Professor Alverdine's advice
At ten to eight that night, Daniel walked to the cliff. He was wondering what professor Alverdine was going to talk about. Could it be about the midterms or the cost of him going to school? Could he have any news about his father?
When he knocked at the door to Alverdine's office, he was nervous. Alverdine was sitting behind the big desk. The window behind him was wide open. The breeze from the ocean was cool and refreshing. Daniel was happy to see Alverdine again, but growing up with his father, he had learned to keep his feelings to himself.
"I heard that you had a field trip to the mortal city. How was that?" asked Alverdine
"It was interesting," answered Daniel, not knowing where to begin.
"I see, always succinct," said Alverdine, as if talking to himself.
"I bet that it makes you think-for example, about money."
"Yeah, I'm wondering how I can pay for everything here," asked Daniel, Feeling a knot in his stomach.
"You need not worry," said Alverdine. "You parents were well off, rich actually. You father put all family fortune away when he left the immortal world. I'm taking care of it for you until you come of age."
It had been a while since Daniel heard anything about his parents. The news brought up all kinds of emotions. It was like someone had poured a bottle of mixed food ingredients inside him. He could almost taste the bitterness, sweetness, and sourness.
Then Daniel thought of Kerri. He knew quite well that her parents weren't going to pay a penny for her education.
"How about Kerri?" he asked.
"She is a rare case," said Alverdine with an approving smile. "That's why I forgot to give you the pocket money. Actually, we have another student in the similar situation-I was hoping that the other students would get to know him better-in Kerri and Tao's case, the school has given them full scholarships."
"Sir?" said Daniel after some quick thinking.
"Yes?"
"Do you think those people are-are-after my family fortune? I mean-I don't need all that much money."
"No, I don't think it's that simple," said Alverdine kindly. "If they just wanted the ransom, they should have contacted me by now. To lots of powerful immortals, money is just a mundane concept-I think what interests them is your father. Your father, he is a very complicated person. Even though I have known him for a long time, I don't always know what's going on in his mind. About himself, he only revealed what he wanted to reveal-last time I saw him was about eleven years ago."
"I know that you worry about your father, but try not to let it keep you from being happy. There is nothing wrong enjoying your life-I'm very proud of you for asking about Kerri first."
For a short period of time, neither of them said anything. Professor Alverdine seemed to enjoy himself even though nothing was happening. Daniel had always wondered what Alverdine saw that he didn't see, but the silence made him nervous again. He didn't know if he should excuse himself.
"There is something else that's bothering you?" asked Alverdine finally.
Daniel didn't know where to begin. He had been in a dilemma about what to do with Jared's request. After a moment of consideration, he said, "It's about a magical weapon."
"One of the students in the school had a magical weapon. It's been stolen and he asked me for my help to find the weapon-the problem is that he hurt some people with the weapon. I don't think that he will use the weapon carefully if he gets it back-I'm not sure whether I want to or should help him"
"Perhaps you think of its being stolen as a punishment," said Alverdine slowly.
Daniel felt his face growing hot. Professor Alverdine was right. It did give him some satisfaction seeing Jared disappointed and agitated.
"You see, there is very little destruction caused by pure evil," said Alverdine. He sounded kind but serious. "Actually in this world, there is very little pure evil. Most destruction is the result of ignorance, greed or cowardice. The best way to make things right is through education, not punishment-punishing one wrong with another wrong never makes it right..."
On his way back to the dorm, Daniel was thinking about his conversation with Alverdine. The news about his family fortune put his mind at ease but nothing really changed. Few things that he wanted badly could be bought with money. He found himself missing his father very much. He believed that his father had made the decision to put the family fortune away for him when he decided to give up the immortal life. He wondered whether his father had expected something bad to happen, or it was just a last resort like insurance?
Daniel thought about Jared. Helping Jared still made him uncomfortable, but he had decided to find out who stole the Golden Club. However, professor Alverdine seemed to want him to do more. He had no idea how he was supposed to educate Jared. After all, he was just a first year student. He didn't think that Jared would listen to what he had to say. And even if Jared would listen, he didn't know what to say to him.
During the few days that followed, Daniel kept thinking about how to find out who stole the Golden Club. Most people had lost interest or forgotten about the whole incident. He had tried to listen to people's conversations to see if there was anything related to the theft. When he really listened to those conversations, Daniel found that they were all similar. One conversation was not much different from another and they were not necessary different from the conversations he had heard the previous day.
A week passed before Daniel did anything related to the case other than listening to the conversations. He had been trying to put off the talk he was supposed to have with Jared, even though he knew it was necessary in more than one sense. He knew that to find the thief, he had to collect as much information as possible and Jared was the one who knew most about what had happened besides the thief; but the idea of talking to Jared again was as unappealing as eating a toad.
Daniel also tried to initiate a conversation with Tao a couple of times during the week, but Tao ended the conversations before it started. As usual, he seemed uncomfortable and defensive in a crowd. Daniel gave up in the end.
In the immortal history class on Monday, Professor Haldan was still talking about the war. It had gotten ugly. There were spies and assassins. The mortal emperors couldn't even trust their wives. Thousands of innocent people were killed. As they got more involved, the immortals lost their minds and their control over the situation.
"Our history is actually entwined with mortal history. We should never underestimate mortals-their population is so much bigger than ours-look at the technology and also the chaos in today's world."
On the screen, images of ancient wars, betrayal in the palaces, the modern cities, and the wars that were still going on in different corners of the world appeared as he went on. Some of the images were so honest and brutal. Daniel felt himself cringe looking at them, but he knew that was the effect professor Haldan wanted. Without those images, what professor Haldan said just remotely made sense and seemed irrelevant.
"When it comes to ourselves, we rarely learn from our history," said professor Haldan in earnest.
Daniel went to the sport field that afternoon. He wanted to have a talk with Jared.
The sport field was crowded. It was like a pond in a summer dusk with hundreds of dragonflies. There were at least ten teams playing flyball at the same time. The sport field was divided into many flyball fields. Flyball resembled mortal football but was on sword and a lot faster paced, so it was only natural that the ball from one game would occasionally fly into another game and players flew into each other all the time.
Owen happened to be judging a flyball game.
"The game is boring me to tears," he flew down to where Daniel stood. "I don't know how they can make so many mistakes. I'm starving. Let's go get something to eat."
Someone was shouting at Owen: "What the hell do you think you are you doing? Leaving in the middle of the game?"
"I thought you could manage yourselves," Owen shouted back, but he flew back into the game any way.
Jared was judging another game. Their game was going much better than the one played by the first years. They flew much faster and the flyball was passed from one team member to another at a surprising speed. Daniel knew that like Owen, the only role Jared could play in the game was a referee. With the power he had, he could easily knock someone off the sword.
Owen refused to judge another game when the game they had been playing was over.
"Let's get something to eat," he said.
"You go ahead," said Daniel. "I'll catch up. I've got to talk to Jared." When he saw the look on Owen's face, he added quickly: "I'm going to help him find the Golden Club."
"Thought you couldn't stand him," said Owen.
"It got nothing to do with liking him or not," said Daniel.
"Are you talking about me?" Jared walked to them, arrogant as usual. "Did you change your mind?"
"I have decided to help you," said Daniel, "not for your reasons but for my own. First, there is something I want to show you." Then he turned to Owen: "Go on, I'll catch you later."
Owen walked away reluctantly.
"What's it?" asked Jared.
"Follow me," Daniel said, walking to the history classroom without looking back at Jared.
"Make it quick, I'm hungry," said Jared when they reached the classroom.
In the classroom was the reflector that Daniel had borrowed from Professor Haldan. He adjusted the reflector so one end was pointing at his head and the other at the screen. Jared stood by the door with his arms folded.
At first, there were random images on the screen like the waterfall, the ocean, the dolphins and the merkid.
"So those are what you have in your mind," said Jared with a sneer.
Then slowly the images became stable and organized.
"This is what I saw under the ocean after you stirred up the sea," said Daniel.
Appearing on the screen was the uprooted seaweeds, the broken coral. At first, the sneer was still on Jared's face; but as the images moved to the broken houses, the sneer disappeared. When the image of the merpeople shouting at Daniel and Owen appeared on screen, he looked genuinely ashamed.
Finally appearing on the screen was professor Alverdine in his office on Daniel's first day on the island. He sat behind the table with the moonlight on his head and shoulders.
He said, "With great power comes great responsibility. It applies to everyone under all situations. You can be mortal or immortal, and the power you have can be magical or political. You may not fully understand it now, but just keep it in mind and think it over before you make any decision or take any action."
"I'm sorry," said Jared.
All his arrogance had gone. His face was red, and he looked like he wanted to disappear from the surface of the earth.
"Say it to the merpeople, not to me," Daniel said, picking up the reflector and without a look at Jared, walked out of the classroom.
When Daniel got to the dinning hall, Owen had almost finished the dinner. He was waiting for Daniel.
"You aren't mad that I didn't ask you to join us, are you?" asked Daniel.
"No," Owen said. "It's because of professor Alverdine, isn't it?"
"Yeah, I just showed Jared what he did to the merpeople," said Daniel. "It might have been awkward for him if there had been other people around.
The book is available at www.bn.com and www.amazon.com Search by the title. Author's blog: 360.yahoo.com/gcgustopher