Page 41 of The Mentor
“Hey, I have a suggestion,” Raven said, placing her hands on her hips. “Why don't we play horse – I'll be the front end and you'll be yourself.”
“Raven!” Kya shook her head with disapproval while Nero scowled at her.
“I don't want to play with you and I don't want to be your partner.”
“You don't have a choice,” I told him. “If you and Raven don't find ten leaves in less than ten minutes you'll be doing the dishes tonight.”
“That's not fair, Mr. Archer,” he protested but was smart enough to trot off with Raven before I punished him for talking back to me.
Kya was just about to leave too when my question made her stop: “Can we talk for a second?”
From the way she sucked in a breath, I could tell she didn’t want to talk to me yet, but I’d never shied away from a confrontation and I wasn’t about to start now.
“What do you want to talk about?” she asked.
What I really wanted to talk about was her sore ass and what had happened between us in the office half an hour ago, but I chose a softer approach. “What did you tell Nieall?”
A small triangle formed between her eyebrows and she was looking at my elbow when she answered: “He didn’t need me to tell him anything – he needed me to listen.”
“Okay, and what did he have to say for himself? Or is threatening others with a stick considered normal behavior in the Motherlands?” My question was designed to provoke her into looking into my eyes and it worked.
“If you must know, Nieall is having a hard time with your boys. I think that stick was his desperate attempt to show them that he’s not as weak and powerless as they seem to think,” she said and lifted her chin in defiance.
“Do you want me to talk to them about it?” I asked.
Indecisiveness shone from her eyes as she looked from me to Marco and back again. “That depends. What do you mean by talking? I don’t want you to punish them if that’s what you mean.”
“Why not?” I asked. “I don’t tolerate bullies, do you?”
“No, I don’t.” She brushed her hair back and I sensed a weariness in her. Kya was tired of arguing with me and that spanking had drained her, but she wasn’t prepared to roll over anytime soon. “But I don’t believe that Nieall will learn anything from bringing in a bigger bully to beat the other bullies. I believe that our job is to empower him with guidance so that he can solve his problems himself.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Are you suggesting that I’m a bully too?”
Her eyebrow rose in a perfect arch but she didn’t speak.
“No, seriously,” I said. “When you mentioned a bigger bully, were you referring to me?”
The little woman had the guts to look me straight into my eyes and say: “Of course, who else would I be talking about?”
“Lady, you have some nerve.” My tone of voice was low and impatient but Kya didn’t seem affected.
“I believe in the power of role modeling and since I don’t want my students to hit other students, I would never hit them myself,” she said calmly.
“That’s right, you would rather talk them to death than do what has to be done.” I pointed to the children spread all around the meadow and around the line of trees. “Every one of these Nboys has been punished at some point in his life, and they haven’t been harmed by it.” I scoffed, hating that she so clearly felt superior to us. “And before you say that I don’t know what I’m talking about, let me remind you that I grew up in this country too. I’ve taken my share of punishments.”
“Yeah, me too,” Marco chimed in to support me.
Kya looked us over for a second before she made her voice velvet-soft and spoke: “I’m sympathetic to your suffering as children, but you are grown men now and while the men who raised you didn’t know any better, I’m here to offer you guidance on how to raise children in a more modern and effective way.”
My nostrils flared and I lowered my brows. “Now you’re just trying to pick a fight again,” I accused her.
“I’m not trying to pick a fight with you, Archer, but I will challenge your antique views of the world any day of the week if I feel they are harmful to the children.”
I took a step closer, puffing my chest out in sheer dominance. From the way her eyes grew bigger and she held her breath, I could tell Kya was intimidated but she stood her ground. “So what are you going to do?” I muttered low. “Are you going to pull up your dress and bend over for me every time a kid has a spanking coming?”
The kick to my shin hurt like a bitch and made me jump on one foot while cursing at her.
“What? You didn’t like it?” She tilted her head and blinked her eyes at me. “I’m so sorry, I thought that was the way you express ‘go to hell’ in your native language.
