It had been a week now since I had my talk with Mama Becca, and now ten days since I had arrived at St. Katherines. I had to admit it. I didn't completely hate it here, and I could see why Julie wanted me to come here. The school didn't seem so big once I had gotten used to everything. Knowing what halls to take that could get me to class quicker, knowing what to bring so I didn't have to waste time going back to my dormroom to get books. The homework was very much annoying some days, depending on the day I could have up to five assignments to work on that would be due the next day. Or I would have assignments that had two to three days due dates. I could see why this school prided itself on its education, it was fairly good. I was on good terms with most of my teachers as any teacher loved a student that always asked questions. I was kinda on a high five base with most of them now, so that was some progress. Mama Becca was always proud when I showed even a small amount of trust with an adult. However, I knew she was cross at me for not going to see a therapist like she had suggested.

She told me baby steps, so that is what I wanted to do.

Most of the dorm mothers were quite kind as well. I am sure all of them knew my no touch rule, but most of them seemed so relaxed and kind that I didn't mind a light tap on the shoulder. As long as I saw it coming, however, I was not on hugging terms with most of them. Only Mama Becca, whose fairly large bust felt like the best pillows in the entire world. I think I made her cry when I hugged her on my sixth day here. The one thing that I was never gonna let become a thing, was any form of physical correction. Not a pat or a smack, no one would ever touch this rearend.

The girls under Mama Becca were quickly becoming close friends with me. Trin-Chan, and Ori-Chan quickly tittered on the edge of friends, and best friends for me. Trin-Chan spent most of the time she was supposed to use for homework, mostly in a pajama top and drawing. She would then throw something over her lower half before going to the art studio to work on it. Most of her punishments seemed to come from not doing her homework on time. To her painting was more important. I also had a fairly good teacher in violin from her, my notes no longer sounding like a thousand cats dying after she started to help me. Ori-Chan and I got along quite well, to the point that some girls wondered if we were sisters. She also got into far more trouble, her slogan of "sometimes you need to be a little bit naughty" might be the death of her and me. She liked fooling around with the older girls, annoying them and what not. Then running for her life when she took it too far, and while normally they gave someone an option of a punishment from them or to tell their dorm mother. I had the feeling that they didn't give her that option. Especially when she exposed one girl's interesting relationship with a boy in the city.

My other closest friend was Adriana, we had a connection because of Julie. Who came to visit on the day that marked my first week there. We had a nice lunch in the lunchroom and we caught up a bit. I am sure Ori-Chan was a bit jealous when I spent time with Ana-Chan as I sometimes called Adriana. Her roommate Beatrice somehow had a smartest mouth than Trin-Chan. Turns out she was extremely smart, but oftentimes her smart remarks got her in trouble. I watched her do her math homework in what seemed like five minutes, and then she got into an argument with our math teacher about how stupid it was to show your work. She mostly stuck to her reading, finishing books that could have up to 900 pages in two days. A lot of her student points came from her reading tests. If you wanted a few extra student points, you could read a book and take a quiz online to see how much to actually read on it. According to the system, from these tests Beatrice had read over 120 million words so far since her arrival at the academy. However, she had one weakness that Ana-Chan showed me. She was far more ticklish than anyone I had ever seen, and her laughter was so contagious that it felt like anyone within 20 yards of her laughter would start to giggle as well.

Ebony was kinder than I could have imagined. I found myself spending some days helping her learn english. She really liked knowing harder words, and in exchange she would, "help" with my homework. However, her version of helping was mostly doing it on a separate sheet of paper and just giving me the answers. Which I quickly learned was not good if you then copied them line for line, as most teachers in my class knew the difference. That was how I ended up staying after class one day writing on the board. "I will not turn in my friend's work in as my own" 50 times. Better than the other punishment he tried to offer. My relationship with Millicent was also getting better since the incident in the locker room. While she still held onto her more urban and ghetto way of talking (that drove Trin-Chan crazy). She did tone it down a bit when she was around me, she gave me a lot of space. Always apologizing for what happened until I had to practically shake her silly and tell her it was okay. She was just a bit more of a rough houser, and that could be fun, we had a pillow fight once, and of all of the girls involved. Mill-Chan was the only one who never tried to hit me in the back. She was good at basketball and was trying to teach me.

However, all in all things have been going good. Far better than any place I had ever gone to so far. I had a lot of things, and I had more freedom than I would at another home. Just a few rules, and chores that we had for the week. A way to help us keep the school looking nice. The worst being cleaning the bathrooms, since I had no idea how girls could be so messy sometimes. I mean it is not that hard to pick up a paper towel if you miss a bin.

It would have been perfect....

If I wasn't currently standing in front of Mama Becca. Her eyes locked onto me like a mother bear about to break someone's neck. "Do you know why I asked you to come here?"

"I have no idea." I mumbled stubbornly as I kicked at the carpet of her floor. Her record player playing older school blues music, which Trin-Chan told me was not a good sign. She used blues music to calm down, and often would play it if someone was getting a warm rear inside. The vocals kept sounds of punishment from carrying down the hallways.

The darker skin woman's eyes narrowed a bit more, and now I found myself squirming under her gaze. "Are you gonna tell me what happened in biblical studies today?"

"I can't do that."

"And why can't you?" My silence got her to sigh a bit more. "Ivy, talk to me, little girl."

"I am not that little," I responded.

"You are acting like a little girl now, cause someone your age should be able to answer my question. So I am gonna give you one more chance to talk to me, before I amp up the punishment I already have for you. What happened in biblical studies, and if you don't know, why can't you tell me?"

Her voice helped me understand that the thin ice I was standing on was about to break. "Because I didn't go..." I whispered so softly that even I couldn't hear it.

"Speak up, Ivy."

"Because I didn't go."

Mama Becca crossed her arms over her chest. "We can be all day until you speak up so I can hear you, Ivy Oren."

"Because I didn't go!" I snapped. "Are you happy now!" I put my hand over my mouth before turning my gaze back on the floor. I wasn't trying to raise my voice at her, I was sure my dark red eyes could show her that much. "I-I'm sorry."

"It's okay. Just remember what I told you when I ask you something."

"To speak up so you can hear me." She was not a fan of mumblers, though my theory was her hearing was not that good anymore. I could never tell her that theory but it always made Ori-Chan laugh when I told her.

"What happened in that class?" Mama Becca asked. I looked up in time to see her glance at her laptop. In the reflection I could see my school picture so she was probably looking at my grades. "IN your first grade report, you are doing very well so far. Granted it is still early but in the report I asked for from your teachers. All of them really like you. However, from Dr. James, I can see a few things here."

"Here we go," I mumbled as I rolled my eyes.

"Ivy seems to have a bright mind." Mama Becca read outloud. "She is fairly smart, and when she is paying attention or in class she has good questions that really do help me explain a bit more doubts or misconceptions of Christianity. However, out of five classes so far. She has missed two, slept through half of the others, and I have not received a homework assignment from her since she joined my class. I have tried to ask her to stay behind so we can chat, however she escapes the second I turn my back on her. I would greatly appreciate it if you, Rebecca Jackson, could speak to her on the subject."

"Is she gonna kick me out of her class?" Maybe that was gonna be my punishment or something.

Mama Becca closed her laptop, and set her reading glasses on top of it. "Far from it Dr. James doesn't kick people from her class. She is more concerned with why you seem to dislike it so much."

"I don't want to talk about it." I answered.

"Ivy I cannot help you if you don't tell me what is wrong. We have talked about this."

"It's hard to be in that class." I mumbled as I kicked at the floor once more. Maybe enough taps would finally let me fall through the floor to escape this conversation. "All I know is what others tried to drill into me, and that this religion doesn't like me."

"Why do you feel like that, child?"

I pointed up towards my eyes. "I'm just a demon touched girl, that is what some told me. Especially when I caused trouble."

"And I am sure you will find, if you did your homework, or went to chapels that we offer, that their words are not true. I can tell you that much for certain." My silence didn't seem to help me as Mama Becca sighed once again. "Ivy, if you truly do not like that class, why did you sign up for it in the first place?" I gave a small shrug of my shoulders. "That is not an answer, young lady."

"I don't have one to give you."

"Lord Almighty," I had learned she oftened used that simple term when her patience was wearing thin. "Okay, Ivy since you don't want to talk to me about this. You are leaving me little choice. I have not had to punish you in any way so far. However, that streak has come to an end I am afraid. So although I know you are gonna say no, I am gonna give you two options. Either we can get this over with quite quickly with a fairly simple spanking." I firmly shook my head at that. "Or after classes tomorrow, you will be helping Dr. James in her usual clean up of her classroom, instead of going to Orchestra. That young woman enjoys cleaning her room by herself, to take some pressure off the janitorial staff."

I was not the best at cleaning, but I already promised myself that I would never take any option that starts with an S and ends in ing. "Fine," I answered with a pout as I crossed my arms once more. "I can handle cleaning."

"I am sure you can." I couldn't keep my pout up longer enough as Mama Becca softly rubbed my head. "I am not mad at you, okay?"

"I know," I answered.

"Anything else you want might want to add before I send you on your way?" I only shook my head. "Do you want a hug before you leave?" My cheeks flushed pink as I shy nodded my head. The woman chuckled before she lifted me up and sat me on her lap. Her arms brought me into a tight embrace, as I rested my head on her bosom. "You are not a demon, Ivy. Just a little girl that needs a bit more love in her life, and lucky for you I have more than enough to share."

"Yes ma'am."

She eventually sent me down and sent me away with a pat on my back to get me going. "If I hear you didn't go to her room after classes, I will have you cleaning this entire campus with a toothbrush. Test me if you want to."

"Hai," I said before closing her door. "Ichi, Ni, San." I counted before I felt a pair of arms wrap around my waist, followed by Ori-Chan familiar peach scented shampoo. "I told you I was gonna be okay."

"I was sure she was gonna be more angry with you." Ori explained as she went to walk beside me as I started down the hallway. "I mean, you even got a bit smart with her, so I was sure she was gonna at least pop you once."

"She won't do that, and I don't plan on ever giving permission for her to do that." I answered.

"Lucky you, wish I would've thought of that." Ori remarked. "Though my Okaasan signed off for them to punish me, so I think I would have been caught at some point."

"I haven't met her yet." I brought up as we walked back to our room. I clad in a pair of pink pajama shorts and a matching shirt. Ori-Chan's pajamas looked similar to mine, just a different color, light orange. Ori once told me that her mom comes by to see her, and that she can even stay the night with her if she wanted. However, since being here I had never seen the woman, and Ori so far never left the dorms.

Her cheerful smile faded as she slowed her pace for a moment. "Yeah, she went to Japan for a few weeks to handle business. So she is gonna be back I think in two weeks."

"Why didn't you go with her?"

Ori-Chan just shook her head. "It was sudden, and she didn't want me to miss school." I gasp as Ori-Chan took my hand before starting to race down the hallway. "Now come, we need to get back or they are gonna start the show without us." We had a new habit of watching a new show that Trin-Chan had found called House of The Dragon. Now normally we couldn't watch it as it is MA, but she found a way to stream it from a site onto our tv.

As I let her pull me away, I noticed that like anytime I asked about Ori-Chan Okaasan.

She lost a bit of color in those otherwise bright blue eyes.

As I rung out of my towel into the small red bucket that said Dr. James had gotten for me. I just had to ask. "Why don't you just have a janitor clean your room or something?" The older woman was currently sweeping the floor of her classroom with slow and steady strokes. Her long brown hair currently up in a neat bun with a pencil running through it. A few treads spilled from it and across her face. "Isn't that their job anyway?"

"It is," Dr. James explained. "However, even if it is just one classroom that they don't need to worry about, then that is one less room for them to clean, a few extra minutes they don't have to worry about, and they can get home a bit sooner." Dr. James looked over her shoulder at me. "It is also a way to remind me to be a bit more humble."

"And why do you want to remind yourself of that?"

"Cause people tend to forget humility and chase after pride." I heard her broom slam against the side of one of the table legs. We had spent the first few minutes getting all of the chairs off the floor and stacked into neat towers against the walls. Afterwards we went to one of the janitor closets to fill a few small red buckets and get a mop filled with water. "It is easy to just ignore small things that we feel are below us or that someone else will handle it."

"Maybe they can do it better?" I said quietly as I went back to cleaning this stupid table. It seemed like far more work now that we had started.

"Maybe they can, I am sure they can do it much better than me." Dr. James chuckled a bit at that. "And I would be grateful to learn how to do things quicker from those that know more than me."

"I mean," I started. "You're a professor, isn't this below you? You probably worked so hard for your degree. It's not like they went to school to be janitors."

"That may be true, but I have a counter to that point of why I do this. The man we are learning about in class, Jesus Christ, was many things? Can you tell me what those are?"

I had to rack my brain for a moment. "Um a prophet, and a God." I could at least remember two of them.

"Some call him the greatest prophet, or the father in human forum. Yet if he was so great, and God. Why would he humble himself to wash his disciples feet?"

I stopped wiping the table for a moment to look over at her. "He did what?"

"He washed his disciples' feet, young lady. In John 13:5." She explained. "It was before the passover, and before he went through quite an ordeal before his death." Dr. James turned around to face me, her hands resting on the top of the broom as she smiled at me. "So if my God can take time out of his day to wash 24 feet, then I think I can take 30 to 45 minutes cleaning up a classroom when my day has come to an end."

"Why would do something like that if he was so great?"

"A good question, with three possible answers." Dr. James explained. "Humility, service, and love, three very important pillars of this faith. Humility to serve those around you, service to show his disciples how they should serve others above their own pride, and love because he cared for each of them as friends and brothers." She smiled at me before going back to sweeping at the floor.

The only sound for a while was her occasionally thudding the broom against something, and water droplets falling back into the bucket from my towel. "You probably don't like me."

"And why do you think that?" She had finished sweeping her floor and now was starting to dust off the board. Coughing a bit as some chalk dust got into her face.

"You told Mama Becca that was not paying attention and was missing class."

"I told your dorm mother that because she asked me how well you were doing in my class, and I had to be honest. I have seen and heard that Rebecca Jackson does not like people that do not tell her the truth. Whether adult, or child." She explained it simply. "I told you on the first day, that at the very least I would like it if you paid attention at least in my class. To maybe help you see that what was used against you, and taught wrong about this faith is not true. Even if you need to see it like learning about greek mythology or other world religions"

"That is easier said than done."

"A lot of things are easier to be said, and done, that doesn't mean we shouldn't at least try to do it."

As I finished wiping down the last table I went back to face her. Hiding a giggle as her once clean face had a bit of white dust on it that was dabbing off with a wet wipe. "What is so wrong with one girl who may not be paying attention, or is not in your class? Why not worry about the other good Christian girls in your class, and not me. The unbelieving mischief maker."

"Two reasons," Dr. James said. "One, because if I did it for one person in my class then I am sure everyone would try it as well, and two. I don't believe that you are an unbelieving mischief maker."

"What do you believe about me?"

"I believe that you are a young lady who has been hurt by people in her past, and I don't think you don't believe in God. I think you hate him."

"Isn't that worse? Doesn't that make me your enemy then? If I hate your God."

"I don't have any enemies, and you will not be my enemy." Dr. James answered. "Ivy, I just want you to learn in my class, and I like having someone like you in my class participating like you did by accident on the first in my class."

"What do you mean?"

"Most of the girls in my class are strong believers or new to the faith so they don't ask the questions on their mind. Or are even afraid to ask questions because they are worried they might be stricken down by lightning or killed for asking them. However, you don't have those worries or fears, and it brings good discussion which is something I like having in this class. My God says it best, he is not afraid of the questions on your mind. Neither am I."

I put my head down for a moment as I couldn't find anything to refute her points. It was annoying me that she didn't seem upset or mad at me either. "Why not?"

"Because I have nothing to fear from your questions, no matter how hard they might be. If I have an answer I will answer it, and if I don't I will find it to explain to you." Dr. James walked over to me, doing what she always did to people smaller than her and lowered herself down so we could be on the same level. "Ivy, I can't ask you to come into my class and just accept this religion, not when the wounds you suffered at the hands of people that follow this are still fresh. All I ask is that you treat my class like any other class you go to, and ask whatever is on your mind. If a day comes where your mind is changed, then that is amazing."

"And if I never change my mind?"

Her smile didn't falter. "Then I would be saddened but I would never lose faith it could happen. After all, I believe in miracles." Dr. James reached out and patted my shoulder, this time I didn't step back from her. "You are free to leave."

"Really?"

Dr. James nodded her head. "The main purpose of this was for us to chat a bit, you were never in trouble with me. However, I will have to inform your dorm mother if you miss class, and I will have to be a bit more firm if you choose not to listen. And I will need those homework assignments done by Monday morning or they will go in as zeroes. However, and I promise you this I know there is one punishment that I can never use against you, and I never will. No matter what."

"O-Okay." I pulled away from the woman as she rose back to her full height. Moving to get the mop so she could finish her last task before she went home. As I left the room, I took one last look at her for one more moment. "Why didn't he save me if he is so good?" I quickly turned the corner, as soon as I let those words escape my mouth. She had turned around once more to probably answer that question.

And I didn't want an answer.

A/N: Thank you all for reading and sorry there was no update yesterday, ran a bit low on time. Thank you all for your support and those story and I would love to hear how it is going so far. So please let me know.

And until next time.

Stay safe,

Stay behaved,

Or you might be spanked,

Bye Bye