The Hidden Truth

When I think of the difficulty in the classes, I am reminded of the college numbering system. The first classes I had been placed in before I was apprenticed were the 100s. They were meant to be easy and an introduction into the subject. The classes were designed not to cause stress, letting the students grow use to the way of life at the Jedi temple. Once the students were placed or worked up to the 101 and 102 classes, they were thought to be use to our surroundings enough to be useful and help with the house chores. There were plenty of chores like cooking, dusting, sweeping, washing the floors, doing laundry, cleaning plates, and tending the small garden. While no one loved doing any of the chores, there were certain chores someone loathed. Masters and the head house keeper noted these dislikes and used them as punishments for misbehaving apprentices and students. I personally hated washing the floor. It was strange because I didn’t mind sweeping, but scrubbing the floor with this mop like thing on a stick, having to dip into this stinky solution, was far from fun. It involved a lot of cursing from me, but I was careful to keep it very much under my breath.

While my master allowed cursing, he said once that he was guilty of it; he was strict about me keeping it to him or myself behind closed doors. About a week after the angry talk, I was trying to get past a droid, one of the very few here at the temple. I was late to a class, a very important lightsaber class, when a droid was blocking the hallway. The droid said something about an accident and for my own safty it would not let me through. I tried to be polite, that didn’t work. I tried to threaten the droid. That didn’t work. I refused to let a droid order me around. My temper fired up so much that I started cursing, demanding the droid let me through that instant.

“Apprentice Karen Nightingstar!”

Uh oh. That was the voice of my master. That voice questioned me, lectured me, and punished me. That is how I ended up washing the floor with the horrible smell of some time of chemical I didn’t want to know the name of. To make it worse, my master walked around the already scrubbed area with his muddy boots, checking on my progress. It took all self control and strong will power to over come my enraging temptation to attack my master with the sponge on a stick. I forced a polite smile when my master noticed his boots had made a mess. I was tired, hot, for it was humid day, and had been doing this for two hours.

“Watch your thoughts or you’ll be doing this again”, my master said with a bit of a twinkle in his eyes.

Another two hours went by before the Master house keeper decided there was no dirt specks left on the floor. I was too tired to be anger or annoyed. I dragged myself to my room, went over to the computer, glazed at the screen, not really seeing anything at all. Time went by and I had no idea how much. I went into a mindless, thoughtless state, feeling the lack of energy in my bones, wishing I had the energy to get up and revive under the steady stream of hot water on my back, in the stall of my shower. The distance between me and the shower was too long in my mind and I decided to continue my lazy sitting. The door chimed. I quietly, unable to find energy in my voice, told the door to open. No one came in. I called out, telling whoever to come into the room. Still, no one would enter. I groaned as I got up and walked to the door. There was no one standing there. Strange. I stuck my head on and looked to my right and then my left, not given time to see the stream of water coming rapidly at my face. I kept my eyes closed as I wiped the water off my face. I blinked and saw my master holding a squirt gun in his hands. I blinked again, wondering if I was imaging this. No, this was not a dream and yes my master was holding a water gun, now aimed at my chest. I stuttered for words, asking what was going on.

“Getting you wet if you don’t wake up and dodge me”

Another blast of water came at me, soaking my shirt. I stared down in shock, unable to fully comprehend what was going on. I didn’t think water guns existed in this region of the galaxy and I certainly didn’t think Jedi would have them or use them. My master squeezed the trigger, but I moved to my left, into my room, to avoid the rest of my shirt getting drenched. I asked where my gun was and was handed an exact copy of what he was holding. I checked to see if there was water and found it fully fueled. I looked up to find my master, but heard his soft footsteps as he ran down the hall. I grinned to myself and followed. My competitive sense kicked in full time and I was not going to let my master win this game.

I was almost in shooting range if Mirmo’s back, when he turned around, still running backwards, and shot at me. I moved out of the way and tried to hit him. I was no luckier than him. He turned around and took the right hand cross hall. I forced myself to slow down in order to not hit the corner as I ran after him. We traded shots, few hitting each other and only tying when we entered the main chamber where most Jedi hung out. We traded another round of water discharges before looking at the other Jedi. I went deep red when I saw the confused, some amused looks of the Jedi. Master Mirmo, seemed to be having too much fun to much care what the other Jedi thought of this game.

“Karen, it is a rather hot day, don’t you think?”

I nodded, wondering where he was going to take this.

“And don’t you think everyone looks a bit hot?”

Oh! I got it. Oh this was going to be great. I nodded, looking as serious as I could while holding off a fit of laughter.

“As Jedi, we try to set the example and give a helping hand to those of the needy. So let us do our job and help these poor miserable souls out by--”

We went back to back and squirted everyone with our squirt guns until our guns were out of water. We then turned hind and ran out of there, smiling at each other. I could feel our link grow and knew the ice had finally been broken. I was feeling very relaxed around him, ready to tease the daylight out of him, or show him my hyper, silly side. He put a hand on my shoulder, enforcing the feeling, and lead my back to my room to change out of my dripping clothing.