Chapter 5: Settling in New Orleans

“So… Let me get this straight. It’s my house?” asked Alejandro, with more than a little astonishment in his voice as he watched the massive construction. He also felt quite a lot of trepidation at this news. Everything was changing too fast for him to cope easily, but he did his best to hide his unease.

“Yup” replied Jimmy with a smile. “Impressive isn’t it?”

“That’s one word for it…” mumbled the Minor under his breath.

The young man was at a loss of words here. How in hell had Shannon managed to find such a house in close proximity to the High School was beyond his understanding. It was almost as big as his parent’s in Old Creek, but where their own was an ancient one, adapted to accommodate a Minor over the years, this one was brand new. It couldn’t have had more than three years, since the glasses and metal which were very abundant in the structure, were pristine.

Alejandro suspected that the house was equipped with the latest trend in Minors options, showers, separate room, etc. but he still felt uneasy about the whole deal. Mainly because living here meant that he and Lindsey would be, in effect, living in the palm of Shannon’s hand, even when they wouldn’t be together. But also because he was frightened at the idea to own something so enormous… For a MAJOR, it was probably just a cozy and cool house, but for him, it was freakishly huge, like all buildings really.

“That’s… just crazy!” blurted Lindsey.

“Yeah, Miss. M is prone to that kind of things for peoples she likes or want to help” explained Jim Paolini, smiling at them. “She’s an incredibly kind and generous woman. It’s almost a wonder how she became a billionaire so quickly… or at all, really, considering the money she throws at charities and all.”

“Uhuh…” said Alejandro, not-committing himself here.

He was a little dubitative when it came to Shannon’s kindness. Not that he suspected her of being heartless or whatever, but he was almost certain that it was another way to appease her need for domination. Sure, it was a softer one than when she was breaking bones and all, but it was nonetheless a way to flaunt her power and demonstrate her ability to be above everyone else. In that regard, it probably helped her accumulate wealth.

MAJORS, after all, liked power, and he assumed that the more dominant a company was on the market, the more shareholders would swim to it. In that regard, showing her muscles, figurative and reals, was probably a good things for Shannon’s banking account. But in this instance, he would have liked her to not be such a show off, because it was simply too much. Even if, of course, he couldn’t reject her gift, because he had to admit that it would be great to be so close to the school.

Still, it somehow was the straw that broke the camel’s back. She had offered his sister and him a full scholarship in a private school of renown, a driver, who was also probably a bodyguard of a sort, because he couldn’t ever imagine her not wanting to let him wander anywhere unprotected, a house…it was leaving him quite in her debt, and while he was almost certain that she wouldn’t ever try to cash it, he disliked this idea very much. But he would had to live with it, at least for the time being.

“By the way…” suddenly asked Jim. “May I know why Miss. M is so generous with you guys?”

“Well, hum, it’s a little…” tried to explain Lindsey, clearly at a loss of words, not knowing how to craft a good enough lie on the fly.

“She wants me to marry her” bluntly said Alejandro, a wry smile on his face.

Jim looked at him, stunned for a second, his eyes bulging out of his head and then glanced at Lindsey, who had managed to keep a composed expression, with only a little grin on her face. The Minor had to admit that his little sister, for all her excessive sensitivity, was sometimes quite great when it came to catching up with his ideas. When a lie was too hard to come with, the truth is always the better option, especially when it sounds so ludicrous, thought Alejandro.

“Ha! You’ve almost got me!” laughed Jim, drawing a smile on the diminutive teenager’s face. “Sorry to have intruded on you like that, Mr… herm, Alejandro! It wasn’t my place to ask that. I hope it doesn’t bother you?”

“Not at all!” laughed back the Minor. “It’s just that… well, let’s say it’s a complicated story, better left in the past?”

“Ha! I know that kind of things!” smirked the MAJOR.

“Hey, can’t we go inside, it would like to settle in!” suddenly said Lindsey.

Alejandro looked at his sister’s annoyed expression. Mood swing were the worst part of puberty, for the two kinds of humans, but especially the bigger one. The idea of having to deal not only with Lindsey but probably hundreds of aggressive, horny and unpredictable teenagers for years at school wasn’t really enticing to him. If only Minor’s schools hadn’t been those laughable infantilizing things, mostly used for parents or siblings to drop their inferior kids for a day and proceed to make a bigger one undisturbed, he wouldn’t have had to endure such a nightmare.

“Calm down Little Lind. I’m sure you’re really lacking some fresh exercises to look even bigger than you do, but first we would need keys to enter, you know?” the teenager snarked at his colossal little sister.

“Bah! I’m sure I could enter without key, look at all those glasses!” she spat back, gesturing at the very large windows.

She has a point, had to admit the Minor. I’m not sure I’ll feel very safe in there. Alejandro knew full well how powerful MAJORS could be, and he doubted that those glasses could prevent even an average one from breaking and entering. And once it would be known that a Minor lived here, things could become quite dangerous for him, to say the least. But it had been Shannon who had selected this place, and she couldn’t have overlooked this problem.

“I’m afraid you wouldn’t be able to do that, Miss Ferrand” gently said Jim. “You see, it’s not your average glass. This one is specially designed to keep even the strongest MAJOR outside, and it’s also true for the doors!”

To prove his point, the massive driver walked to one of the windows and punched it hard. The thing barely moved and he hissed in pain. Looking at the glass, Alejandro couldn’t even see a crack in it. He wondered what kind of material had been used, because the thing looked rather thin from where he stood. However, looking at the main door, he realized that something rather important was missing. Something vital for him, even.

“Where is the Minor’s entrance?” he asked Jim, who suddenly looked embarrassed.

“There isn’t” he finally replied.

“WHAT!?” yelled Lindsey, making both men jump in the air. “Why the hell wouldn’t there be one! The flat we had selected with Mama and Papa had one! How come this huge one hasn’t!? Alejandro need to be able to come and go around the house!”

“The inside has passageways for Minors” hastily explained Jim, even as Lindsey walked toward him, teeth gritted and her hands turned into fists. “It’s just that, for the exterior door, it was a structural weakness! The company which produce this never managed to overcome it, a MAJOR could use the joints to break it, get a hold on the whole door and force it open. Plus, it’s for the Minor’s safety.”

“How so?” asked a slightly annoyed Alejandro. The absence of a main door for his kind was just one more item on his list for when he would get to talk to Shannon privately.

“Because of the gators” said Jim as if it explained everything.

“’’Scuse me? The gators?” repeated the confused Minor.

“Yeah. We aren’t that far away from Lake Pontchartrain and the London Avenue Canal, so sometime, those beast come ashore and walk in the neighborhood. For a MAJOR, they aren’t really a danger, if you’re five years old or more, but for a Minor, they can be deadly. That’s why you’ll also have to be extra careful when you want to use your pool sir. Some of them sometimes find their way inside it.”

“A pool? We have a pool!? Awesome!” yelled Lindsey, punching the air and dancing even as Alejandro was still.

“Herm… excuse me Jim… are you trying to tell me that I can get eaten on my way to school or back?” he asked, his voice hollow.

“No!” hastily replied the adult, even as Lindsey stopped her victory dance to cast a horrified look at her brother. “I mean, in the morning you go to school, you’ll have Miss Ferrand with you. And when you’ll come back from school, well… I’ll be there.”

“Wait a minute…” grumbled the Minor. “You said that you’re our drivers, but surely, you have better things to do that to bring me back from a school which is what, one kilometer (0,62 miles) away?”

“Well… not really sir, it is part of my job. When you’re at school or at home and you don’t want to go anywhere, I’ve other duties. But the Monday, Wednesday and Friday, I’ll be here to bring you back. I know it may look… a little bad for you, being a young man and a Minor with an independent streak and all, but believe me, it’s for the best. Alligators sightings are quite common and since Samantha has been attending, BFHS, I’m pretty sure that there has been at least one case of fight between a Gator and a student every month…”

“You mean I’ll get to brawl with Gators?” yelled Lindsey, with far too much enthusiasm for Alejandro’s taste.

“Yeah! Awesome right!” replied Jim, a huge smile on his face.

“You betcha!”

The Minor teenager rolled his eyes. Every once in a while, he happened to forgot that MAJORS were insane, but they always found a way to remind him of it. Who in their right mind would relish the idea to fight off alligators on their way to school or home? MAJORS, apparently, if he judged by their happy faces, and how Lindsey was even jumping up and down with pure bliss at this idea. He hoped that his little sister wouldn’t go out of her way to seek those poor beasts, however. He didn’t want her to get a stupid idea and “adopt” one…

“Shouldn’t the town do something about it? I mean, having those poor animals being harassed by you peoples every time they come ashore… That’s just cruel.”

“Oh, the municipality is doing alright” said the driver with a grin. “They make sure that our gators grow bigger and more numerous every year, to give our youth some challenge! It help with our teenage population.”

“You’re kidding right?” sternly asked Alejandro, to the hilarity of his pre-teen sister.

“Nope!”

“Oh God…” mumbled the Minor under his breath.

“Well, anyway, I should get going. I’ll help you with the luggage but then I must be on my way, I’ve got some other work to do for Miss M. So, I’ll give you the keys of your house. There is two sets, one for you Miss Ferrand” he explained, while handing out the shining pieces of metal to Lindsey, “and another for you, Alejandro.”

“Why give him a set if he can’t open the door?” bluntly asked the young MAJOR, to the young man’s irritation.

“Well, it’s in the case he found someone at school!” beamed Jim Paolini. “That way, you’ll be able to bring back the lucky bastard here!”

Alejandro simply nodded, a smile on his face. He was pretty sure that he wouldn’t bring anyone home who could open that door. Shannon would lose it if he went behind her back with another MAJOR, and while Jim seemed quite sympathetic, the teenager was willing to bet that his daughter had also been tasked with watching over him. There is no way in hell that Shannon would let me unwatched at school.

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Alejandro sighed with relief. He had finally managed to put his room in order. It had taken the most part of the evening, because he hadn’t wanted Lindsey’s help. After all, his bedroom would be his place, his sanctuary, just like at home, back in Old Creek, and he wanted to make it his own as soon as possible. Especially considering that the place was somewhat different from where he spent most of his days in Old Creek.

It was slightly bigger, for starter. The bed here was more massive, or perhaps bulky, clearly a piece of furniture made by MAJORS for a kid instead of a specially crafted bedframe for Minors. It wasn’t uncommon, but it meant that the proportions where somewhat off, the bed being a little too high above the ground to hop on easily, for instance, even if it wasn’t utterly terrible. Overall, when he had sat on it, it had felt both firm and comfortable, what he expected out of it, so he was okay with it for the time being. If he truly wanted to trim it down, he had all the time in the world to buy the tools needed.

The bookshelves, however, where more problematic. He had three of them, and he couldn’t reach their upper level without a stool. Sure, one was provided, but it was something he really disliked since it made a normal activity he enjoyed, picking a book, a chore and slightly humiliating. Being reminded of his size even in his room wasn’t to his liking. He suspected that Shannon had bought those in a specialized shop for Minors, because he had read that most of their furniture had that kind of problem.

Since the demand was quite low for this kind of furniture, even a year into the “Equal rights for Minors” frenzy, it wasn’t really a surprise. In Old Creek, his parents had crafted the bookshelves themselves, to fit his needs. It hadn’t taken that much trials and errors, which had surprised him, considering that neither Jules nor Ofelia were really that gifted with their hands. Hopefully, once he would get in touch with Shannon, the young man would be able to relay his considerations. He wasn’t sure she would truly grasp the problem, but he could always try.

“And now, the computer!” he joyfully said to himself.

He jumped into the one piece of furniture which was perfectly sized, his chair, and rolled it toward the desk. That one was slightly too tall and wide, as everything else, but not so much that it was problematic. At worst, it was a slight inconvenience that he would quickly learn to live with. If need be, he would put a pillow under his ass to be at the right height. The young man waited impatiently as his computer roared to life.

He quickly opened his mail, deleting the trash, before setting in and looking at the important messages he could have received. He immediately noticed two which were really a must read. One was from Shannon, apparently sent while they were stuck in traffic. The other one was from Izzellah, barely ten minutes ago. After a short hesitation, he went for the other Minor’s message first. Shannon could endure some more waiting to get his answer, after all. Opening Izzy’s mail, he was greeted by a rather massive amount of text.

“Hello Alejandro! I’m trying to write it without Sabrina noticing. God, she has become such a tease… I don’t know how you managed to endure it with your brother… Well, if he perved on you, of course. But I’m sure he did, all MAJORS are creeps, right!? Anyway…I wanted to confirm to you that we’ll come in to New Orleans in two weeks, but there has been a small change of plan. We will come in during Friday’s afternoon, I hope it won’t bother you? Please let me know if that’s too much of a problem so we could loan a car. I mean, I can drive after all.

PS: You’re with your sister now, right? Please, tell me she has calmed down… when I told Sabrina that you two would be there, she lost it! I think she wants to punch Lindsey’s teeth out! Plus, she has become really violent, you’ve no idea! I wouldn’t want her to send your sister to the hospital. And I’m afraid she hate you because she thinks that I’ve a crush on you. Not that I have, of course! I mean, you’re beautiful but… urgh, I’m digging myself… See ya!”

Alejandro couldn’t help but chuckle reading it, even as he blushed. Izzellah had been (and still was) the only other Minor he had ever met in real life, and he had to admit that she was cute… He liked her personality and, well, her looks. If he hadn’t met Shannon, he would have probably ended with her, or at least tried to woo her. But without Shannon, he wouldn’t have a breakthrough in his trauma and he wouldn’t have met her anyway… and he was deeply attracted to Shannon. He was even in love with the young giantess, he had to admit it. Life was sometimes cruel. A cool and strong-willed Minor and he was in the clutches of the most massive woman on Earth when he met her. Still, she deserved a quick answer.

“Hey Izzy. I hope you managed to avoid your daily’s temptress attempts to see you send this email. I wouldn’t want to be the cause for some temper tantrum from Sabrina.  I know firsthand how MAJORS her age can be hard to deal with. They rob you of your teenage angst, I can tell you! Impossible to be all moody and all with a living wrecking ball on drugs all the time, right? Well, it felt like it for me, and for you too I suspect, haha! Even if Alaric didn’t perv on me, he instead spent his time crying about nobody but me understanding him!

Don’t worry about you coming in a Friday. If you want to save some money, we can send the driver that Shannon so kindly, and obviously without any ulterior motive (as if!), charged with getting Lind’s and my ass everywhere around New Orleans. And since BFHS will release me around 2pm, I’ll be able to be there, if you want to! Let me know if it’s needed or not, and who’s coming. If Obnoxious Redhead is with your MAJOR pet, I may still come, but if it’s Honey-trap Redhead, I’ll bail! Anyway, keep me in touch and see you soon!

PS: Lindsey hasn’t calmed down, quite the contrary. She’s putting out muscles to K-O Saby and get you under her arm and go all King Kong. And you can tell your pet that she has nothing to fear about me. I mean, you’re kind of cute and awesome and… well, I’ll stop here, I’m sure Shannon is spying on me and my mails. And I’ll stop digging too, am I right?”

Alejandro didn’t take the time to read his work again and sent it immediately, otherwise he would probably agonize about it for hours on end… With a sigh, he hoped that he hadn’t made a mistake here, but now he would have to live with it. He then opened Shannon’s message and was again greeted by quite a lot of text. He blinked, not quite sure about reading it right now. He was kind of angry about how the young titan had hijacked his family’s plans for their life in New Orleans, but he decided that she at least deserved a chance to explain herself.

“Hello Alejandro. I hope I’m not bothering you. I’m sure you’re quite tired after your flight from San Francisco to the Big Easy and I’m sorry to add to it you like that, I would have liked to be there to greet you in person in your new home. I know you must be quite lost right now, it must be so hard to move away from everything you’ve ever known and discovering that I’ve changed it on the fly… For that, I’m really sorry, I just wanted to make your life here as the best that it could be.

I also want to tell you that I’m incredibly proud to know that such a beautiful, brave and willful Minor like you have expressed his interest in me as a girlfriend. Of all the things in my life, you’re the most important, I really wanted you to know it. It’s probably sound like some kind of excuse to make the anger you probably feel about all of this abate until I come back to N.O., but I assure you it isn’t my intention.

While I’m thinking about it, please, tell me what you think about Jim Paolini, your driver. I selected him because he is an excellent employee, someone I can trust, or at least he gave me this impression, and I’ll hope that you’ll pardon me to say it, but I’m a really good judge of peoples. However, if I happened to be wrong or that you simply feel a little unnerved about something in his behavior, please, let me know, and I’ll change all of it. Auntie Ofelia told me that Lindsey has managed to get her driver license, at worst I’ll help her to get a car.

Also, if you ever feel the need to talk to me, albeit by mail, I reiterate my prior affirmation. You can do it at any time you wish, no matter what I may be doing or where I could be around the world. You are the most important thing in the world for me, and you take precedence over everything, I’ll always find the time to write back and, if need be, sustain a long conversation. I am always waiting for news from you.

Yours truly, Shannon Matthewson, C.E.O. of Fire-Brand, Instaton, Matthewson’s Labs, etc.

PS: I love you. Not being with you is an atrocious pain that I have to endure. Only the knowledge of our upcoming meeting make it sufferable.”

As always when reading her messages, he felt himself blushing like a young girl getting to read a love letter from her crush… It was probably the mixture of strict wording, which was expected from someone like her and the sudden burst of familiarity in it which did that. Even if the very fact that she was writing to a simple Minor like him also played a part in his embarrassment, alongside the deeper love she always managed to express. It was almost infuriating, really, he couldn’t remain angry at her when she did that. Still, he had to try to hold is ground.

“Hey Shannon. I hope you’re doing great in South Korea. Nothing too smutty I expect? Anyway, I can tell you that Jimmy felt quite right. I still have no idea what your secret question referred to, but it worked. And please, don’t help Lindsey getting a car, it’ll already be hard to reign her in, you know? I’ll never manage it if she can hop in a car and drive away at the first tantrum. I’m sure you will disagree with me, but you MAJORS are truly far too emotive, and entering your teenager years is the worst phase of it.

I admit that I feel… uneasy here in New Orleans, I hope it’ll calm down. Adjusting my room helped, I’m sure I’ll manage in the coming days and weeks… at worst, I’ll just shut in for a time before returning back to Old Creek to get some peace of mind. Talking with you may also help… but let us be clear, an email won’t be enough to weasel your way out of some serious discussion about you buying a home with my name of it and all that shit.

Anyway… I still find it kind of crazy that someone as tall, beautiful and powerful, in all the ways that last word can be used, may be in love with me… but the feeling is mutual. I love you, and I can’t wait to be with you again.”

He sent this mail and pushed his chair away from his desk, enjoying how well the wheel were greased and how far he was able to propel himself because of it. Back at home, his old chair was on its last leg, despite his best effort to maintain it. Almost ten years of constant use put a strain on it that no amount of hard work and careful cleaning could outweigh. He looked around and smiled. He was nervous. He had managed to hide it as best he could during the whole day, doing an admirable work, except when his sister had been a passenger in his mind, of course.

Now, he felt his guts forming knots and his lost left arm was itching a little, but he willed all of it away.  Perhaps he wasn’t a billionaire, a soon-to-be scientific genius or even an average MAJOR able to punch giant alligators for fun, but he was himself, and it would have to suffice for the whole fucking world. After all, that’s how he got the attention of Shannon in the first place. If he could manage that, he surely could endure all those new places and peoples.

Still, talking with his family would be a great thing, right about now. Lindsey was on the phone with them since at least an hour, from what he had heard setting up his room, and he wondered when his Dad and Mom would want to get to know his version of their trip.  As if on cue, his Little Lind suddenly yelled from the living room.

“’Rando, come down! Mama and Papa and Al’ want to talk with you!”