Yuri couldn’t help but look down at himself. He had felt the wetness but only now did he realise it was his own. He had wet himself after Lela bumped into him. He hadn’t even felt it. He just stood in the middle of the restaurant looking at his own mess while everybody watched him. A laugh started at the back of the restaurant and soon the place was filled with it. Yuri did not even look up, he just ran out of the restaurant with his head down, his face bright red. His gang following closely behind but were careful not to get too close.
“You’re nasty,” said Tom to Lela.
“He deserved it, the big bully,” replied Lela although she did feel a little guilty. Her behaviour was no better than Yuri’s really. However, the rest of the students didn’t feel that way and gave her a round of applause.
“How did you do that?” asked Tom, who was always fascinated to know more about Lela’s special skills.
“It’s quite simple actually, if you hit the lower back in just the right place, it relaxes the bladder and whoosh,” she replied nonchalantly. She underplayed her scientific knowledge of the body, even the best trained doctors could not have done what she did. The only other people who could do these ‘simple things’ were the islanders.
“I was surprised you were so public back there, you don’t normally let people see your moves,” said Tom as he realised the implications of what had just happened.
“What are you talking about? I just bumped into him. That’s all anybody would have seen,” replied a smug Lela.
“Hmmm, anyway, come on, we need to speak to Oleg. He never mentioned anything about Yuri coming back,” said Tom, leading the way back to their block.
It took them two minutes of hard knocking to wake up Oleg despite the complaints from his neighbours.
The door opened and a very drowsy Oleg stood in front of them.
“What’s wrong?” he asked rubbing his eyes and yawning.
“We want to know what the hell Yuri is doing back here?” responded Tom.
Oleg woke up immediately and looked behind them. “Where?” he said panicking.
“Well, that clears up that point,” said Tom to Lela. “He obviously doesn’t know, that’s why he didn’t tell us.”
Oleg became very agitated at the mention of his step-brother’s name. Lela took him over to the bed and sat him down.
“He’s here, back at The Academy?” he asked, incredulous.
“’Fraid so,” replied Tom. “But there’s no need to worry, Lela’s already declared war on him and his gang, so we’ve got that out of the way nice and early.”
Oleg looked at Lela as if she were crazy.
“You’ve what?”
“He’s just being over dramatic, don’t worry about it,” comforted Lela.
Tom proceeded to describe every gory detail of what had occurred in the restaurant.
A smile crept across Oleg’s face.
“Really?” he asked.
Lela nodded while Tom pulled out his mobile phone and showed Oleg the pictures he had taken of Yuri’s most embarrassing moment.
“Let me call my dad and see if he knows why he’s here,” said Oleg picking up his phone.
Tom and Lela listened as Oleg talked to his dad, waiting for him to finish and translate. The call ended and Oleg filled them in.
“It appears that after my dad threw Yuri’s mother out of the house, she became friendly with a fairly low level Minister in my country’s government. Unfortunately, it’s the same one who very surprisingly and recently became the new Russian President. They were married during the summer. It appears Yuri has a very powerful new step-father. My father is calling Mr Sakamoto now, he’ll call me back soon.”
All three sat in silence as they waited for the call from Oleg’s father. They all privately hoped that some clerical mistake had been made. Yuri had been expelled under a different name, perhaps the school had failed to make the connection. The phone rang and despite the language barrier, Lela and Tom knew it was not good news. Oleg ended the call and translated.
“It’s no mistake, they know exactly who he is. The pressure placed on Mr Sakamoto to accept him back was overwhelming. In fact, he offered to resign over it and they would have accepted it. He only stayed because he had a duty to the rest of the students. He told my dad that things are very strange just now with all the assassinations and God knows who would have replaced him. The new Chairman of School Governors is apparently very friendly with a lot of the new leaders. My dad thinks he was insinuating something but he doesn’t know what.”
“So we’re stuck with Yuri?” asked Tom.
“It seems so and he could well be untouchable.”
“It was so good of you to go out of your way to say hi to Yuri today,” said Tom sarcastically to Lela.
Lela smiled back weakly. She was going to have to be careful. She could handle Yuri and his gang but her friends couldn’t.
Chapter 19
It had been a hectic and depressing day. Donald had spent the day visiting villages and aid centres with Rachel and Saki. Child mortality was high and education pretty non-existent. Donald, a well grounded man, was deeply humbled and thanked God for what they had. He was moved by the degree of poverty and suffering he had seen and promised Rachel to do all in his power to help.
“Donald, this is nothing. This is as good as it gets. These people receive funding.”
“What? These people don’t need help?” he asked, bewildered.
“Yes but they’re way down on the list. What you’re going to see this week will make this look like a first world country.”
Donald was speechless. From what he had already seen, he did not know whether he was up to seeing anything worse. In the meantime, they made their way back to the capital, Libreville.
The evening was to be spent as guests of the Gabonese President and no doubt a number of high powered local businessmen keen to meet him. He would have more than happily headed straight back to Alba One and gone home. Instead, they got in to the army car sent by the Gabonese President and began their short journey to the palace.
As they neared the extravagant presidential residence, Donald noticed satellite dishes and bright lights which signified the media were in attendance. He began to think something was amiss as they drew closer, he expected perhaps two or three of the local media to attend but not the world’s press. Media trucks from every major news broadcaster were lined up outside the gates to the palace.
Chapter 20
The rest of the day had passed uneventfully. Tom, Lela and their friends had kept a relatively low profile. Most of the day was spent showing their friends around Tom One. They had all decided against going to the restaurant for dinner and had instead decided to order in some pizzas. Before they knew what was happening, an impromptu party had broken out and all twenty four students in their block had piled into Lela’s room.
Zach, having been quiet all day, seemed to have perked up.
“Hey Zach, you’re looking a bit happier?” asked Tom trying to find out what had been wrong with him.
“Yeah sorry about earlier. I’ve hardly seen my dad all summer but he just called. His conference finished early and he’s going to pay me a visit tomorrow,” he replied smiling.
“Cool, a visit from the big boss General Powers himself. I’m sure the Special Forces base will be manically preparing for his arrival,” suggested Tom laughing.
“Doubt it, they don’t know he’s coming, nobody does apart from me and you, now.”
“Tom?” interrupted Lela.
