A Last Good Bye

Ch 5
Karen

Mirmo has always tried to push me to take on an apprentice and I have always refused to. My excuses were that I had a son who was like three students in one. I had a class to teach and I was always being bothered by my students and others for help. My last and weakest argument was I didn’t think I was ready to take on an apprentice.

Mirmo had counter arguments to all the excuses I gave. He said that he wouldn’t mind watching Tem if I was worried about time. Mirmo had plenty of time on his hands for he didn’t take an apprentice after me. Mirmo said I didn’t have to teach my classes and I would still have time to help students with their problems. Mirmo would help me all the way, giving me his tips that he learned worked on me. He said that Tem would love who ever I picked and the apprentice could become like an older sibling for Tem to look up and play with. Mirmo also pointed out that if I could handle a six year old son and two classes a day, I could easily handle just one student all day long.

Perhaps it was the fear of my past with students. Before I came to the temple I taught plenty, but I rarely took on private students for a reason. I had taken on a couple, mostly in the earliest of my teaching days. None of them got anywhere and one turned on me. I found myself unable to commit to a student. I couldn’t be bothered to plan out what they were going to practice next. I couldn’t get them to practice or to turn in things to me. Maybe it was my pick of the students or maybe it was the student. I don’t know and still don’t know what went wrong all those years ago. The pain and the feeling of failure still exists in my heart and keeps me away from taking a student.

Mirmo nagged me so much to take on a student, relentlessly coming up with new reasons and new angles as to why I should take on an apprentice. I eventually gave in half way. I only gave in because of a new program we were starting.

With the rise of a new Jedi Order, it seemed that there was a rise in Force-sensitive people. Perhaps it was because people felt safe to let others know they were Force-sensitive. Or it could have been a galactic awareness of the Force and people were looking for it’s activities. Whatever it was, more people were using the Force in untrained ways. The most noticeable and most problematic was Force-sensitive criminals.

The Force, even if one does know how to use the energy, makes slipping in and out of stores easier. It is easy to sense the people around you, sense the fear in a mother’s eye, or the weakness of an old man and his daughter. It is easy to pick up on precognitive hints and fool the local police into looking the other way. The Force was the perfect tool for criminals and they knew it.

Criminals are bad, but they are also stupid and they end up in courts. Because there was a rise in Force activity in the caught criminals, the new and small Jedi Temple was contacted about the problem. There was a lot of talking and debating about what to do and why, but in the end, Master Skywalker decided to take a few of the criminals, under some conditions.

His conditions were very fair in my opinion. He would only take teenagers or younger. The teens had to be Force-sensitive. The teenagers had to be willing to come here. Usually the deal meant the teens were sent here for a three month trial. At the end of the three months they were evaluated for improvement in behavior and moral codes. If the teen showed improvement, they were released from the courts and given two options. They could continue to train at the Temple or they could go to any school that we approved. Most teens who made it through the trial time, chose to stay and train. They became some of the best Jedi we had, due to the fact that they understood right and wrong the best. For those who chose to go to a school, few went back to their old, bad ways.

Another condition was each criminal teen that was presented to us had to go through a long interview with Master Skywalker to see if their case was worth it. If they passed that step, they were sent to me. I was their main teacher and guide. I gave them private lessons, and made sure they were fitting in with the rest of the Temple. Their identity was kept a secret so the other students and teachers would not pick on them.

Today I was meeting a new student. The student was a fourteen old girl who was skinny, small, and tough. At least, she would have liked to convince me she was tough. What she didn’t know was I had just gotten another, far tougher looking student through the program and I wasn’t going to take anything from her.

Her name was Dilela Rinn. She was dressed in all black with her dyed black hair hanging long and looking dirty. She had been caught stealing a rather expensive music player and her blood sample showed her strength in the Force, as well as a history of drug use. This was her first time being caught by the police, but from the talk on her outer rim planet home, she had been doing this for years. Her police report said she had Force-pushed people out of her way as she ran through the streets and caused quite a mess as the police chased her down. It was obvious she knew of her Force-sensitivity and how to use it to a degree. Her parents were divorced legally, but somehow they were living together in a sad state of existence. The family was poor as dirt, leaving the daughter to find a way to live on her own. I could only hope she only stuck to drugs and stealing to make ends meet.

She was sitting in a chair in an empty classroom. It was early evening, just before dinner. She had just arrived a few hours ago and had finished her talk with Master Skywalker as to what was expected of her. Next to her chair were two bags, packed to the breaking point. I wondered how much of what she brought with her was hers.

She sat there, staring at me with this slight glare on her face. It was obvious she didn’t want to be here, but Master Skywalker said that he sensed hope with her. I had a few doubts myself. She was pitifully skinny and looked underfed. There was a desperate hunger in her eyes. She sat in a defensive position as if she expected me to attack her. She probably had learned to defend everything she had and to always look out for other thieves like her.

I came into the room with nothing in my hands. I had no papers, bags, or books with me. I even left my lightsaber in the apartment. I wanted to show she had nothing to suspect from me and that I was no threat to her. I had to earn her trust, something I was sure was going to be hard to accomplish. Her eyes searched me from head to toe and then looked away at the adjacent wall. That was a good sign in my experience. If the student gave you any more of a look, it meant that there was something that made them feel uncomfortable and it would be impossible to deal with them.

A tactic I came on with cases like her was to stare directly at her and say nothing. That would drive teens crazy. No one can stand silence or being stared at for no reason. Combine the two, and most teens cracked within minutes. She lasted five.

“What do you want?”

I made no move to show that I disproved of her rudeness. She would expect that and sign me off as another annoying adult. To reach her, I knew I would have to show I was someone different, someone worth her time and attention. I asked her something I knew she wouldn’t expect. I asked her what she wanted to do.

“I- what does it matter to you?”

I smiled on purpose. I had her off guard and she knew it. I could see the annoyance in her eyes. I told her I had nothing else to do, so why not do what she wanted to do.

“Aren’t you going to ask me my name or why I’m here or tell me what I’m gonna do?”

I shook my head and stretched out in the chair. I made a face and commented the chair wasn’t very comfortable. She didn’t comment. I waited another stretch of silence, giving her time to wonder. When I sensed her wonder grow to the breaking point, I told her that we could go get something to eat if she wanted.

“Fine, whatever.”

It was the typical response that I got from teens like her. It did not bother me, but reminded me of my own mindset at that age. I was a cocky, angry, miss-know-it-all young thing, too young for what I tried to portray.

She got up and grabbed her bags. I told her she could leave them here. She stared at me with a cold look, like I had insulted her. She would learn to trust us. I didn’t push the point and led her to the meal room, feeling that maybe Master Skywalker was right.
The last student had been far harder than her.