Chapter 3

After supper, I headed back to the dungeon and resumed work. With my new memories, it didn't take very long to get through even eight days' worth of arithmetic. I then got caught up on the social studies reading and outlining. English was a new language to the Ursus part of my mind, but having him (it?) there still sped up my reading. Ursus also had centuries of note-taking experience, so the outlining went faster, too.

I'm happy to be of assistance, Ursus thought.

I'm beginning to see where you might be useful.

That's good. I feel pretty awful about what I did to you.

I know. I can feel your guilt. It kind of makes me feel guilty, too.

Sorry, he said.

I know that, too. Look, I kind of see it like someone drowning. You know how they can sometimes panic and drag someone else down with them?

That's a pretty good metaphor for what I did. I felt Ursus's sense of guilt increase. Except I had a lot more time to think about my actions than a drowning man does.

Still, you tried to do what's right. You were under pressure and just didn't consider everything. It happens.

I'm old and powerful. I'm not supposed to be thoughtless.

It happened. You need to deal with this, or you are going to mess both of us up.

My body started to take a series of deep breaths. I felt the beginning of the meditation technique that Ursus had taught me, but we didn't go all the way into trance. After a few minutes, my minds had calmed down, and I felt a lot better. We resumed my schoolwork.

I had missed an entire social studies project on cities. The students were supposed to work in groups of two and make a large combination map/model of their ideal city. This is a total crock, Arthur thought.

What do kids your age know about city planning and administration? Ursus agreed. At best, such a project is just an imagination game. With arts and crafts! You might as well be building doll houses.

I'll put it aside until I can talk to Mr. Dean.

I didn't have any of the lecture notes from science, so the worksheets only made partial sense, even with my new memories helping me. There was some reading to do in the health book, though. I picked the book up, flipped through it, and spotted the chapter on reproduction in the back. The text was vague, and the pictures didn't actually show anything that was remotely sexually arousing to a normal human being, but I had the body of an eleven-year-old boy who had recently entered puberty, and I found myself horny as hell.

O sweet Bog, Ursus mourned. I'm going to have to go through puberty again.

There wasn't any good way to masturbate in the basement. Someone could come wandering down at any time, and I didn't have a sanitary method of semen disposal handy. I considered going upstairs and ducking into a bathroom, but it was getting near bedtime for my brothers, so they would probably be using them.

I'm just going to have to ignore it, thought Arthur.

Good luck, thought Ursus. I turned back to my reading. Once that was finished, it was getting near my own bedtime, and I was exhausted.

I left my schoolwork on the basement table to collect in the morning and headed upstairs. In passing, I said goodnight to my parents, quietly entered my bedroom, and got my pajamas on without turning on the light. Rich and Charlie were asleep in their bunk bed. My bed, a single, was on the wall opposite theirs.

Harvey, one of our cats, was already on the bed. He usually slept with me. The rest of the menagerie consisted of two more cats--Sylph and Puff--an old mongrel named Audrey, and Mom's goldfish, Max. Sylph normally slept on the family-room couch, Puff with Mary, and Audrey in a basket beside Mom and Dad's bed.

I moved Harvey off my pillow and climbed in. The Arthur part of me was a worrier who usually had trouble falling asleep, but Ursus began guiding us (me?) through the relaxation technique we had been using. I was asleep before I got to tightening and relaxing my forehead.

I had another dream-filled night. In my final dream, a popular young actress--blonde, beautiful, and built--was with me. I was incongruously standing in my pajamas. She was wearing tight shorts and a belly-baring halter top, and she was standing within arm's reach. "You're cute," she said. "Do you like me?"

"I like you a lot."

She gave me a kiss and knelt down in front of me. Before I could react, she fished out my already hard penis and began licking and sucking on it. Arthur had heard the insult "cocksucker" before, but he had so far never considered the act to be sexual. The idea, therefore, must have come from Ursus. Both (all three?) of my consciousnesses thought it felt wonderful.

I didn't last very long. About halfway through my orgasm, I woke up still spurting.

"Shit," I said softly.

Arthur, of course, recognized that he was having an orgasm, but it had been his first wet dream. He had never accurately heard of the concept, except for something in the grade-five sex-education program that was just vague enough to be confusing, but Ursus's memories told him what it was.

The wet dream had felt pretty good, but it also was somewhat frustrating--an orgasm without quite enough stimulation--and now my pajamas were filled with goo. My consciousness split in the way it had been doing, but I noticed that there seemed to be a third presence in my head taking note of the other two.

What if Mom finds semen stains on my pajamas? Arthur worried.

Your mom knows what wet dreams are, Ursus thought. In fact, she probably recognizes the signs that you have begun masturbating.

Arthur felt shocked. Ursus felt amused. That's horrible! thought Arthur.

That's life, Art. Respect her privacy, and she'll probably respect yours. From what I've seen so far, your mother strikes me as having more than her share of good sense.

Light was coming in around the closed blind. I glanced at the clock. It was only a few minutes before the time Mom normally woke us. I got out of bed, grabbed some clothes, and headed into the bathroom. I cleaned my pajamas up with toilet paper and then a little water. I brushed my teeth, took a fast shower, and then scrubbed at my pajamas some more with my damp washcloth. It would have to do.

The rest of the kids were up by the time I got out. Rich claimed the bathroom as I exited. I shoved my pajamas under the covers, made my bed, and then headed for breakfast. Mom and Mary wished me a good morning when I entered the kitchen. I returned the greeting. "You sound unusually chipper this morning," said Mom. "It's almost like you're not grouchy." Mary grinned at Mom's jest.

"I'm just glad to be alive." Mom didn't have anything to say to that. She handed me a bowl of cereal. Dad was already at work. All of the kids except Rich were eating flakes or nuggets of various brands.

"If you want, you can stay home today."

Arthur, though good at it, didn't particularly like school, and despite Ursus's (vast) maturity, he found Arthur's memories of the place to be largely absurd. Still, I supposed that I had better start working on improving my self-control. "I already have a lot of work to make up. I need to go." I dug into my cereal, finding it unpleasantly sweet.

Bog! thought Ursus. Do you really eat this shit?

I used to like it, before you invaded my head. Now, I'm going to have to get Mom to start buying me something else.

You can thank me for that, at least.

Before I was born, Mom had worked her way up to manager of a small cinema chain, but she quit and became a full-time homemaker after I came along. She drove in the four of us who were attending school, because she had decided that it was unreasonably far for younger kids to walk. School was about a mile away as the tortoise crawled, and once the kid around the corner had moved on to junior high, our house was literally the farthest away that had any children attending that elementary school. We usually left the house at about 9:00 and got there a little early. The school doors were unlocked at 9:05, and classes started at 9:10.

When I got in line at the door, the other grade-six kids were full of questions. My two best friends at school, Sean MacDougle, who was in my class, and Al Gallo, who was in Miss Gorse's class, had been informed by my parents what had happened to me. They, in turn, had spread the word. I didn't mention receiving the memories and, increasingly, the personality of an ancient wizard, but I told everyone the rest. Yeah, I had chicken pox, had slept for a week, and the doctors didn't know why. I'm feeling much better, now.

When the doors opened, I hung my coat on one of the hooks along the hallway and entered Mr. Dean's classroom. He saw me come in. "Hello, Mr. Powyr. Glad to see you back. How are you feeling?"

"Hello, Mr. Dean. I feel good." I put my books and folders down on my desk. "I have some work to turn in." I brought him the arithmetic and the outline for social studies.

"I just sent that home with your sister yesterday. You got a lot done."

"I worked on it pretty steadily since I got out of the hospital. I'm concerned, though, about the city design project."

"That's too big for you to make up. Don't worry about it." So that absurdity was out of the way, at least.

I'm sure the quality and scope of your education will remain unaffected, Ursus remarked.

I had to answer some questions from people who hadn't heard me in line (the milling mob) outside, and then the school day started. Along with everyone else, I rose to recite the loyalty oath to king and country, but Ursus refused to let me speak.

What are you doing? I asked.

I am appalled that your nation requires children to take a loyalty oath that they lack the maturity to understand. Oh. If anyone noticed that I didn't join in, they didn't say anything about it.

We sat down and listened to what Mr. Dean had to say. Mr. Dean tended to front-load the lectures into the morning and then give us more time to work on our own during the afternoon. Trying to absorb through context as much of what I had missed as possible, I paid sharp attention.

Lunch period was for a half hour and held in the gymnasium, which had long tables that folded into the walls when not in use. Mary and I had lunch at the same time, but we didn't sit together, because seating was segregated by grade and gender.

I'm sure glad Mom makes me a sack lunch, Arthur thought.

The stuff that they are selling here doesn't precisely resemble food, Ursus agreed.

Al sat beside me, and Sean sat across from us. As usual, Al talked like an over-powered buzz saw while Sean mostly just ate.

"What, you just fell asleep and wouldn't wake up?"

"That's what it boils down to. No one could wake me up, and I slept for over a week."

"Did you dream or anything."

"Yeah, a lot."

"Did you dream of anything good, like chicks?" Al was definitely interested in girls, and he wasn't embarrassed to admit it.

"Yeah, some."

"Hot chicks?" He waggled his eyebrows.

"Yeah, some."

"Anyone I know?"

"Yeah, some."

"Who?"

"Kirsten Kennedy." I was now pulling Al's chain. Kirsten had been absent the day of my return, but she was in Mr. Dean's class with me. Al had a major crush on her. In truth, I had a little one myself, but had never admitted it. She was definitely a cutie, and was already filling out. Unfortunately for him, whereas I was pudgy, Al was noticeably obese. Arthur had never really thought about it, but Ursus realized that in all probability, she was out of Al's league. I continued with my teasing. "You know, if my dreams were any indication, she is even better than she looks."

"What? How?"

"A gentleman doesn't speak of such things."

Al looked at me speechless for a few moments. "I've never heard you talk this way before."

"Yeah, well, Kirsten Kennedy has never graced my dreams before."

He looked absolutely flabbergasted. I cracked up, and after a few seconds, Al did too. "Man, you had me going." Sean just grinned and kept eating.

Once they were finished with lunch, the kids were allowed to go out for recess for the balance of the period. There was a pick-up game of kickball going on, but the three of us just took a brisk walk around the schoolyard a couple times. Donald Beauchamp, the resident bully, glared at us but didn't try anything with the three of us together. Donbo, or Dumbo, as some of us put it, liked to hassle kids that he found alone. He was the biggest student in the school and about a year older than most of the other sixth graders, for he'd had to attend a special program after kindergarten called "Reading Readiness." The less kind students at the school referred to it as "flunking kindergarten."

Al and Sean were their usual selves, but I felt even more distant than I had before. A juvenile mind and an adult mind shared my body, probably were slowly merging, and the adult mind couldn't help but find sixth graders rather inane. It wasn't that they were bad guys, but I was already starting to find some of their concerns a bit silly. For instance, Al liked monster movies, but after waking up, I simply no longer cared about which actor portrayed the best werewolf.

Sean's comment that Michelle Palermo was a "hot chick, almost as hot as Kirsten Kennedy," caused me a different problem.

Bog, I feel like a pedophile, thought Ursus.

What?

I can recognize exactly what Sean means, Ursus replied.

So? Michelle is really hot.

I'm in your body, and it's manifest that you think that, and I can totally understand why you think that. Furthermore, it's absolutely fine that you think that. But I'm an adult. I'm not supposed to think that.

But what if it's true?

It doesn't matter. Adults are supposed to pretend it isn't true, even if it is. It's a protective function to keep pubescent young girls away from dirty old men.

Arthur started piecing together ideas he had picked up from his health text and lectures, from what passed for sex education in elementary school, his general reading, and doubtless, from some of Ursus's memories that had already merged with our brain's store of ready knowledge. If she's pubescent, that means she has begun to display secondary sexual characteristics, right?

Right enough. Stipulated, the young woman is beginning to fill out, Ursus conceded.

And it's natural that these characteristics attract males.

Agreed, but that doesn't matter.

But doesn't pedophilia mean that someone is attracted to little girls who aren't yet pubescent?

Because my English vocabulary comes entirely from you, you know that is the technical definition. I merely used the closest available word to my intended meaning. To put it bluntly: dude, she's jailbait.