"John," Richie asked, as if casually, "remind me—how large is our yard?"
"Sir," the valet replied, "the territory of the Grosvenor family estate, Eton Hall, covers approximately four and a half thousand hectares."
Richie froze in shock. The boy's eyes bulged. He couldn't even imagine that one person could own so much land.
While he was digesting the news, he sat in the back seat of the car. John occupied the front passenger seat next to the driver. The driver himself was unremarkable—wearing a plain cap and a black suit, with a completely forgettable face.
When the car started moving, Richie leaned forward between the seats and examined the dashboard. The ride was smooth, as if the car were floating. On both sides of the road—polished like a mirror—stood rows of trees, beyond which stretched beautiful snow-covered meadows and frozen ponds. Streetlights lined the road at regular intervals. The transmigrator noted that the car reached the gates after just over two miles.
Three fucking kilometers in a straight line, just to leave the estate!!!
At that moment, Richie's right eyelid began to twitch—a nervous tic. He sat pale in his seat, clutching the leather armrest with white-knuckled fingers.
Three damn kilometers to the highway! Where am I? Is this 'little courtyard' really mine?! Richie thought.
The drive to school took about half an hour. Richie watched the cars along the way; all of them were old and ran on hydrocarbon fuel. Gradually, the boy began to realize that he must have ended up in the past. After all, it was impossible that everyone around could be so wealthy as to drive vintage cars and pay insane taxes for using non eco friendly transport. Moreover, all the vehicles were right-hand drive and clearly from the same era—roughly the 1970s to 1980s.
Richie had expected to see a prestigious elite school, but his expectations were shattered. It turned out to be an ordinary British state school. True, there was no uniform here. According to the hopelopedia, the transmigrator remembered that in England, schoolchildren always wore uniforms.
Being thrown into a world of elementary school kids was awful. Richie took comfort in only one thing: all his classmates were a couple of years older than him—ten year olds. He turned out to be the youngest in the class. The other kids tried to keep their distance. Apparently, they were aware of the gulf separating them from the heir to a massive fortune. Besides, at that age, even a two-year difference feels enormous. Or perhaps, before the transmigration, Richie himself behaved in a way that frightened them off. They carefully ignored him, pretending he didn't exist.
Perhaps for a child, such a social vacuum would have been a severe blow to the psyche, but an adult didn't care. On the contrary, the transmigrator was glad he wouldn't have to interact with this noisy crowd of kids. And he was also glad that he had a couple fewer years of schooling left.
The computer science class impressed Richie the most. The children were led into a classroom filled with computers—the ancient ancestors of holographic communicators. They didn't even have a "plug and play" graphical interface. Just small, pot-bellied monitors, with wires snaking out of bulky system units. To start the computer, you had to insert a huge magnetic diskette and type in commands manually!
Pure madness.
This techno-necromancy terrified Richie; he had no idea how to handle such machinery. It was no wonder he received a low score for the lesson.
After classes, Richie was met by the same Bentley and the same valet, John.
The boy was then taken to fencing practice. The transmigrator, who had never held a sword in his life, fully expected to be beaten senseless. However, during sparring, he was shocked to discover that his body moved on ingrained reflexes, as if he had been fencing for years. At first, he did lose a couple of bouts, but he quickly learned to listen to his body and soon began to fence quite well for his age. He even won several matches.
The day ended with the ride home and dinner, after which the boy collapsed into bed and fell asleep.
It had been an incredibly busy day—not a single minute of free time. Such a schedule was completely unfamiliar to the transmigrator. He hadn't even managed to learn anything about his own biography or search for information.
Before long, the valet woke him up and made him do his homework. Richie desperately wanted to sleep, but he had no choice but to sit down and study. He cursed the school under his breath. Richie understood that something had to be done about this, but for now, he couldn't come up with a solution. The word "external student" kept spinning in his head—but how was he supposed to make that happen?
The first problem with taking external exams was that the transmigrator had attended school a very long time ago and under an entirely different curriculum. He remembered little and knew even less. On top of that, he had never been an outstanding student. And to be admitted to external exams only the very best were allowed — meaning he would have to pass everything with top marks. Which in turn meant he would have to learn an enormous amount of study material.
The next day, everything repeated itself: morning aerobics, breakfast in an atmosphere that could hardly be called family-like, and classes at school.
Richie had no time to reflect on his new life; he had to adapt to playing the role of a boy. The last thing he wanted was to be exposed.
The only difference from the previous day was the trip home. Richie's hopes for rest collapsed like a rickety pile of junk. Instead of fencing practice, he was subjected to additional lessons with a tutor in financial management.