Free Unnatural by Michael Griffo Page A

of the room to ensure that Michael’s bags had been delivered and his uniforms were indeed hanging in his closet. Once satisfied, he took two pieces of paper out of his jacket pocket, giving one to each boy. “Michael, this is your class schedule. Today, Ciaran will show you around, but tomorrow you’ll be on your own. Most of our professors detest tardiness. It might be in your best interest to draw a map so you don’t get lost on your first day.” Michael could tell this was the headmaster’s attempt at a joke, but he felt the slow coil of terror rise from the pit of his stomach. After Mr. Hawksbry left and the boys were alone, the feeling remained.
    Happily, Michael noted this feeling was different from the other rumbling. Standing here alone with Ciaran, it was not curiosity and desire that were awakening deep within him, but rather, unfortunately, fear. It was as if one of the stones from the building had just fallen onto his skull.
I’m in a new school, in a foreign country that I haven’t been in since I was a toddler, sharing a room with a complete stranger,
Michael reminded himself.
This is absolutely nerve-racking.
Luckily, Ciaran was a calming presence.
    Although they were the same age, Ciaran carried himself with more maturity than Michael. Not only did he look like the tall, lean English lad who populates a Jane Austen novel, he sounded like one too; his accent was clipped but his tone friendly. Even the pronunciation of his name,
Keer-in,
accent on the first syllable, sounded as if it came from the pages of a nineteenth-century story. He simply evoked the reserve of a young man who had spent his life in a boarding school where etiquette and poise were held in high regard. “Nebraska must suddenly seem very far away,” Ciaran remarked.
    Michael looked confused. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.” And suddenly the fear was gone and they were just two boys laughing instead of strangers forced to share the same room.
       “This is where I spend most of my time.” Ciaran pointed to St. Albert’s Library for math and science. “I’m on the premed track, at least for now.”
    “You’ve already decided that you want to be a doctor?” Michael remarked. “Impressive.”
    Ciaran wished everyone shared his supportive point of view. “My mum calls it narrow-minded. She’d prefer I follow in her footsteps and become a barrister.” Ciaran shrugged. “Who knows?”
    “I think it’s good that you have direction; you have a head start over most of us,” Michael said, knowing he wasn’t sure what career path he wanted to follow. “Have you decided on what kind of doctor you’d like to be?”
    A red robin flew by them, chirping loudly. “Hematologist,” Ciaran said.
    “What’s that?” Michael replied.
    “Blood disorders.”
    “Really? That’s specific.”
    “Hence the reason my mum thinks I’m narrow-minded.”
    Ciaran must have heard something in Michael’s silence. “I’m sorry, mate. Here I am prattling on about my mum and, well …”
    “That’s okay,” Michael assured him and it really was. He wasn’t silent because he was thinking of his mother again; he was silent because he was thinking that in a few short months these grounds were going to be familiar to him. These buildings, his schedule, the bends in the grass, soon they would all be his routine.
    Glancing at Michael’s class schedule, Ciaran led them to St. Joshua’s Library, which housed the liberal arts collection.“St. Joshua is the patron saint of literature and reading. Looks like you’ll be spending a great deal of time in here.” The building looked just the same as all the others with the exception that it was lined in white roses. Flowers of all kinds grew near the other buildings, but none of them seemed to be growing as deliberately as these, in such formal rows. “No one can really figure it out,” Ciaran offered. “They pop up every year, from what we’re told. Quite beautiful actually. They