Running to the Enemy's Arms

My Very Own "Mini-Me"

Daniel stopped and sighed, shuffling a couple of papers around. He seemed slightly annoyed with my suggestion, though it wasn’t as if I could blame him. I had made it several times before only to have received the same response. I just didn’t like to see my little badger causing himself unnecessary stress, especially when I could relieve it with the click of a mouse.

“I’ve been over this with you, Vlad,” Daniel sighed out irritably, “I need to remember this stuff. If I want to remember it, then I have a better chance of it sticking when I write it down. Okay, now next thing, what do all of your companies do, and how did you get them?”

I sighed indignantly at the boy as I opened another document. “Here is a short summary of the functions of all of my companies and how I acquired them. Would you like me to send this one to your email as well while you write this down?”

Daniel slowly nodded as he stared wide eyed at the screen. I only smirked in triumph at seeing his expression. He may be stubborn, but he was not his sister when it came to taking notes. The report I had pulled up was in a size ten font, and it went on for more than twenty pages.

“...I won’t make you sit here while I take notes out of all of this. It’ll probably take me a while. Could you print that one out, so I can use a highlighter and stuff?” He told me, sheepishly avoiding my gaze. I grinned and went to print everything out for him. While I waited for it to finish printing I watched as Daniel occupied himself by looking over the list of stocks he had copied down earlier. There was something very off about the way the teen was attending to his work. A small frown made its way to my face as I pondered on the subject.

Oh, have no doubt that I was ecstatic when I found Daniel waiting for me when I came home. Nonetheless he wanted help on his homework of all things. I was on cloud nine before the teen threatened to withdraw his request, forcing me to calm myself. I was very happy that the teen was comfortable asking me for help with these things, especially when I was the best person for the job. If there was anyone who could help him with his Business homework, it was me.

No, the problem was that the teen’s amount of diligence was extremely out of character, and his homework excuse was barely believable. There was clearly something else fueling him in his studies. I was certain it was revenge. I had seen that glimmer in his eye and that was all the proof I needed. I had seen it too many times in my own reflection to take it for anything else. It didn’t take a psychic to figure that the boy’s day had been a hectic one after that phone call this morning.

He must have found that blasted student networking site. I discovered it on one of my trips to the school. I had gone to make sure the school would be adequate for Daniel’s needs. The students there were very careless about their privacy in my opinion, and it had only taken a look over a few shoulders to discover the site. Before I left I had hacked into the program and investigated further.

It was nothing but a pool of rumors and gossip. I thought about blocking the site when I built Daniel’s laptop, but decided against it. It was better that the boy learned about these types of things himself. Though I was still worried about him; I had kept my phone lines to the office open all day for that reason. Otherwise, William would have found it quite impossible to have accessed my office number so easily.

Daniel was resilient though, and I had no doubt that those who had done him wrong were going to get what was coming to them, if he decided to take his revenge. It was well known by his ghostly adversaries that Daniel was not someone you wanted to get personally involved with. Though for some reason, he refused to defend himself against the bullies at his old school. He had made some distinction that people didn’t deserve punishment while ghosts did. I had no idea what had caused this, but I was relieved that the boy had decided to stand up for himself at this new school. We would have to have had a serious talk otherwise. It simply wasn’t acceptable that he let himself be belittled like that.