Going out

(Aurora, part 3)

"I can't do this! I hate this job! It's impossible!" Kyros whined and tossed away his spanner angrily. It bounced off the floor and rolled under the cupboard.
There was a moment's silence. Then Aurora asked in a suspiciously mild voice: "Tell me, Kyros, what do you think an apprenticeship is for?"
He glared at her. "Explain it to me, in case I've forgotten!"
She ignored his sarcasm and said softly: "It is for you to learn how to do these things on your own. When you have your own shop, you can throw away your tools all you like, but it will do you no good. Your clients will still expect you to finish your job, or give them a hell of a good explanation for why you can't."
She gave him a piercing look. "You will finish this one, my dear, and there will be no lessons, no new jobs, and definitely no going out before it is done. And so you learn not to give up quite so fast, you will do this on your own. I won't help you, and Frida, you won't help him either, understood?"
"Yes, Aurora," Frida said quietly. She didn't like to be involved when Kyros was in trouble, though she had to admit his constant whining on about any job that didn't lend itself to a brillant success within five minutes had been getting to her. It had just been a matter of time until Aurora would get tired of it. Both children had learned in the past two years that Aurora, although normally quite an easy-going person, had her limits, and that it was a very bad idea to cross them.

Aurora got up. "I'm going into town to buy a few things. Wanna come, Frida?"
"Ummm ... yeah, why not?" Frida replied and jumped up to find her shoes and a hat to protect her from the still-powerful setting sun.
"Can I come, too, please?" Kyros asked, carefully avoiding any more whining. He had by now learned that unless he phrased his questions in a polite way, the answer would be a plain "No, but you can water the plants while we're gone" or anything equally displeasing.
"Oh?" Aurora said, arching her brows. "You've finished your job already? - No, don't give me that pout. You know I'm allergic to it. Let's go, Frida."

Kyros was fuming. He was twelve now, and she was still treating him like a small boy! He remembered the discussion they had had yesterday. Kyros had made friends with a couple of boys in town, the sons of local merchants, which made him very eager to go into town at every opportunity. He was immensely annoyed by the fact that Aurora insisted he didn't go on his own. So, yesterday he had tried his luck one more time.
"Aurora? I've completed all my chores. Could I go into town after lunch?"
"Kyros, you know I've got no time to take you, and I can't let the two of you go today. I need at least one of you to help me."
"Oh, come on, couldn't I go on my own for once? I'd be back long before sunset, promise!"
"No, you can't, and I don't know why you even make the effort to ask. We've been through this a hundred times."
"But I'm twelve now!"
"And your point is?"
"Well, the last time I asked, I was eleven!"
"Kyros, Frida is fourteen, and she isn't allowed to go into town on her own either. So, stop it."
"Aurora, please... you know I've come all the way from Wargla two years ago, alone. What could happen to me on the way into town?"
"The same that could have happened to you on the way from Wargla, and there would be no one there to help you. No, save it. We're not going to discuss this any further. Unless you want to spend your afternoon sweeping the hall? It's quite dusty."

Kyros was still angry when he thought of that conversation. She obviously thought he was some kind of slave! He definitely wasn't going to work on this stupid broken robot. Let Frida do this. She was good at this kind of tedious job. He wasn't!
Kyros stomped to his room, lay on his bed and started reading his science book.

When Aurora came back and discovered that Kyros hadn't even gotten the spanner out from under the cupboard, let alone worked on his task, she wasn't pleased.
She went to Kyros' room and saw that he was reading. Without a word, she snatched the book from his hands, grabbed the other three books he had on his desk and turned to leave.
"No books for you until you've finished your job," she said calmly while stopping to look at him. "I may not be able to force you to work harder or faster, but I can definitely prevent you from distracting yourself with other things."
"Bitch," he said under his breath, scowling.
She turned sharply. "Excuse ME?"
He gulped. "Nothing."
She considered him for a second. "I should hope so. For your sake."
With this, she left him.
She deposited the books in one of her desk drawers and locked it, letting out a sigh. Kyros was really starting to become difficult. After the first spanking he had received from her two years ago, he had settled in fairly well and not caused a lot of problems. Sure, he could still be a handful, but usually a stern look or a verbal reprimand would be enough to make him behave. That had started to change in the past weeks. "To hell with puberty," she muttered and thanked the heavens that Frida didn't seem to be affected that much.

The next day, she announced that she would have to go to Cordor to see about the ventilation in the shafts of the mine there. She didn't really know how long it would take her. Maybe only a few hours, but it might as well be more than a day. She hadn't often worked with ventilation systems, but she figured she would just have to give it a try. It must be tricky if the miners couldn't fix this on their own.
"If I knew I'd be back tonight, I'd take one of you," she said. "But I prefer not to leave the cave empty overnight, and I won't leave one of you here alone. You'll manage, won't you?"
They nodded. They had been on their own on a few similar occasions before, and it wasn't as if it was particularly dangerous. Nobody in his right minds would attack Aurora's home. After all, Aurora was one of the most vital persons on Sitat.

Before Aurora left, she took Kyros aside.
"I suggest you seriously go to work on that robot," she said. "And don't try to bug Frida into doing it for you. She's got work to do herself."
She looked at his face and sighed. "Of course, you can also spend the day sulking," she remarked. "I'm afraid that's not a productive way to get out of your grounding, though."
Kyros scowled at her. "Are you done bothering me?"
"My dear," she said in that mild tone she always employed when she wanted to make it clear that she was not going to let him provoke her, but nevertheless would not put up with any more nonsense from him, "you may think you're nearly grown up, but I assure you that you're not too old to end up over my knee. It would be a really good idea to watch the tone in which you're speaking to me, and take that scowl of your face." She paused and added, her voice suddenly very sharp: "RIGHT NOW!" He jumped and hurried to straighten his features. He might be angry at her, but he was NOT going to risk a spanking - at least, not for something this stupid.

Aurora left, and Kyros walked over to his workspace slowly and sulkily. He looked at the blasted robot for a while and couldn't bring himself to start disassembling it. That would mean putting all the parts on a cloth, remembering where they went to or even taking notes, and so forth. So much hassle for such a useless piece of junk! Aurora had probably broken it on purpose to give him something to do, or "learn", as she put it. Heck, learning meant, whatever, learning NEW things, and not taking apart a stupid robot and finding out that a fuse had blown. He knew everything he needed to know about blown fuses, and he knew how to take apart a robot, at least in theory. So why go to all the trouble and actually do it?
He glanced at Frida, who was leafing through a manual with a frown on her face.
"Frida?" he asked in his nicest tone.
"Don't interrupt me right now," she snapped without looking at him, "and anyway, the answer is NO! You heard Aurora."
"Well, yeah, but she's not here, is she?" he argued.
"She might not be here, but she'll have my head if I don't finish this until she's back, so don't be annoying, or I'll just get my earplugs," Frida replied, sounding harassed.
Kyros drummed his fingers on his desk. How could this girl be so goody-goody all the time? He sighed deeply, grabbed a screw-driver and used it to lever the switches off.
"You have to be more careful, or they will snap," Frida remarked, still without looking up.
Kyros glared at her. "If you're not going to help me, do me a favor and keep your smart comments to yourself."
She shrugged and went to look for the right kind of cable.
Kyros used the opportunity to remove the rest of the switches much more carefully, without her noticing it. This enabled him to take the cover off. He looked at the robot's inside and sighed deeply. This was just a stupid cleaning robot! Couldn't people simply do their cleaning without it?
He stomped outside and blinked into the bright sun. Suddenly, he had a great idea. He turned, went back into the cave, put on clean clothes, his hat and his water bottle and went back outside.
"I'm going out for a while," he said casually to Frida as he passed her. "See you later!"
"Wait a minute," Frida said. "We both know you're grounded, so what is this about?"
"Look," Kyros said exasperated, "Aurora's not here, she will never know, and all YOU need to do is not to split on me, or do I ask too much?"
Frida shook her head. "The only thing you're asking for is trouble. You know very well that I won't split on you, but if this blows up, don't expect me to cover up for you."
He rolled his eyes. "Yeah, right. Have a nice time with your task. I'm sure it's really entertaining."
With this, he left. Frida stared after him. What's gotten into him? she thought and shook her head again.

Kyros met with his friends, had lunch at the small snack stall and generally had a good time. Unfortunately, he spent all his money and didn't have anything left to refill the tank of the motorbike, but he would do that at home. Aurora probably wouldn't notice a bit of fuel missing.

He left fairly early, in order to make sure that he was home before her - if she came home today at all. Nevertheless, he sighed with relief when he saw that her motorbike was still gone. He filled the tank, went in, said a casual hello to Frida, who scowled at him, hid his dusty clothes, put on his work overalls and went back to his workspace where the blasted robot was still sitting. He sighed and decided that he HAD to work on it, or he would be in trouble, and he didn't need that - he reveled in the thought of finally having gotten the better of Aurora and didn't want to destroy the nice feeling. He felt so good that he actually accomplished some work - he disassembled the whole blasted robot, he found two defect connections, and he had just begun to work on repairing them when Aurora came back. He started to become a bit nervous at that point, but told himself to calm down - there was no way that she could find out about his excursion if he kept his head.

"Hello kids," Aurora said tiredly, walking into the cave. She was covered in dust and looked exhausted. "Did everything go alright today?"
Was he imagining things or did she throw him a sharp look?
"Hi Aurora," said Frida. "We're fine, and you?"
"Yeah, we're great," Kyros confirmed casually. "Look, I found what the problem was with this blasted robot!"
Aurora walked over to him and noticed the disassembled parts that were strewn all over the place. "I'll save my applause for when you've put it together again, and it works," she remarked drily, her mouth quirking in a slight smile.
"Thank you very much, that's sooo nice of you," he replied grumpily.
She laughed and went to her room to change.
Kyros grinned triumphantly at Frida. She just rolled her eyes. "Yeah, I know, you're so cool. Get real." She got up. "I better go and set the table. It's my turn today, I think."

Ten minutes later, they all sat down to have dinner.
Aurora told them all about her day at Cordor and why she had managed to be back so early. Frida then told her about her day.
"So, it sounds like Kyros gave you a break and let you get on with your work for a change?" Aurora asked, grinning.
"Yeah," Frida replied, a bit awkwardly. She didn't really want to elaborate on that.
"Awww, come on, I'm not that bad," Kyros protested hastily, trying to divert Aurora's attention from Frida. It seemed to work.
"So, what about your day, Kyros?" Aurora asked.
He shrugged. "Well, I worked on that stupid robot, like l told you. I hope I'll finish tomorrow."
"You did nothing else all day?" she inquired.
"No!" he said in feigned innocence and looked at her with big eyes.
"I'm impressed," she commented, and he couldn't suppress a smile. Boy, this day had been to good to be true.
They finished their dinner, and Aurora asked Kyros to help her wash the dishes.
"But it's Frida's turn!" he protested.
"She can do it tomorrow," Aurora said calmly. "I'd like to talk to you."
A sudden feeling of apprehension overcame him, but he didn't want to give her any reason to be suspicious, so he just shrugged and grabbed a dishtowel. Frida gave him a raised-eyebrows kind of look and left.

"There's one thing I don't quite understand, Kyros," Aurora said slowly while letting the mugs glide into the water. "How come you were here the whole day, working on the task I set you, and at the same time Twain saw you at the snack stall thirteen miles from here?"
His heart dropped to his stomach. He tried to think of a good response, quickly. "She... she must have been mistaken," he stuttered. "Perhaps she saw Ragab, he really resembles me."
Aurora put the mugs down and proceeded to wash the plates. "Kyros, we both know that Twain is perfectly able to recognize you when she sees you, and to my knowledge, you don't have an identical twin around here."
"But Aurora!" he exclaimed, desperately hoping that if she had waited this long to confront him, and if she was this calm, she was probably not sure of her accusation. "I've been here the whole day! You've seen the work I've done! Really, Twain must have made a mistake!"
"I have to admit you've accomplished much more today than you usually do with this kind of task," Aurora stated matter-of-factly, "but it's nothing you couldn't easily have done in two or three hours." She turned to face him. "If I took you into town right now and asked the owner of the snack stall or any other merchant if they'd seen you today, would they say yes or no?"
Now she had him in a corner. He stared at her and opened his mouth a few times, getting angrier and angrier at the game she had obviously played with him. Finally, his anger erupted, and he yelled: "Fine! I've been in town, you've known it all along, you've made me lie about everything on purpose, you came here and KNEW you were gonna spank me, but you pretended everything was alright, just to make me look worse! You're the meanest person I know! I HATE YOU!"
He turned to run from the room, but she was faster than he was. She grabbed his shoulders and forced him to turn around. Tears were running across his face, and he bowed his head to hide them. She grabbed his chin and forced him to look up at her.
"You want to know why I've been waiting for so long until I confronted you?" she asked quietly. "No, you're not going anywhere right now, you listen to me. When Twain mentioned she'd seen you, I felt angry, but even more so, I felt disappointed. I had had a stressful day, I had been looking forward to coming home, and I was absolutely not up to dealing with this when I came back here. I didn't want to ruin the complete evening for me, for Frida and for you. I at least wanted to have my dinner in peace, and that's what I did. Go ahead and condemn me for it."
He thought he'd never felt so bad in his whole life. She obviously was so exasperated with him, she was beyond yelling. And it was his own fault. He realized how much he had disappointed her.
"I'm sorry, Aurora," he said, trying in vain to suppress his tears. "I didn't mean what I just said to you. Yes, I went into town. I just couldn't bear sitting here and feeling like... like you can order me around, and I have to do everything you tell me. I just went for a few hours, and I came right back, and work was so much easier after that." He dared to peek up at her face. It was sad, and tired. "I guess that's not an excuse, huh?" he whispered.
"No, it isn't," she said tiredly, rubbing her forehead with her hand. "We both know you don't have permission to go out on your own, plus I expressly forbade you to go out at all until you finished your task. You willfully disobeyed me, just to prove to yourself you could do it. You were way out of line today, and I'm much too tired and frustrated to deal with it now. Go to bed. I'll finish here, get a good night's sleep, and we'll discuss it in the morning."
Oh shit. How did she expect him to sleep with this hanging over him?
"I can finish the kitchen, you don't have to do it," he offered shyly.
She glanced at the few dishes that were still waiting to be washed. "Thanks, that's a good idea," she agreed. "See you in the morning, then."
He stared after her, tears rolling down his face. Ohshitohshitohsit, I've really messed up, he thought. And what got into me to offer to do the stupid dishes? Do I really think that will save me from the spanking I've got coming?
No, another voice in his head said, but perhaps it will help you to make it up with her. She's really disappointed in you, you know.
He bit his lip to stop himself from crying.

At that moment, Frida entered the kitchen.
"So, did she find out?" she asked and grabbed a dishtowel.
He shot her a dark look. "I warn you, don't say 'I told you so'. I'm not in the mood for it."
"Well," she said cautiously, "how did she find out?"
"Twain told her."
"Hmmm. It's a small colony, unfortunately. She's been bound to hear it from somebody eventually."
"Why didn't you point this out to me beforehand, if you're such a wisecrack?"
"Because, dear Kyros, you told me to keep my advice to myself. Besides, you wouldn't have listened. It would just have given me another reason to say 'I told you so' now, which I thought you weren't in the mood for."
"Hmpf."
They finished the dishes in silence. Then Frida asked: "How come she waited so long to bring the topic up? And how come she didn't spank you?"
Kyros sighed. "She was dead tired, and she just wanted to have a quiet evening, I guess. She said we'd 'discuss' it tomorrow. Great. That gives me a lot of time to worry."
"Well, I don't envy you, but it's your own fault" Frida said, not particularly sympathetically.
"HMPF. Thank you so much for reminding me."

Aurora slumped into her bed. She was really tired and exhausted after this day, but she was unable to go to sleep right away. Kyros' actions bothered her. 'He was so obviously cheerful afterwards, much more so than he'd been in weeks' she thought. 'Was it just because he thought he got away with disobeying me, or did he simply need to get out on his own, something which I'd been denying him? Am I being too hard on him? But he does have to learn to do jobs he doesn't like, and do them on his own. And besides, he's been simply unbearable in the past couple of weeks. Damn, everything was going so well before that.'
It had in fact been a long time since she had had to spank any of the children. Frida hadn't been spanked at all after that fight they had had in their first couple of weeks, and Kyros had only been spanked two more times - once when he had done away with time-consuming safety precautions, with the result that Frida had nearly been electrocuted, and once when he had played a very stupid prank with filling foam that had ruined quite a lot of integral parts of a heat control system they were working on. In that first incident, she had been so angry that she had spanked him on the spot, which she had regretted afterwards - she had been so overtaken by her anger that she had used a rubber strap on him, which seemed far too harsh to her in hindsight. So the next time she spanked him, she had sent him to his room first and had taken some time to calm down before she dealt with him.
She was aware of the fact that Kyros would be spending this night in considerable anxiety, but she couldn't change that. She hadn't lied when she had told him that she was too tired and frustrated to deal with him right away. The day on the road, and in the stifling heat of the mine, and on the road again had been so stressful, all she had wanted was to flop down on the kitchen bench, have a bottle of cold beer and a peaceful evening with the kids, but Kyros had blown that. She sighed. 'If I had kids on my own, I'd probably be more used to frustrations like this,' she though. Well, perhaps things would look brighter in the morning.

They certainly did. Aurora felt a whole lot better when she woke up. She stretched, yawned, and went to the bathroom to find that it was occupied.
"Frida, is that you?" she called. Frida sometimes got up early.
"No, it's me," she heard Kyros' muffled reply.
"Oh," she said. "Well, tell me when you've finished, so I can take a shower."
He opened the bathroom door. "You can get in, I'm ready," he said miserably and made for his room. Aurora stopped him.
"Wait a minute," she said gently, put her hand under his chin and tilted his head towards her. His face was white, and his eyes were puffy. It was obvious that he must have cried a lot during the night. Her heart went out to him when she saw him like that, and to his utmost surprise, she pulled him into a tight hug.
"Kyros, sweetheart, I'm sorry I let this hang over you the whole night. I just wasn't up to dealing with you yesterday," she explained.
"That ... that's okay," he replied, astonished. "I mean ... I know I messed up big time."
She grinned. "Yes, you did. And you are probably lucky I didn't deal with you on the spot. It at least gave me the time to calm down and refrain from strangling you." She let go of him. "Now scoot. I'll see you in your room in a while."
He sighed, but he looked better than before. "Yes, Aurora."

"Now," Aurora said when she was settled opposite Kyros, who was sitting on his bed, "I want to know why you did this."
Kyros groaned. "For heaven's sake, we both know that I don't have any excuse for it!"
"True," Aurora said crisply, "but that's hardly an answer to my question."
He frowned. "Then what do you want to know?"
"I believe I expressed myself quite clearly. I asked you why you did this."
"Sheesh, I don't know! Because I wanted to!"
Aurora closed her eyes and counted till ten. Then she asked patiently: "And why, exactly, did you want to?"
He could see that she was serious about this. And he'd actually given quite a lot of thought to the same question during the night. But he'd hoped she would just punish him and get it over with, instead of getting into the details of his behavior and finding out how ashamed he was of himself.
"I was mad at you for always telling me what to do, and forbidding me things," he said in a small voice. "I was angry about having to obey you. It feels so childish. And then I was angry at myself, because not obeying you makes me feel even more childish. I seem to get in trouble all the time, and it's not really worth it! I..." he peeked a look at Aurora and saw that she was listening intently, without a hint of reproach on her face. She nodded at him encouragingly. He swallowed and continued: "When you told me to finish this robot, I felt ashamed that I behaved as if I couldn't do it. And at the same time, I didn't WANT to do it, because YOU wanted to make me do it. I know that makes no sense." He sighed. "Anyway, doing something you expressly forbade me seemed like a great idea at the moment, and it made me feel so good. I was in such a good mood afterwards. I felt ... well, grown-up." He looked at her pleadingly. "It wasn't dangerous. I know you say I'm not old enough to go on my own, but I just went into town, hung out there for a couple of hours and came back. I didn't do anything bad, and I didn't risk my life or whatever. Where's the harm in that?"
She sighed and thought for a while. Finally she replied: "Kyros, you are at a very difficult stage. Difficult for yourself, in the first place. You're right, you are not a kid any more, but you're not a grown-up either. It's easier for Frida. She has been older than you are now when she arrived her, and she has always been used to carrying a lot of responsibility. I know it's not easy for you to define your place with us, and with others. But rebelling against everything I say isn't the solution. You're my apprentice, and that means I have to count on your cooperation. After all, you want to learn from me, don't you?"
"Yes," he mumbled. "I'm sorry I caused so much trouble for you."
"About going out alone," Aurora said. "To be honest, I'm really not sure how to respond to this. Maybe you're right. Maybe I've been overprotective. I can imagine a whole lot of things that could happen to you on the way, but on the other hand it's not a very long way, you're used to riding your motorbike, and you will sooner or later have to go on your own. I'll talk to Frida and see what she thinks. And I'll find out what other kids your age are allowed to do on their own. I realize it's difficult for a ... temperamental person like you to be cooped up her with us and no one else around. So, I'll think about this issue and talk to you about it again. And I'm sure I would have done the same thing earlier if you'd just approached this in a more mature manner, instead of whining and bugging me."
He blushed, but he couldn't conceal the fact that he was pleasantly surprised. "Thanks, Aurora!"
Her mouth quirked. "You might want to wait until you thank me, Kyros," she said sternly, but her eyes twinkled a little. "The fact remains that you weren't allowed to go into town on your own, and that you deliberately disobeyed my orders. If you think I'll let you get away with this, you're mistaken. - Can you remember the day you came from Wargla on your motorbike, asking me to take you on as an apprentice?"
"Yes, of course," he said, astonished at this sudden change of topic.
"Hmm. And can you remember what I promised you in case you ever took a motorbike again and went out without permission?"
He closed his eyes. "Yes, I can."
Now she grinned openly at his discomfort. "And what was it I promised you?"
He groaned. "You said you would put me over your knee, which I know you're going to do now, so pleeease, just let's get it over with, okay?"
"Alright, my dear, you'll get your wish. Come here."
With a loud sigh he shuffled over to her and blanched when he saw that horrible plastic spoon appearing from nowhere. "Oh please..."
"Now, Kyros," she said, and her tone of voice was completely serious now, "we both know you were WAY out of line, and I'm not open to arguments as far as your punishment is concerned." She patted her knee.
Lowering himself over her lap was probably the part he hated most. He clenched his teeth and got into position.
She pulled down his pants, and he felt the spoon rest on his buttocks and instinctively clenched his butt. "Tell me why you're getting this spanking."
He'd been wrong. THIS was the part he hated most.
He drew a deep breath and started: "Because I went out when I was grounded, and because I went into town on my own without being allowed to, and I lied to you about it, and I was rude to you, and I didn't work on my robot all day, and I haven't been a good boy .... OWW!"
"Don't be too cocky," she said levelly. "If you list any more transgressions, I'll get the strap, how'd you like that?"
"No, please don't," he said hastily, hoping that she was only teasing him, but not quite sure, "I'm sorry! I ... just got carried away."
"Well, that wasn't a smart move in your current position," she said smoothly and started spanking him in earnest.
He'd been wrong again. THIS was DEFINITELY the part he hated more than everything else.
She spanked him until he was lying limply over her lap, unable to do anything but sob his heart out. She didn't feel angry at him any more at all, but she knew that he had needed this spanking, or he would walk all over her, because that's what he did if he spotted leniency.
She pulled him into a hug and rocked him until his sobs had subsided.
"I'm sorry, Aurora," he brought out.
"I know," she said comfortingly. "Just try not to pull a stunt like this again, please. It was exactly the thing I DIDN'T need after a day like yesterday."
He nodded. "I'll try."
"Well," she said with a small laugh, "I guess trying is all I can ask for. To actually expect you not to get in trouble any more - no, that would definitely be too much."
He punched her in the chest. "Stop teasing me!"
She ruffled his hair. "Okay, you're right, you've had enough excitement this morning," she said peacefully. "How about breakfast?"
"Yeah," he said eagerly. "I could eat a whole bag of Wesnaks!"
She pulled a face. "Now there's the farmer in you talking. How anyone can like that disgusting stuff, I have never been able to understand."
He grinned. "I know. I've just been teasing."