I Loaded the Mysticism Panel

"Are you any good with a slingshot?" Richard asked, a question that had nothing to do with Latin.

Tom paused.

The first three tutors had all started with the exact same lines after walking in the door:

"Alright, let me see your current level in Latin," or "Turn your textbook to page so-and-so."

"...I’m okay," he said, a bit wary.

"What have you shot at?"

"Squirrels, sparrows, the cat from next door... That cat deserved it. It was stealing our fish."

"Did you hit them?"

"Missed the squirrels, but I hit a sparrow." He puffed out his chest. "And I hit the cat twice."

"Where on the cat did you hit it?"

"Its butt." Tom grinned gleefully. "It jumped *so* high."

He gestured with his hand to show how high.

Charlotte’s brow furrowed. She clearly didn’t understand why the new tutor was talking about slingshots.

The faint sound of footsteps came from outside the door. It was probably Lady Dawn, listening from the hallway without coming in.

Richard picked up a gingerbread cookie from the coffee table, tossing it in his palm a couple of times.

"Do you know why a slingshot can fire a stone?"

"The rubber bands shoot it."

"Right. The farther you pull back the rubber bands, the more power they have when you let go, and the farther the stone flies.

But have you noticed that your fingers get most tired when you pull it back all the way?"

"Yeah."

"Latin declensions work the same way."

Tom’s relaxed expression turned to confusion.

"The noun endings are the rubber bands.

You take a word’s root and pull on it, changing its ending. Each ending is like pulling the slingshot to a different angle.

It shoots in a different direction and hits a different target."

He placed the gingerbread on the coffee table and traced a "Y" shape on its surface with his finger.

"First declension, second declension, third declension... You can think of them as three ways to draw a slingshot.

The first way is for shooting things up close. The second is for things far away. The third has the trickiest angle, for hitting things hidden behind branches."

Tom tilted his head, staring at the gingerbread on the coffee table.

"You’re saying each declension is a kind of... shooting style?"

"Something like that." Richard broke the gingerbread in half, giving one piece to Tom and keeping the other.

"For example, if you want to hit a sparrow at the top of a tree, you wouldn’t use a level shot like you did for the cat’s butt, right?"

"Of course not. You’d need to aim high for that."

"Good. ’Aiming high’ in Latin is like using the dative or ablative case. It tells the other words in the sentence: ’Watch out, I’m changing direction.’"

He picked up the sugar tongs from the coffee table and set them up as a triangular stand on the tabletop.

"The sparrow at the top of the tree is the nominative case. It’s the subject; it decides what the whole sentence does.

The stone is the accusative case; it gets shot by the slingshot. The slingshot’s rubber bands are the verb, connecting the nominative and the accusative."

Tom stared at the triangle made of sugar tongs on the table, forgetting to munch on the gingerbread in his hand.

"Nominative, a straight shot. Accusative, a level shot. Dative, a high-angle shot. Ablative..."

He thought for a moment. "What angle is the ablative?"

"The ablative is the action of putting your slingshot away because you’re done shooting.

It indicates ’moving away from a place’ or ’by means of something.’"

"So the ablative is putting the slingshot away."

"More or less."

Tom stuffed his slingshot into his pocket and sat back down in his chair.

He pulled a book out from behind the chair’s backrest.

It was his Latin textbook, with several dog-eared corners and a cover full of doodles.

"Alright, what page should you turn to now?" Richard glanced at the publication information on the book’s spine.

"Page twelve, the first declension noun chart," Tom said, dutifully turning to the page.

This was the chart his previous tutors had made him memorize countless times, the one that always made his mind wander by the second line.

But today, he suddenly found the chart rather interesting.

Next to each ending, an image of a slingshot being pulled to a different angle automatically appeared in his mind.

-a is a straight shot, -am is a level shot, -ae is a high-angle shot, and -ā is putting the slingshot away.

Richard didn’t rush him, simply sipping his tea in small mouthfuls.

After a moment, Tom closed the book.

"rosa, rosam, rosae, rosā, rosa."

Five forms, without a single stutter.

Charlotte’s teacup paused at her lips, hovering for a long moment before she set it down.

She looked at her brother, then at Richard.

"...Those are the five forms of the first declension." Her mouth hung slightly open in surprise.

"Yep." Tom shook his textbook. "The Slingshot Technique. It’s easy to remember."

From the hallway outside, a middle-aged woman in house clothes came around the corner.

Lady Dawn had features similar to Charlotte’s, though hers were a bit rounder, with a soft double chin.

She had clearly been listening from outside the door; her footsteps had given away her position.

"Lady Dawn." Richard stood up and gave a slight bow.

"Please, sit." Lady Dawn entered the small living room and sat in a chair near the door.

Her gaze first fell on her son. The sight of Tom with his slingshot put away and his textbook open on his lap was equally surprising to her.

"Mr. Williams, I overheard some of what you were just teaching."

"My apologies. The slingshot analogy might have been a bit... crude."

"Crude? That’s what I call a quick, young mind!" Lady Dawn chuckled.

"The last teacher couldn’t even get Tom to properly recite the genitive case of *rosa*."

Tom chimed in from the side, "That’s because the last teacher wouldn’t let me play with my slingshot."

"The last teacher also didn’t use a slingshot to teach you," Charlotte added.

She looked at Richard, as if ticking a ’provisional pass’ box on a mental checklist.

"Mr. Williams, I’d like to confirm your schedule."

"Saturdays and Sundays, one hour each day. I can do mornings or afternoons."

"Mornings are better. Tom can’t sit still in the afternoon."

Charlotte flipped to a page in a small notebook she carried, where she already had items listed.

"Regarding the tutoring fee, the standard rate suggested by the Classical Society North District Office is two shillings per lesson."

Two shillings an hour, two hours a week, came to about sixteen shillings a month.

It wasn’t a small amount, especially since this part-time job didn’t take up much time, and he hardly needed to prepare in advance to tutor the boy.

Just as he was about to nod, Lady Dawn spoke up.

"Charlotte, I don’t think two shillings is appropriate."

Charlotte turned to look at her mother.

Lady Dawn’s gaze fell on Tom, who was still perched on his chair, flipping through his textbook.

"That graduate from the Royal Academy before—we paid him two shillings an hour, and Tom drove him away in two days.

The Grammar School teacher with eight years of experience? Two shillings and six pence. He left after six weeks.

And that retired public school master—we raised it to three shillings, and he didn’t last two months either."

She counted on her fingers. "Putting all three together, forget the wasted fees and effort. What’s more important is the wasted time. Tom’s entrance exams won’t wait for him."

Lady Dawn turned to Richard, her expression growing serious.

"Mr. Williams, today you taught Tom in five minutes what he couldn’t memorize in three months.

If you can really stick with it and bring his Latin up to the level required for his entrance exams..."

She glanced at Charlotte.

Charlotte’s expression didn’t change, but she didn’t object.

"Three shillings an hour it is." Lady Dawn made the decision. "Today’s trial lesson will also be counted as a formal session. We’ll settle it all together later."

She took a small ledger from her dress pocket, flipped it open, and made a couple of notes.

"Additionally, if Tom’s Latin grades at school show significant improvement over the next six months,

we will provide an additional bonus. The exact amount will be determined by his report card."

"Also, we will provide lunch for each lesson. You can eat here before you leave. As for transportation..."

She thought for a moment. "How far is Helfier Road from where you live?"

"About a thirty-minute walk."

"Then I’ll have the coachman drive you. He’ll pick you up before the lesson and take you back after lunch."

Richard quickly did the math in his head.

The Dawn family would provide lunch for each lesson, saving him the cost of two meals. The transport to and from would also save him a lot of time.

All told, it would be a steady income of over a pound a month, and that didn’t even include the promised bonus.

"Can we start next Saturday?"

"Of course."

Charlotte stood up from her chair and looked toward her brother.

"Tom, what do you say to Mr. Williams?"

"Goodbye, teacher," Tom said politely, but his hand was already pulling out his slingshot.

He raised the slingshot, aimed out the window, and muttered, "Nominative... straight shot..."

A muscle in Lady Dawn’s cheek twitched, but for once, she didn’t scold him as she usually would.

It was the first time her son had voluntarily recited a declension chart in front of a tutor. Even if his posture wasn’t very elegant, it was a thousand times better than him just spacing out.

Lady Dawn had a maid fetch three shillings—the fee for today’s one-hour trial lesson, paid in full.

Three gleaming silver shillings were handed to him in a small envelope. Lady Dawn had also neatly written "Mr. Williams’s Tutoring Fee" on it.

This way of doing things improved Richard’s impression of the Dawn family even more.

It wasn’t the dismissive attitude of someone tossing a coin to a beggar. They paid promptly, kept clear accounts, and treated a tutor like a professional.

As Charlotte saw him to the door, she paused on the steps of the entryway.

"Mr. Williams."

"Yes?"

Her hand rested on the doorframe.

"The previous tutors also recognized my brother’s problem.

He isn’t slow—in fact, you could say he’s quite smart. But he can’t keep his focus on academics."

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