Free Unnatural by Michael Griffo Page B

go untouched except for the night of the annual Archangel Festival when some of the blokes pluck them to use as a cheap corsage.”
    Ciaran explained that the Archangel Festival takes place in early November to celebrate Archangel Day and is one of the few times that Double A and St. Anne’s officially commingle. “St. Anne’s is the girls school in a gated community on the other side of the campus,” Ciaran said, bending down to more closely inspect one of the roses. “You know, if you go for that sort of thing.”
    Did Michael hear that right? If you go for that sort of thing? He was pretty sure he was referring to girls and not gated communities, but not sure enough of himself to ask for clarification. Instead, he made a mental note: He and Ciaran may have different intellectual pursuits, but they might have other interests in common after all.
    At dinner that night in the main dining room of St. Martha’s, one of the two common halls where students from all the dorms could meet, he discovered he had practically nothing in common with Fritz Ulrich. Fritzwas one of Ciaran’s friends who lived down the hall from him in St. Peter’s. Fritz was exotic-looking, the result of a mixed heritage. His father was German, but his mother was from Ethiopia, which meant he was very tall and muscular with fine, dark brown hair, skin the color of espresso, and eyes the color of light russet. He was loud, opinionated, and pompous, everything Michael was not. He also found Americans very boring. “So do I,” Michael said nervously. While his comment made Ciaran and Penry Poltke, Fritz’s dorm mate, laugh, it failed to amuse Fritz.
    “And that,” Fritz declared, “is a perfect example of why.”
    After Fritz left the table to join a crowd of boys who were equally as loud as he was, Penry, a genial, redheaded kid from Wales, informed Michael, “Don’t worry ’bout Fritz none. He looks bloody dangerous, but he’s harmless.” That comment stayed with Michael while he and Ciaran were walking back to St. Peter’s, not because it made Michael think of Fritz, but because it made him think of his mother. In her letter she told him that things aren’t always as they seem. And neither are people.
    At the entrance to their dorm, Michael told Ciaran, “I think I’m going to do a walk-through of my classes before I turn in.”
    “Good idea. If you’re not back in an hour I’ll send out the cavalry. “
    There were only a few exterior lights sprinkledthroughout the campus, but there was a full moon, so there was enough moonlight to help Michael navigate the unfamiliar territory. Just as he was at the halfway point of his run-through, his father called.
    “Hello!”
    Vaughan was calling from his factory in Istanbul, the larger of his two factories in Turkey, so the cell phone reception was patchy at best. “Hullo, Michael, how was your day?”
    “Good,” Michael said, then realized that he should elaborate. He brought his father up to date and said he was looking forward to his first full day of classes tomorrow.
    “That’s my boy! I knew you wouldn’t mind going directly to school,” Vaughan shouted, but the rest was indecipherable. Michael wasn’t sure if his father could hear him, but he shouted “thank you” into the phone and he meant it. After he lost the connection, Michael realized that this was probably the longest conversation he had ever had with his father and took it as a sign of good things to come.
    Once he completed walking through his class schedule, getting lost only once, he headed back to St. Peter’s. Before he checked in for the night, however, he was once again drawn to the cathedral. It dazzled just as it did during the day. The moonlight, like the earlier sunshine, bounced off the yellow stained glass, creating a mesmerizing display of silvery moonbeams. He was so engrossed with the exhibition of light, he didn’t noticeone drop, two drops, three drops, more as the rain began to fall. He also