."

Apparently satisfied, Vic stalked off, shaking his head and muttering to himself, "Little weirdo, thinks he's better than everyone else."

Reynie watched him go, slightly stunned that his word had evoked such a violent outburst. After a few moments, he sighed, shoulders sagging as he shifted to lean against the tree trunk, closing his eyes. He started a new list. "Unpopular Words".

Months passed, and Reynie was summoned to the director's office.

Mr. Rutger was sitting behind his desk, tapping a pen on it when Reynie entered.

"Come in, come in." Mr. Rutger gestured with his free hand to the chair sitting across from him. Reynie sat down obediently, wondering what this was about. He hadn't caused any trouble lately, although his "Unpopular Words" list was beginning to get long enough that he'd had to start reciting it to himself in the mornings, so as to not forget any. He'd avoided Vic and his friends as much as he could, and continued to do well in all of his classes at the orphanage academy.

"Now, Reynard," Mr. Rutger set his pen down and steepled his hands together just below his face. "Do you know why I asked you to come have this little chat with me?"

Reynie shook his head. What strange thing adults do, he considered, to summon a child purposefully without telling them what is going on and then ask them what they think about it. How is the child supposed to respond?

Mr. Rutger frowned at him, as if that was the wrong answer.

"Well, Reynard, your teachers have reported to me that you've been asking about... opportunities." He said the word as though it was an oily worm that had slipped out of his mouth. "Opportunities to attend other schools. Now, why don't we talk about this? Here you're comfortable, you know how the system works. Your friends are here, and it wouldn't make sense to send you away. Besides, it's against policy for a student to be placed in an external education facility."

Reynie hadn't thought he was asking for "opportunities", he'd spoken to his teachers about taking extra classes only because he was nearing the end of the high school work books, and that was as far as the orphanage curriculum went. He was about to explain this to the director, and add that he didn't have any friends, but Mr. Rutger seemed to have decided that the conversation was over.

"There we are, Reynard." He clapped his hands together, leaning back in his chair, seemingly satisfied with his solution. "See? You'll be much happier here. Oh, and be a good lad and try to clean up that reading room you're always in; it's so dirty."

Reynie nodded, standing up and walking out of the office. He paused on the other side of the heavy doors, taking a deep breath before heading back to the room he shared with four other boys. He added "opportunities" to his list.

Not long after that, Reynie entered his first class of the day with the dull resignation to finish the last few pages of his geography workbook. He'd been trying to take as much time as possible and stretch out for as long as he could, since he knew that once this one was full he'd have to content himself with sitting in the back of the classroom and listening to the teacher go over material he had long since learned. However, upon wishing Mr. Green a good morning, he was told that he had been excused from his classes, and was to report to the main hall.

Reynie walked slowly on his way to the main part of the orphanage. He wasn't quite sure what had changed, but some part of him was hopeful that Mr. Rutget had changed his mind and would let him start taking classes somewhere else. He knew there was a local community college not too far, and he'd be happy to walk there if he could only get permission to attend.

His daydreams were shattered by the sudden image of the orphanage director's expression whenever he had approached him about... anything really. He'd asked, more than once, if they might be able to get a few more books for him to read, if the school kids might take a field trip to the museum, if there was any way that he could help pay for further education, he'd even offered to go through the orphanage's policies and Stonetown's bylaws himself to see if there was an exception or loophole that would allow him to attend the Boatwright Academy. All of these queries had ended with Mr. Rutger looking down at him, lips pursed in a sour pout. This had been going on for so long that Reynie noticed the same expression twisting Mr. Rutger's face every time he even entered the same room as Reynie.

He prepared himself to see that expression before opening the door to the main hall, but instead he found a woman. One he had never seen before and knew didn't work at the orphanage because she was wearing a lovely pink sweater over a floral patterned shirt. No one at the orphanage wore nice sweaters or bright colors. Everything there was drab, as if the color was leeched out of it upon crossing the threshold. This woman was certainly not drab, and smiled warmly at him as she rose from the table she was seated at.

Reynie smiled back at her shyly. He felt a slight, pleasant surprise at her seeming excitement to meet him. It had been a while since someone had smiled at seeing him.

"Hello, I'm Miss Perumal. I was told to wait here for a 'Reynard Muldoon'? Is that you?" The nice lady took a few steps toward him, smile faltering a bit as he hesitated.

"Oh," He started, shaking off his thoughts. "Yes, that's me. I'm Reynie." He hurried down the steps, stopping just in front of her. He paused, awkwardly trying to decide if he should shake her hand, or if she would find that "off-putting" and "too mature for a boy of his age", as his French teacher had once said.

Luckily, Miss Perumal stuck out her hand to him, her friendly smile returning in full force.

"Ah, I'm so glad. I was worried that you might have had somewhere else to be, and I was delaying you. As I said, my name is Miss Perumal, and I have been hired to be your new tutor. I am delighted to meet you Reynie. Do you prefer 'Reynie' to 'Reynard'? When I met the director he referred to you as 'Reynard', so I wanted to see what you'd like."

Reynie's mind was whirling with all that this woman said. She was "delighted" to meet him? And she wanted to know which name he preferred to be called, even after Mr. Rutger had spoken with her? He was stunned once again, and only pulled himself out of it when he realized that she was continuing to look at him, waiting for a response.

"Um, yeah. 'Reynie' is good, thank you, ma'am. You said you're my... tutor?"

Reynie wasn't entirely sure what a tutor was supposed to do. He had a vague concept of someone who is supposed to help students with their homework if they were struggling in school, because a teacher had once suggested he tutor his classmates, since he was so for ahead. It hadn't worked out, though, because only one student had approached him, and when Reynie had looked up in the middle of an excited explanation about the French Revolution, the boy had been staring at him in disgust, before abruptly pushing his chair back and leaving. Reynie had created a small mental note for himself, deciding that once he was able to think of the word without recalling that nightmarish, uncomfortable situation, he would find out exactly what the word "tutor" meant.

Miss Perumal nodded at him, her expression growing more serious.

"Yes, I am going to be your tutor. The word is often used to mean someone who will help students as a supplement to traditional teaching, but in our sense it is going to mean that I am a sort of private teacher, just for you."

Reynie appreciated that she had defined the word for him, but he was still a bit apprehensive about this strange woman. She seemed nice, but if she was just going to be a different kind of teacher, that likely meant that she would just hand him a new workbook and try to cover her surprise when he finished it in a few weeks. He didn't want her to be like that, she smiled at him and her eyes seemed kind, and he didn't want her to be just another adult who came to look at him with that distasteful expression that all of the other grown ups at the orphanage did.

But Miss Perumal wasn't finished yet.

"Now, Reynie, I understand that some students need a little bit of different help than most teachers can give them, but you aren't one of them. Mr. Rutger has shown me your transcripts, and you have excelled in every subject and class you've been placed in. You are a very gifted child, Reynie, and something tells me you haven't been given nearly enough opportunities."

She turned then, rummaging in the bag she carried over her shoulder, which Reynie had not noticed before. Producing a small book with a soft blue cloth cover, she handed it to Reynie.

"This," She explained, her smile back again, "Is for you. It's a book on Tamil, the language I grew up speaking. I really think that you'll enjoy learning it, and we might even be able to start having some conversations in it soon, if your record with the limited French available here is any indication."

Reynie accepted the book with a wondrous expression. This woman was willing to teach him, she gave him a book right after meeting him, she wanted to give him opportunities. He searched for a word to describe her, and he found so many good ones that he had to create a "Miss Perumal" list on the spot. She was glorious, she was exorbitantly compassionate, she was a paradigm he wished all adults followed, she was an assiduous researcher, and she was the antithesis to Mr. Rutger.

He took a deep breath, holding it in his chest next to the spark of hope he could feel glowing there. Running a hand over the book, he felt a smile growing on his own face. It had been a long time since he had smiled.

"Thank you, Miss Perumal. I would love to learn Tamil from you, as well as anything you'd want to teach me."

Miss Perumal looked excited, excited at the thought of teaching him. "Well, then, Reynie, I don't see any reason we shouldn't start right now." She gestured at the chair opposite the one she had been sitting in. "Why don't you begin reading through the introduction of that book, while I go over a few more of my papers. We can work on basic pronunciation once you're done."

Reynie sat down immediately, opening the book and still smiling to himself a little. He felt a lot less lonely as he began reading, and added "Friend?" to his Miss Perumal list.

#hello there #this was an experiment in getting my thoughts out in slightly different format #so apologies for it being all weird and probably terrible #i was thinking about including the kids and everyone else but also there needs to be a bit more appreciation for miss perumal #because she's really fantastic and was pretty much the sole person keeping reynie even slightly sane and healthy for a while #i would like to shoutout (with the attitude of standing on this sinking ship of a disaster and saluting):#@nobody33333333 for all of the awesome miss perumal content in the latest chapter of s.o.s.!#(which i of course adore and am working on writing out a Very Normal Reaction to. look i love the longer chapters but it's a struggle.)#@lemondropletters for talking to me about reynie and how great he is!#@mvshortcut for even putting in my head that i am possibly good at writing this way!#and of course @oflightningandstars and everyone who enjoyed my posts about milligan and kate last week #because y'all are super nice and just really cool people so i hope this isn't a bother #thank you if you put yourself through that mess and don't hesitate to tell me what you think if you feel like it #okay i'm going to quit stalling in the tags and post now sorry #the mysterious benedict society #mbs #reynie muldoon #miss perumal #dipika perumal

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