The Bird Whisperer - Chapter Three

CHAPTER THREE
BAD BOY

Many things changed since that day for Milford. After two years of undergoing an extensive forced personality remodeling, the boy gradually learned the laws of survival in the Swaggers family. Obey, pretend, be strong, be cold, be mean – but never, ever rebel. He couldn't fight the system. That was why he learned to play the system to his advantage. By the age of thirteen he was a flawless cruel gentleman whose childhood traumas had evolved into arrogance and megalomania. The Swaggers law was that two-faced bastards got ahead in life, so he became a two-faced bastard. Well, a two-faced bastard with a moderate bird phobia, but nobody was perfect. In any case, he proved himself to be perfect enough for his parents to send him to study at the most expensive private school in Wingstead, the Young Adults Academy of Occult Studies. (Or Y.A.A.O.S.; the awkward abbreviation was not debated; it used to be called the "Young Adults Occult Institute," but the school council decided it sounded inappropriate.)    
                           
Lord and Lady Swaggers were proud to tears. In YAAOS, their child would be with other children like him: all of them rich and extremely spoiled aristocrats' sons and daughters, all of them children of Swaggers family friends (or people who owed them money and dared not become their enemies), all of them raised with the acute knowledge they should look up to a Swaggers' son and treat him with the appropriate respect. Given all of this, Charlotte and Leopold sent their son off to school with the unwavering conviction that absolutely nothing could go wrong with their beloved heir in such a prestigious institution.

Milford spent a few weeks at the Academy, during which he didn't drop his parents a single line. They assumed optimistically that this meant he was busy making friends and learning the fundaments of advanced magic and money-making. Soon enough, however, they received plenty of letters sent from the location of the Academy to them. These letters were not written by Milford.

The first letter of many made, as kindly as possible, several calm statements of disguised infuriation. It read:

"Dear Lord and Lady Swaggers,
I am writing to inform you about your son Milford's course of adaptation to the academic life in our educational institution. While I do not by any means wish to divert you from going about your duties, I humbly suggest that you take your time to become acquainted with several occurrences at the Academy regarding your son.
Your son Milford is displaying a considerable lack of interest in the curricular activity at the Academy, although he's been admitted into a class assigned the most competent teachers in Wingstead, if not in the entire British Alterlands. He shows a disturbing insufficiency of ambition and thirst for knowledge. Regrettably, this is far from all our record of your son shows.

On Thursday, the 28th of September, your son was found misplacing his saliva into Master Steelfeather's morning coffee. On Friday, the 29th of September, he was sentenced to serve detention for purposefully casting pieces of chalk at his classmates with the intention of hurting them. On correspondingly the 1st, 2nd and 3rd of October, he was held in detention again for using foul and ungentlemanly language at students and teachers alike. He has also been caught placing nails, stones and hexes upon the chairs of the following teachers: Master Whitwax, Mistress Zelpher, Master Tippins, Master Aleister and even Mistress Silversmith, the Musical Appreciation Professor. On October 5th, he was sent to Principal Worbins for disrespecting an Academy officer in the course of carrying out Milford's detention (precisely recorded as fifteen strikes of burning hexes administered to the back and shoulders).  The record shows your son has graced the detention officer with a rude hand gesture. And the record goes on.

Needless to say, this is beyond acceptable behavior for a student at the Academy, especially given his position in society as a member of your noble family. Now, I do not happen to suggest that your son has received anything less than an exemplary upbringing. However, I do suggest you addressed him about whatever the cause of his problems may be.
Hoping you're in good health,

Matilda Farley, school counselor"

Since Milford was not at home to be beaten up at the arrival of this latter, but at the Academy instead, many plates and other inferior objects were broken at the Swaggers estate that day. Had there not been enough plates to break, Leopold Swaggers would have lost his mind with blind fury.

When the winter holidays came, the Swaggers collected their son to grant him the worst winter yet. When, finally, they sent him back to school, they were hoping to have intimidated him enough to compel him to behave like a gentleman. Despite, in their opinion, all logic, more letters followed just two days after the beginning of the second term. They were shorter and clearly written with a shorter temper and sounded a little like this:

"Dear Lord and Lady Swaggers,

I sincerely hate to disturb your peace once more, but I implore you on behalf of the school staff to have a profoundly engaging conversation with your son. Milford does not abide by the regulations of our highly evaluated school. I am afraid his audacity has reached intolerable heights. He refuses to wear his uniform. He teases the other students and, more worryingly, the teachers. Mistress Silversmith resigned from her post at the Academy after Milford calling her – and I quote: "an ugly hag too stiff and conceited to ever get married." Master Tippins was brought to tears by your son due to Milford's repeated criticism on his teaching approach. I regret to add that your son's been causing havoc at the Academy in more than one way. Some of the students have been influenced by his actions and grown rebellious. They've even established an informal group called "Milo's gang." They pull pranks on everyone in the school and distribute records of music inappropriate for young gentlemen, from which they collect earnings we regularly try to confiscate from them. I am afraid Principal Worbins is on the verge of expelling your son. I beg of you to consider a serious conversation with Milford. Please correct the error of his ways while Principal Worbins has still not reached a final decision.

Sincerely,

Matilda Farley, school counselor"

The Swaggers decided to solve this problem with money. Apparently, the amount of the bribe was not sufficient enough, or perhaps the Academy needed more than money to agree to tolerate Milford's behavior. That they wouldn't bend down on their demands became clear at the arrival of the next letter in mid-spring:

"Dear Lord and Lady Swaggers,

I am writing to inform you that after several months of extensive daily psychological sessions with your incorrigible son Mistress Farley resigned from her position as a school counselor and set off for the Caribbean islands to recover from the post-traumatic shock. Your Milford has become truly unbearable. He's been causing damage to valuable school artifacts and experimenting with illegal potions. He's been selling some of said potions to the younger students. I doubt this is the proper way of displaying a spirit of enterprise. Yesterday, I summoned him into my office. When he left, he'd drawn over all of the portraits of great historical figures with magic. I'll be direct with you, not as a principal, but as a family friend: do move Milford to another school before I've expelled him. You wouldn't want that hitting the papers. As of now, your son is no longer the Academy's concern.

Best wishes,

Walter Worbins, Principal"

Upon reading the letter, Leopold Swaggers produced a sharp, joyless grin – the grin of a lion about to attack its prey antelope. It seemed to contain way too many teeth. When Milford came home – and that would happen all too soon, – he would rue the day he was born.

* * *

Milford, now more commonly known among his peers as Milo, already rued the day he was born, but he went on living on autopilot nevertheless. If only he had a stronger bond with his parents, he'd probably share with them quite a few of his impressions of his current life. He'd share how he hated his teachers, his classmates, and the general feeling his existence simply didn't have the desired direction.

It wasn't that he didn't find the subjects interesting. Well, okay, Musical Appreciation was a bloody stupid subject, there was no doubt. All the students did in these classes was listen to slow boring tunes composed specifically for the ears of the high society and practice exclaiming "Lovely," "Splendid" and "Exquisite" in an overly pompous voice. Now, Demon Summoning was truly interesting, but one had to study so hard in this class that Milo was certain he'd never make any progress in it anyway. A perfect understanding of mathematics and metaphysics was required – and that had to be accomplished before one got to open a single textbook on occult rituals.

As for the teachers, it seemed to Milo that they found it more important to teach the students to be socially adept than to actually help them learn to perform any magic. The students, like the teachers, were exemplary snobs, stiff, stuck-up, obedient and boring. They never seemed to laugh or do anything fun or show any emotion over something that wasn't money.

Another downside to the Academy was that there was no subject in the curriculum that was dedicated to physical exercise, and Milo's massive amounts of energy he couldn't naturally vent out resulted in his pulling pranks and harassing students and teachers alike. To make up for the lack of exercise, the school supplied the students with food so diet it practically consisted of nothing but carrots and broccoli. This ensured Milo's undernourishment, and since he was skinny enough to begin with, being hungry all the time made him even meaner than the beatings by his parents had encouraged him to be. True, he had a gang of schoolmates established on the basis of common boredom and malice, but they weren't really his friends. He was miserable, lonely, and starving at the Academy.

Which was why he was more than relieved when his parents moved him to Silversky High the next year. It was a public school in the heart of the small town of Silversky. According to his parents, Milo didn't deserve to attend a private school any longer. Milo couldn't respond to the punishment with more exhilaration. It wasn't just leaving the Academy that made Milo so cheerful about going to Silversky High. This was an ordinary school with ordinary teachers, not first-class tutors trained in a high level of subtle student manipulation. And since the tutors at the Academy had not been a challenge for him, chances were he'd be able to work the Silversky teachers without even making an effort. He'd have them going crazy in no time. It'd be like taking candy from a baby. And the Swaggers had always been really good thieves.

Milo spent one blissful year at Silversky High, without his parents ever knowing about his mischievous endeavors there. This was so because, two months after enrolling into the school, Milo had already surrounded himself with a formidable team of unruly good-for-nothing troublemakers who, among other things they did under his leadership, eliminated the postal service in the school by placing a simple deportation spell on all of the mailboxes in the vicinity of Silversky High. The spell was backed up by a concealing spell so that it wouldn't be traced by teachers and worked in the way that every letter, departing or arriving, that passed through the mailboxes was magically transported into the school's sewers.

Needless to say, the school council freaked out, but they could never find enough evidence to blame it on Milo and his crew. Milo only gained from this, because that way his parents couldn't hear from the school principal about everything he did. He had all the freedom he wanted, and he abused it to the best of his ability.

There was one downside to Silversky High, however, apart from the dull and misty weather, quite unlike the warm, sunny climate in Wingstead. But the cool, cloudy skies of Silversky encouraged an activity that was considered unfit for gentlemen, to say the least, at a place like the Academy. The good news was that it involved physical exercise.

The bad news was that it also involved dragons.

Dragon riding was very popular at Silversky, which was the most popular place to study dragon whispering, too. Silversky was a part of the countryside abundant in hills and mountains and various towering masses of ancient rock, which were in turn abundant in caves. It was the perfect natural habitat for dragons.

Personally, Milo was of the opinion that his natural habitat shouldn't have any dragons in it.

He hated every single lesson in Dragon Training at Silversky High. Not only did they threaten to replace his reputation as a school bully with one of a coward, but it also endangered his safety beyond what he was accustomed to. It was different at home, despite the domestic violence that was frequently practiced upon him. At least he knew his parents wouldn't fry him alive. When Milo had been a child, he had once seen a special breed of a mini-dragon the neighbors had; it was fashionable to have such a pet in the house for the wealthier citizens of Wingstead. Now, he was faced with something completely different.

Dragons were all teeth, claws and scales and flaring eyes which appeared cold compared to their lethal breath. They had heads twice the size of Milo's entire self, and they didn't like him one bit. After eight months of training, the only connection Milo had established with dragons was that between a hungry beast and an annoying vanilla-topped muffin that kept running around to avoid serving its purpose of being eaten. Over time, Milo discovered he was astonishingly good at running when something was chasing him.
These were just a few of the reasons dragons didn't like Milo – and Milo didn't like them back either, because there was something about the way they ate the live eagles and falcons the trainers fed them  that made Milo re-experience terrible flashbacks to his bitter childhood memories. Besides, during the riding lessons, when he was placed against his will on their vast, scaly backs, dragons perceived him as a nuisance rather than a rider because they didn't feel his confidence – and, frankly, neither did Milo. He grew used to being thrown off, burnt, grazed by an enormous fang or escaping stomping to death by an inch. His mother had often told him that facing danger frequently enough was a fool-proof remedy against fear. Milo proved this theory to be entirely wrong. He also proved himself to be the worst dragon rider in the history of Silversky High.

At the end of the school year, any regular family would gladly welcome their son after a troubleless ten months at Silversky High. But Charlotte and Leopold Swaggers could not be fooled that easily. For starters, they were certain something was wrong since they'd never received a single line back from the school's administration desk.

'How did the school year go?' Leopold began the interrogation before Milo had even started unpacking. Milo had foreseen this and had rehearsed the scene in his head months prior to his return.

'Oh, well,' he shrugged impassively. 'Not much. Bad food, incompetent teachers… but, what can I say; I deserved it, after all.'

'Hmm,' Leopold grunted suspiciously, receiving unspoken mental support from his wife standing bossily next to him, hands on her waist. They were determined to tear Milo apart. 'So you're saying there were no problems with the other kids?'

Milo would play it cool to the very end.

'I wouldn't say so. Most of them are dim, but I was condescending towards them. I've come to realize that interacting with my inferiors is a waste of time.'

'You must have had plenty of time of your hands, then,' Charlotte cut in icily. 'Did you make any friends?'

'They're more of acquaintances, Mother. I wouldn't trust my heart and soul with the common folk. I spent most of my time studying.'

'I thought you said the teachers were incompetent.'

'All the more reason to impress them,' Milo was saying exactly what he knew his parents wanted to hear. 'Didn't you use to say that when it comes to manipulating the masses, one must start with the ones easily led? You know, practice. And then, gradually, on to the very top.'

'So you've developed some ambition, you say? What's your favorite subject?'

Milo didn't hesitate for a second.

'Blood studies,' he prompted. 'Got to know the past if you want to have a future.'

'Speaking of future, what about your connections with people? Teachers? Students? Are you popular in school?'

'Moderately. As much as I can be in a place where intelligence isn't a major value. But, you cannot deny that my grades have improved. I haven't let the school environment distract me from pursuing my goals.'

'Indeed… Apart from the Dragon Training grade, which seems to be offensively low.'

Milo saw that remark coming from his father. He had rehearsed the reply to this, too.

'Well, dragon riding is entertainment for the middle classes, as you and Mother like to say… not to be overlooked, of course,' he reacted immediately to his father's disconcertingly raised eyebrow. 'What can I say, I tried my best. But you know how it is, what with those incompetent teachers…'

'I heard the trainers in dragon riding and whispering in Silversky were the best in the entire British Alterlands,' Leopold's verbal counter-attack breached Milo's defenses. 'In fact, your teacher, Master Stormwell, is a personal friend of mine. I wonder why he never wrote to me about your problems with dragon riding…'

Milo's gut experienced an unpleasant feeling. It was as though he'd suddenly lost the ground beneath his feet. It was not unlike riding a dragon.

'Um…' he said not so smoothly. Leopold fixed his stare on him. Charlotte's lip curled.

After a long pause intended to shred Milo's nerves to bits, Leopold made a contained gesture towards his son and voiced out the gesture's meaning a moment later.

'Come on,' he commanded curtly. 'Upstairs. There are a few things you need to tell us, boy.'