Page 3 of Jeremiah

“You’re not human, are you?” He started to ask him why did that matter when Jeremiah told him to call him that but he spoke before he could. “I’m not either. The whole town knows that we’re wolves, but so long as their checks don’t bounce, they’re all right with that. So, welcome to Dresden, Larry, and Lexy. I hope we can persuade you to stick around for a while.

Chapter 2

Richy was so happy to be away from the Mann’s—it was confusing at times but he was glad too that he was being called by the right name. He’d been Cody Mann with them. Now, he was Richard Stonehouse.

He hadn’t ever realized that he’d been kidnapped by them until last year. Richy had been searching for some food or something that he could steal so he could get him something to eat when he ran across the article in an old newspaper. The idiots, that he knew was true to this day, had actually written at the bottom, ‘We did this.’

Thinking even then that he wasn’t like them, but that never stopped them from carting him around to all the places, and when they got into trouble, he was there to plead for someone to take care of him. He hated that as well. A couple of weeks ago, he’d been recused by Mr. J, Jeremiah Tate, when his kidnappers had come to the place he’d been hiding in the school and tried to take him again. Lucky for everyone around, Mr. J had been able to shift into his other half and had saved him from being hurt again. He’d been staying with the man and his family ever since. He found Grandpa J, Jeremiah’s dad, in the kitchen when he went for something to snack on.

“Mr. J said that he’d be coming to get me after the people left to go to their house. Do you know if they showed up or not?” He really liked the women of this family, but he loved Grandpa Joseph, Mr. J’s dad, the most. He’d already taken to telling people that he was his grandson, and that suited him just fine. Richy had been staying at Mr. J’s house since the arrest, and Grandpa J was there every day when he was ready to go out and about.

“Well, now, I do know the answer to that query, young man. They showed up about an hour ago. Jeremiah is showing them around and telling them they can use the company card to fill out their rooms. Gonna be right nice having a father-daughter team in the school, don’t you think?” Richy is what he went by now told the older man that he didn’t care if they were elephants so long as they were going to keep him safe. “Elephants, huh? No matter, I believe they will. You know that my boy, he carries a gun while he’s at school now. Got some special permission to do so as the principal. Some scary stuff going on around the school and he didn’t want anyone to get hurt anymore. It’s been a bad year for the elementary school around here.”

He’d heard about it all since running away and nearly getting caught. It had been a terrible few months around here. And he was glad that most of it was taken care of. He didn’t want to end up having to run again. It was wearing on a kid to be on the lookout for not just his next meal but not being hurt was even better.

The two of them walked to the school. It was all that far, not really, and the views were surely pretty with the trees turning and people being so friendly to him no matter where he was going. Saying hi to the six new bus drivers, he was able to get aboard one of them and have a look around. Not that he was going to be riding a bus, he lived too close to the school for that to happen. He would be able to hitch a ride from Mr. J if they didn’t find any of his members of the family who would take him in. So far, everyone wasn’t around anymore. He hoped that they’d find nobody because living with Mr. J had been the most stable and friendly place he’d ever been in. Having clean clothing that fit as well as food in his belly all the time helped a great deal as well.

By the time they were at the school, he was sure that he’d die of thirst. He’d been having trouble with drinking enough fluids without getting sick. The doctor that he’d been taken to see said that he was severely dehydrated and needed to have a drink on him drinking it at all times. Or he’d end up in the hospital. He didn’t want that, so he tried to remember to have a drink all the time. Mr. J had one in his hand for him as soon as they entered the school building.

“Slow down, Richy. There are more bottles in my office. Just don’t drink it down too fast, or it’ll come back up.” He asked him if there were always a lot of rules for just drinking some water. “Not usually, but you’ve been without for too long, so it’s affecting you hard. Did you meet the new teachers?”

“No. Do I need to?” Mr. J told him it was the polite thing to do. “I guess so, but I’m no dummy who has to repeat that grade, am I? I didn’t go to school much with them, we were forever moving around but you said that I had to take a test and I did it. I’m worried, Mr. J. I don’t want to be in the little kids’ rooms. They’re nice and all but I don’t want to be made fun of.”

“I got your back, Richy. Don’t worry about that. We should get your test scores in the morning or even later tonight. We’ll look it over together and see what your best options are. Okay?” Richy nodded, thinking once again that the test wasn’t all that difficult so long as you read it all the way through first. Just as Mr. J had told him to do. “All right. I’m going to go and properly meet the Turners. I’ve met the man, but his daughter was dragged down the hall by Caitlynn and the other women before I got a chance to talk to her.”

“Are you thinking that she’s your mate, Mr. J? I’m betting if she is, there isn’t any way that she’d going to want to let you keep me around.” He told Richy that they were a team on this, and she’d not take one without the other. “Yes, but she’ll be the one lovey-dovey at you all the time. I’m just a pest who asks a lot of questions.” They both laughed, but he was serious about this. He’d been tossed aside enough for several lifetimes for a nine-year-old.

The room with his name on it was the fifth grade. While he knew that when he was on the run, he’d not had much chance in the way of studying, but he did read everything that he could get his hands on. The people that had taken him never read and he hadn’t ever been sure that they knew how. Just to get to read an entire book now was the best thing that he’d gotten from all this.

“Ms. Lexy Turner?” She turned toward them and fell backward when the ladder she’d been standing on slipped. Barely catching her, nearly dropping her when she scrambled away from Mr. J, Richy told her that she was safe. Mr. J just kept holding her even after she told him three times to let her down. She was fine. Finally he did and just looked at him like he wasn’t sure what had just happened. When she was steady on her feet, she and Mr. J seemed to stand really close to each other like he’d never seen a person of the opposite sex before. Then it hit him.

“Ah, crapola. She is your mate, isn’t she?” They both turned to him, looking at him oddly. “You two are going to be a great couple, and I know that I’ll be moving on soon, I guess.”

“No.” Mr. J cleared his throat, having sounded like a little girl had startled Richy. “What I mean is, no, we’re not mates. Right?” Mr. J looked at Ms. T, and she nodded, then shook her head. “There is nothing to suggest that we’re mates, Richy. Just that she’s…she’s a very beautiful woman, and I was just startled by that.”

“Thank you.” Ms. L’s face turned a pinkish color, and he hid a smile. She was cute, he supposed she’d be called because she was embarrassed about being a pretty woman. Who knew about the heads of females. He certainly didn’t.

A large man came into the room with them, and he hid behind Mr. J. The man looked deranged a little, and his face was covered in blue paint. They’d only been here an hour, he thought. How could he have gotten so messy in a little time?

“What’s the meaning of this? Mr. Tate, I won’t have you manhandling my daughter. Nor will I tell you again to let her go. Now, see here. You keep holding onto her like that I’m—” Ms. Lexy told her dad the news about how lovely she had been to Mr. Jeremiah. That she was his employee, nothing more. “Employee, you say? Well, of course, he is. He’s mine, too. You’re a wolf, right?” Mr. J said that he was. “Well, Lexy and I are elephants. White ones, as a matter of fact.

Richy couldn’t help it. He burst out laughing. They were all staring at him again, but he just couldn’t contain himself enough from laughing. He did manage to say that he’d been talking to Grandpa J earlier and about how he didn’t care what they were so long as he was taken care of. Grandpa J had to finish the story as he was still trying his best to not giggle every time he thought of elephants.

When Ms. L backed into the corner, she talked like she was just emptying her head—like she was babbling, that was the word. That other woman, the one that had kidnapped him, talked like that too. But she did it because she needed a fix or something. He knew that meant drugs, but he wasn’t sure that Ms. L was taking them. She just looked nervous.

“Hey, why don’t we get some dinner together?” Richy asked Mr. J if the Turners were going with them. “Of course. They’ll be teaching here, and it would be good for them to get to know us a little better. Don’t you think?”

“Mr. J, I don’t think she has all her marbles,” he whispered to his new friend. “Just listen to her talking a mile a minute.” She stopped talking then and shut her mouth hard. He just stared at her for several minutes before speaking again. “Are you big enough to squash me, ma’am? I don’t want to be mashed up if you’d not mind it.”

“I don’t believe that I’d squash a child, no. But if you’re going to be someone who talks about me, then you’d better get it right. And ask me first before saying something like that.” He told her that he was powerful sorry, but he’d not met so many shifters in his life until this week. “Well then, we’ll have to have some lessons on what to say when you meet a stranger. That should have been taught to you when you were just a child. But I’m to understand that you didn’t have a good upbringing. How about you and I work on that together?”

He was all right with that and told her so. When they were leaving the school, she asked him if he knew any of the other children in town. He shook his head before answering her.

“I was taken as a baby, and I don’t have any parents. They killed my real ones when they took me. I don’t remember that, of course, but I read about it later.” He told her how he’d found the big paste book with pictures in it that had been covered in the Manns being not arrested for things they’d done. “My last name is Richard Stonehouse the Forth. Everybody just calls me Richy. I’ve been staying with Mr. J since I got away.”

The two of them sat in the back seat while her dad and Mr. J driving his car were in the front. As the day grew shorter, the nights were coming faster. He leaned back on the large seat and closed his eyes. It had been a long time since he’d felt secure enough to sleep when he was tired and he was taking advantage of it whenever the mood struck him. He was sleeping better at night, too, since living with Mr. J. Not every night, not yet. But he knew that it would be something that he could look forward to as he got more comfortable.

If she said anything to him after that, he didn’t remember it. Exhaustion was keeping him on his toes all the time so that he didn’t fall asleep falling into his cereal. He almost did that once, and that was enough for him to pay better attention. He also thought that he didn’t have to be worried about being beaten for something that he’d not done and then having his meals taken from him.