A while later, they were waiting at the principal's office. The principal came out and got a playful look in his eyes:
"My office is a little small for six guests, let's sit in the conference room for a while."
The warm smile never left his face. They all sat down at the table. And he jumped right in:
"I am Brother Frank; everyone calls me Frank, including the students at this elementary school, and I like that much better than Brother. It sounds so stuffy."
Jon started to speak, but Frank raised his hand:
"Before you start telling me a story, let me say that I know exactly who you are, Mr. Drago. Or should I say what?"
"And you're not running away scared? You're a Catholic monk, Frank."
"Why should I be afraid of you, Mr. Drago? Are you going to eat me, drink the blood of my schoolchildren, claim my soul, and take it to hell? We both know, we all know, that this is bullshit. Make no mistake, before I knew how you were and not what you were, I had ideas about the Antichrist. Not as extreme as what is outlined in the Bible or what these end-time fanatics think. Revelations is about Rome with her seven hills and about Nero. Your father is indeed the Devil according to our order, but we believe that being the devil is his job, not who Lucifer himself is. The Lightbringer who becomes the ultimate evil from one moment to the next, we don't believe that. If you had done a little research on our order, you would have noticed that we are quite unorthodox. If you haven't done any research, I recommend that you do. Also, since I joined this order a little over twenty years ago, I have had a female friend. A white witch you know, Maggie."
Jon shook his head, laughed quietly, and asked:
"And what has our dear Maggie told you about me?"
"That you were the kindest man she had ever met. That you helped four girls who were absolutely miserable and that you saved the mother, that beautiful woman next to you, along with Jules."
He pointed to the girl.
"I have been in contact with white witches my entire adult life, Mr. Drago. I think I can tell the difference between right and wrong, light and darkness, pretty well by now."
He looked at Elise with a gentle expression. Jon said:
"Then if we're going to be open, Frank, why don't you just call me Jon?"
"Okay, Jon, what can I, what can the campus do for you?"
"I would like to see my three daughters, Jules, Fay, and Hope, enrolled."
Frank looked at the three for a moment and addressed them one by one:
"So, Jules, are you so eager to start your new school? You already have your uniform on."
She replied with a big smile:
"Yes, I am very eager to go to school with my sister and Sam could already let me know the school and I would already get to know my classmates and I could already get to know the Miss or Mister."
"What an energy girl. How old are you?"
"Like Sam eleven."
"Well, then you can join Sam in Hettie's class. All the children love Hettie. But we don't have misses or misters here, Jules. We have teachers who use their real names. All my people care about their children and want their children to feel at home. If your mom and dad agree, Samantha can take you later and drop you off at Hettie's."
He looked at the twins and asked:
"What about you young ladies? Would you like to come to campus as well?"
They nodded quickly, and Hope replied:
"Yes, Frank, we would like to get back to school as soon as possible."
"Well, you guys are already as excited as Jules. How old are you ladies?"
"We are non-identical twinsand we are sixteen."
Fay said quickly.
"For you, it will be high school, but it's not a problem that it goes through me for now. I will take care of that with Andrew. Why the campus?"
"Dad and Mom want us to go back to school, to come to campus. That we need to get our grades back up and like Dad said, do our damn best so we can go to LSU."
"Your dad and mom seem like wise people, girls. I would take their advice if I were you."
He looked at Jon and said:
"No problem, Jon. Jules can go with Sam to Hettie, and I will provide a guide for Fay and Hope to show them around the campus today before they actually start school. Once I have the girls' details, I will arrange for their files to be transferred, and everything will go smoothly here. Or is there something that will cause us to tinker with the paperwork a bit?"
"Yes, I'm not familiar enough with that aspect of humanity to do it flawlessly. I want to add an extra layer of protection for all four of them, so their files will have to be manipulated a bit. If the whole administrative process could be delayed a bit, that would be greatly appreciated. First, I have to visit a... euch... guest of my father's to arrange something."
Frank laughed at that, and you could see the fireworks in his eyes:
"I'm a bit of a history freak, especially church history. I suppose your father has a lot of guests that history nuts would give an arm and a leg to talk to. No problem, I can help with the girls' files."
He stood up and started to shake hands with everyone, but Jon said:
"Sam, please take Jules and show her where you two should be."
"Yes, Daddy."
"Elise, Hope, Fay, if you would like to wait for me in the hall."
Elise knew that something would be discussed between the Padre and Jon and that they needed some privacy.
When everyone had left the meeting room, Frank asked:
"Was there anything else you wanted to talk about, Jon?"
"Yes, Frank and I will ask a question, and you will answer me honestly and fully."
The Padre looked at him and got the feeling that he was not sitting at the table with a concerned father but with a supernatural being with powers he could not even fathom.
"Okay, Jon, ask your question."
"How much trouble is the campus in?"
Frank sighed and said quietly:
"Deep. Covid has brought us to the brink and absorbed almost all of our reserves. Three years ago, we were a model semi-private school, providing all the necessary resources for our students. Now the lack of maintenance and investment is starting to show. It won't be long before we see the effects."
"Explain the lack of funds?"
Frank knew from the way this prince asked questions that he would not be satisfied with half-answers. He said with another sigh:
"Many of our patrons have been severely affected by the economic effects of the disease. As a result, the donations that we have been using to make investments and maintain the buildings have largely dried up. But the parents of the students have also been hit hard. Louisiana has been hit very hard. Economically, our state has been one of the worst students in the class for quite some time, to stay in campus terms. We now rank 50th out of 50 states. The GDP per capita is just under 62,000, and even that number is massively misleading. The gap between rich and poor in this state is disproportionately large, I mean extremely large. So the whole GDP thing is just not useful. This whole COVID predicament was a shock to everyone. First, the shock of the shutdown pretty much killed low-income and small and medium-sized businesses. And now an economy that's sputtering for the simple reason that if you don't have anything to spend, you can't contribute to the economy, which keeps the middle-class peddling as well. The phenomenon of students coming to school without lunch, as we know it from the all-public system, was unknown to us. Suddenly there were families who normally made a good living who were running into these terrible problems. Instead of turning away students because parents can no longer afford to send their children to campus, we give those parents a reprieve or simply forgive the debt altogether. We have also discreetly created a program to prevent children from going hungry. We made it ostensibly mandatory for students to use their lunches at school. And to prevent students from being jealous of each other's lunches. By providing the same food for everyone, we could solve this terrible problem. A uniform meal, just like the uniforms they wear, and free in the cafeterias."
Jon stood up, wrote their new address on a piece of paper, and said:
"Tonight at six o'clock. You'll join us at our table, and then we'll solve these campus problems."
Frank looked a little defeated:
"Jon, that's a noble intention, but it won't work, not for one person alone. The red numbers are too big and too deep for one person to solve. Not to mention what we would need."
He smiled at Frank and said:
"As my uncle once said, Ye of little faith... I'm richer than God, that's my grandfather, you know, your big boss, and certainly richer than your Vatican with all its trinkets. Yes, Frank, I can do it all by myself and much more. Bring your project proposals that you wanted to accomplish before that damn Covid hit. I'll have a few more suggestions for you myself, Frank, so bring a notebook too, a thick one!"
He said with a smile and disappeared from the small room.
Arriving in the hallway, the twins gave him a kiss on the cheek. It was the first time they had done so, and his cheeks felt as if they were pleasantly on fire. Elise looked at him with satisfaction. On the way to the parking lot, Elise could clearly see that he was irritated. She asked:
"What's going on, Jon?"
He growled for a moment before answering:
"I hate it when innocent people are punished for doing good. And this campus is doing some damn good! I hope you don't mind, honey, I asked Frank to come by tonight with a bunch of paperwork because this campus seems to be in the shit while doing its damnedest for the students here. That has got to change."
She knew how much it would fester now that he knew the campus was in trouble, so she said airily:
"Now that all four girls are out the door and won't be back for a few hours, maybe we can crawl back into bed, hmmmm?"
He knew she was trying to cheer him up, and for a moment he thought very seriously about saying no, but when he saw her mischievous smile, he knew he could not say no to this gorgeous, enchanting woman.
"Okay, Red, but then it has to be damn worth it."
He said smiling. And with that, they got into the Escalade. With a rather sly look in her eyes, she said:
"Mister, when we have the lovemaking out of the way, I want you to fuck me straight through the shower wall!"
With that, he burst into an almost uncontrollable roar of laughter.