When Mel heard the words ‘two and a half years’, he got excited. Relying on the sincerity that developed between them, he asked his question.
“Edgan, what happened two and a half years ago?”
The girl next to the handsome boy covered his mouth with both hands as if he had committed a crime. Obviously, they had agreed not to talk about it.
“Marvina, it looks like your jaw is going to get us in trouble!”
Edgan spoke with a firm tone for the first time. His moderate gaze became admonitory with the effect of his furrowed eyebrows.
“I just asked for the sake of conversation! Please! You don’t have to answer!”
When Mel saw that the pleasant environment had deteriorated because of him, he started talking. His reaction softened Edgan’s attitude a little. The eyes of the young man, who was tapping his fingers on the table, were staring at those fingers.
“I can’t talk about this right now. Can you pretend you’ve never heard of it?”
Mel did not speak but nodded his head.
“Mel, we will try to arrange a place to stay. Would you like to join us?”
With the voice of a kid who committed a misdemeanor, Marvina called out to the introverted young boy. Mel thought for a moment and then answered with confidence.
“First, I am thinking of making my application for the Plant Department exam. After that, I’ll go around a little bit. “
When her cute proposal was rejected, Marvina shrugged and got up from the table. Her brother Edgan followed her.
“You pay the bill, my friend. So, now, we are even. I hope we meet again!”
When the two siblings walked out of the inn door, Mel signaled to the big-breasted waiter and summoned her to his desk. The check was five silver coins. The young boy put his hand inside his clothes, as he saw from Edgan, and left six pieces of silver on the table, pretending he was taking money out of his pouch.
The waitress’s face sparkled. Even though his clothes weren’t revealing it, this customer was a generous one. She bowed to the floor and escorted him to the door. Everyone in the inn watched this scene with astonishment.
A minute later, the generous customer rushed back in, asked the big-breasted waiter something, and rushed out with the same speed. No one comprehended what was happening.
“I rushed out and went away. But I forgot to ask where the plant department was. It is good that I tipped the waitress. Otherwise, I had to look for that place.
While murmuring to himself, Mel came to the front of the one-story building, which was not too wide, but at least five times bigger than the size of other buildings. The Plant Department Registration Office was written on the door. The young boy started laughing when he read this.
“What a fool I am. I asked the waitress directly where the Plant Department is. I couldn’t even understand that this is just the building of the academy. How did my face look when the woman said that the academy was in the mountains?”
Having spent almost his entire life on a remote land, Mel couldn’t help getting himself into funny positions while learning new things. Although he laughed at most of them, some made him think.
“I wish I hadn’t asked that question. Are we at odds? Marvina looked angry. Why didn’t I go with them?”
Voices inside of him poured out from his mouth. He was not aware of how long he had been standing in front of that building.
“Will you move away from the door?”
Mel was obstructing the passage with his physique, which was large for a fourteen-year-old boy. Two girls, who saw this, began to shout near his ear.
“Excuse me. Please, come in!”
The young boy jumped sideways in panic while viewing the girls shouting at him.
“Such a peasant! He has come to town for the first time, I guess!”
“Look at his outfit! What a loser!”
The girls, dressed from head to toe with frilly and fancy clothes, passed near Mel by covering their noses with two fingers.
Even though the young boy sniffed himself unintentionally in the face of this behavior, he could not smell a stench. He could not understand why the girls behaved this way.
“I should finish this business. Then I will go back to where I belong!”
Mel entered in by pushing the high door. He saw the tables lined up at the right side and reaching the end of the building. At each table, there was one person. Those, who wanted to register, were going to these tables.
The young boy stepped out of the crowd at the entrance and walked towards the back of the building while looking for an empty table. Finally, almost at the end of the building, he found one. Without wasting time, he sat in front of the man leaning on the table, placing his head between his two arms.
“Hello sir, I came here to register!”
His voice was loud and cheerful. He was so lively and unable to contain himself. Unlike Mel, the man slowly lifted his head off the table. On his face, there was a trace of the sleeve embroidery of his robes.
“What do you want?”
Mel was surprised to hear the question he had already answered.
“I told you, sir. I want to register for the Plant Department entrance exams!”
Everyone except Mel understood what the slumbering man meant, but the young boy repeated the same words persistently.
“Couldn’t you find another table?”
“Yes sir. Only this place was empty. So I ran and came here!”
Mel was pouring gasoline into the blazing fire. The nearby registrars left their jobs aside and began to watch them.
“It’s a pity. I guess he is mentally disabled!”
“You must have very bad luck to go and find Grumpy Hanry!”
As the other registrars spoke in whispers; the man sitting across Mel took out a paper, a feather with a sharp bone at the end, and a jar of ink from the drawer of the table while he was grumbling.
“What is your name?”
“Malcom. But everyone calls me Mel!”
The man, who began to write after he heard the name ‘Malcom’, paused for a moment after Mel’s following words. Without raising his head, he looked at the young boy sitting across the table
Mel responded to the registrar’s gaze with a smile. People around were trying hard not to laugh.
“What is your surname?”
“I have none!”
“Are you kidding me?”
As Grumpy Hanry hit his hand on the table and roared, a laugh rose from the nearby tables. People, who had held themselves for a long time, finally let it go.
“How would I dare? I really don’t have a surname, sir. In the village, where I was born, nobody would need such a thing!”
After looking over the dress of Mel, the registrar said, “Okay. We got it. But don’t you know anyone with a surname? Say it at least”.
Mel’s eyes sparkled. There was someone with a surname, and Mel knew him very well.
“Drago! You can write Drago as the surname!”
After these words, other people, who heard the noises and came near the table in wonder, laughed too.
“Stupid boy! How could you hear such a surname in the mountain village you lived in? God knows you heard this name from whom when you entered the campus and now you are trying to sell it to me. Do you want to get in trouble?”
“From now on, Mel is your name and Malcom is your surname. Now tell me where you are from.”
Since the registrar could not associate his majestic surname with Mel, he created a registry name on his own. In his eyes, Mel was an ignorant boy from the village.
“My village didn’t have a name.”
“I wrote ‘Wild’. Now take out your medallion and I will complete the registration!”
Mel tucked his hand into his mock robe, took out the locket from his ring, and held it towards the registrar. Grumpy Hanry examined the round metal with the corner of his eye and pressed the seal on the piece of paper.
He pulled out a small jade stone from the drawer and handed it to Mel. When he saw that the boy, who had examined the object he had given, was still standing over his head, he grunted in a moody tone.
“Name of this object is ‘registration admission object’. It will allow you to come back freely if you step outside the walls. I don’t really care, but when you are in such a weak state, do not go outside of the city walls. Don’t even stroll through the streets of the city. If someone hits you accidentally, it is a simple matter to die!”
