Midshipman (22 page)
Authors: Phil Geusz
My smile widened. “But today I’m a kit no longer. So why don’t you pass me up some tar and let me pay back the favor the only way I can? Though you’ll have to show me how to repair a roof when we get that far; I’ve never done anything like that before.”
Sergei blinked, then he grinned so wide I was afraid his face’d split open. “Why… That’s really decent of you, David!” He leaned over so he could shout down to the rest of the crew. “David Birkenhead’s going to work with us today, boys!”
“Hooray!” they replied as one, and soon the hottest, blackest, nastiest tarbucket you ever saw came rising up for me to dip my brush in.
So it was that I spend my last full at the Academy as an ordinary worker-bunny, slapping tar and lifting shingles and carrying our too-heavy ladders back to the toolshed at the end of a long, tiring day. My muscles ached, and I had to shower extra-long to cleanse the nasty residue out of my otherwise spotless fur. But that night in the dining hall an unexpected portion of honey-baked carrots appeared on my plate. Practically all of we Rabbits loved the things, but rarely got to enjoy them because they were so fussy to cook and took a terrible lot of time and attention to get right. “Thank you,” my server whispered in my ear as she laid my dinner before me. “Today meant more to us all than you’ll ever know. You keep right on making us proud, David! And someday, who knows where you’ll lead us?”
David Birkenhead’s adventures will continue in Book 3: Lieutenant
Available Mid-September, 2012
OTHER TITLES FROM LEGION PRINTING
By Phil Geusz:
Corpus Lupus
Descent
Lagrange
Left-Handed Sword
Transmutation NOW!
Wine of Battle
The David Birkenhead Series:
Ship’s Boy
Midshipman
Lieutenant
Commander
Captain
Commodore
Admiral
By Fred Patten
Already Among Us, an Anthropomorphic Anthology
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