Chapter 8
Goolians could heal at phenomenal speeds, so Cattalice the Elder was walking her Little One back into Master Slew’s learning board a week and a half later. The other young Goolians whispered and pointed at Catty as Cattalice spoke to Master Slew. Aly, who had come back to class a couple of days ago, didn’t say a word.
“The medical priest has insisted that she still be of ease for the next few days,” Cattalice told Slew as she handed him a doctor’s note.
Slew glanced at the document and nodded. “I shall be sure to send this to the sparring priest upon their arrival. Truly, it is grand to have you back in our presence, Catty. Now, take a seat beside Alytchai.”
Catty looked like she was about to say something, but she went ahead and did as told when her mother cleared her throat.
“Just be sure they do not attempt to kill each other again, yes?” Cattalice added with a smirk.
“Very good, Mistress,” Slew responded with a knowing smile of his own.
As Cattalice winked at the master and left, Aly scooted her desk away from Catty the second she sat down beside her. Requai, Glani, and the other mastras in Catty’s clique turned and waved at their friend. When Catty smiled, they then glared at Aly and turned back around. The other mastra leaned her head against her palm and sighed. Catty thought about what her pappai had told her, but didn’t say anything.
When learning sessions were over, Catty handed Teacher the medical priest’s note.
“I am well pleased to have you back, Mastra. Be that as it may, you shall be on light work for the next week or so. Why not help clean up?”
“Cleaning up with Aly the Weird,” Requai said. “What an ironic event.”
Before Teacher could tell the mastra to shut it, the entire class laughed. Catty glanced at Glani and the others. Even they made offbeat comments, leaving her impressed at how fast the tides could turn, even amongst friends.
Teacher whistled. “Settle down, you lot. Now, off you go, Catty. My thanks.”
Aly was already sweeping a sparring ring by the time Catty arrived, but stopped and raised a brow when the other mastra grabbed another broomstick and went straight to work.
Catty stopped and glared when she felt Aly staring. “What do you look at? And get that smirk off your face.”
Aly stopped smiling and went back to sweeping. The mastras didn’t say a word to each other as they worked. Aly didn’t even hum, so the only sound around them came from silas chirping in the trees.
Catty was already working up a sweat ten minutes into the chore. She stopped when she realized how casual Aly was sweeping, and dropped her broom.
“Truly, you go too slow.”
“It be for a reason.”
“Perhaps you suffer with a lack of speed, is all. And your pace only slows me down.”
Aly stopped, tossed the broom away, and sat against a tree. “Fine. Then, I beg, do not let me be in your way, Mistress.”
Catty growled as she picked her broom up again and zoomed around the ring. She saw Aly grab a book to read from her bag, and swept even faster. She ended up finishing in thirty minutes what would typically take Aly the entire day to do. She came back out of breath but triumphant. She stuck her tongue out, but the other mastra turned her nose up and went back to reading.
“Perhaps you best straighten your face before I break it again,” Aly said as she read.
Catty slurped her tongue back behind her lips, making Aly chuckle and noting that threatening people was effective.
Teacher came over to check on the two. “Goodness me. My word, Catty. Surely you did not do this all on your own, nay?”
“Truly, I did.” The mastra held her broom like it was a tall trophy. “Aly was to spend most of her time reading.”
“I see. Thus, I am disappointed in you, Alytchai. To think that you would let this one best you on her first day, indeed. Well, if that be the case, I fear I have no other choice.”
Aly kept reading and Catty kept smiling.
“Catty, would you be kind enough to re-stuff the sparring dummies? That alone should be enough to get this one by for the day. Aly, if you are to lag around and avoid your chores, then you’d best get another book.”
Catty’s jaw dropped when Teacher winked at Aly before trotting back to the rest of the class. Aly then locked eyes with Catty and shrugged.
“Told you,” she said. “I do not exert myself too gravely since the day be long.”
“Oh, shut up.”
The noon suns were blistering on Catty as she wiped her forehead and finished another dummy. She glanced over to Aly, who had finally gotten up and was practicing her stances. By the looks of it, the mastra was trying to measure how far her “kill zone” was. Catty nodded her head from side to side. Not bad. At least the odd one was doing something productive while the rest of the class was learning different techniques with Teacher.
By the time the third dummy was finished, Catty was licking her dry lips, being so hot that even her tents couldn’t keep her temperature down. She turned around and slid down against a dummy.
“Truly, are you not to help even a little?”
Aly closed her eyes and chanted a rhyme taught in class about the elements, from hydrogen to oxygen, making Catty swear underneath her breath. The lively mastra grumbled as Aly repeated the rhyme and put a beat into it. She tried canceling out the melody Aly added since she was annoyed by her, but the other mastra’s voice stung a nerve in her ears. She turned, listened, and realized it didn’t sound all that bad, actually.
And the more Catty listened, the more of a song the rhyme became before Aly threw out the elemental words and just sang. Catty stood stiff as green oak wood. She couldn’t hear the wildlife anymore, only the melody. And even then, the wildlife had tuned into the Little One’s voice as well.
“Catty?” Aly called out. “Cattalice, why the pause and the odd gaze?”
Catty’s gasp sounded like she had held her breath for minutes and even then, she didn’t do anything else beyond blinking once. Aly called her again, and still didn’t get a response. With that, the mastra got up, stomped over to Catty, and slapped her in the face.
“Ow!” She grabbed her cheek. “My jaw! By Truth’s Grace, it still aches!”
“Then snap out of it, fool! What do you think you do?”
After massaging her mouth for a moment, Catty grabbed her head when she recalled what put her in her trance. She took one look at Aly before walking away.
“And they are to call me weird,” Aly said to herself as she went back to her reading spot.
Since the eight-year-olds had more time in the learning boards than the younger Little Ones, the class met back with Master Slew after lunch. Most of the masters and mastras hated the extra hours in learning subjects like language arts and social studies, but Aly still found the new lessons fascinating.
“Yet what point is there in practicing Universal if we are never to speak to an alien?” Joquin asked, two hours into the second half of class.
“Never say never, Master.” Slew stood in front of the students. “Why, perhaps the other nations may make contact with us in our own lifetime.”
“If I may,” Requai cut in. “I am quite convinced that such a claim was made three and a hundred years ago.”
Even Aly chuckled as she read a book.
Slew shrugged. “Perhaps. Be that as it may, you lot knew this task was to arrive eventually. Your parents had to undergo the process, and thus shall you. Beyond this, you have been studying the language for quite a while now, yes? Why not see how a different usage of sounds interprets the same meaning for a familiar word? Truly, it be good to know more than one language, anyways. It helps the mind work, yes?”
“My mind requires rest,” a student joked.
“That be what the weekends are for.” Slew checked the time on a shadow clock on the wall. “Ah, and thus a time has arrived. And remember, I best not hear a pipe of the native tongue from you lot for the next few months, very good?”
“Very good, Teacher.”
“Nay, what do we say now?”
“Yessir, Teacher,” the class said in Universal.
“That’s better,” Slew said, joining in. “Have a good weekend. Dismissed.”
The evening wind was getting colder as the class headed home. Green leaves were turning into red and orange patterns on the trees as the sky filled with more silas flying in from the north. The Goolians, however, didn’t change their attire. Since they had an advanced acclimation process, their bodies naturally adjusted to the colder weather.
As usual, Aly trailed behind the rest of the mastras in Catty’s group on the way home while reading her book. The others were practicing Universal and mocking each other when they used a wrong word. They stopped when they heard four males, Joquin being one of them, racing down the street, and moved over to the side.
“Aly...” Catty warned.
Joquin knocked the mastra over and tumbled right on top of her. The two locked gazes, their eyes wide.
“Gross!” Aly shoved the master off. “I have lad filth!”
Everyone in both parties laughed. Aly leaned over to grab her scrolls, but another lad shoved the mastra down with his foot and kicked the scrolls away even farther.
“Why not watch where you go, Aly the Weird?” the boy said. “Oh, wait. Universal. Why don’t you watch where you’re go, Aly the Weird?”
“You mean, ‘watch where you’re going,’ fool,” Catty said. “Wait. Universal. Idiot.”
“Mind your tongue, spoiled princess.” The lad helped Joquin up.
“Why not mind this?” Catty held up a charged fist and marched up to the boy.
Requai and Glani ran up and held Catty in place as the masters stepped back.
“Enough,” Glani said. “Requai and I just got back from suspension as is, and you have only returned for a mere day.”
The lad looked at his friends and shrugged. “We have no time for this. Come, Masters. Let us depart.”
Catty hissed as the boys went by. They all flinched and headed down the dirt road even faster.
“Really, I hate boys,” Glani said, switching to Universal.
“You and me both,” Requai added as Catty jerked out of her grip. “They’re such a stupid side of the species.”
Catty turned around. “Whatever. Come on. Let’s go.”
As she let her friends go on by, the mastra watched Aly pick up her scrolls. She went after her friends, but only took three steps when Quongun’s words thumped her brain again and made her stop.
“Mastra, what are you doing?” Requai asked as the group stopped.
Catty looked up at the sky, cursed herself for having a conscience, and headed over to Aly. Without saying a word, she knelt down, and helped the other mastra grab her belongings. Aly stopped reaching for her scrolls, and the other girls’ jaws dropped. Catty just kept picking up scrolls and dusting each one off, one by one.
“I don’t need your help,” Aly said.
“And I didn’t ask.” After getting a handful, Catty shoved the scrolls into Aly’s lap and left.
Requai nudged Glani with her elbow, as if silently asking what was going on. Glani shrugged, and neither of them said a word as Catty walked by.
Requai shook her head. “So, you’re friends with that – what’s the word – ‘weirdo’ again.”
“She’s not my friend, but she’s earned...my respect.”
Requai crossed her arms and snorted out loud. “Or maybe you’re just scared of her now that she beat you up.”
The girls chuckled.
Catty laughed playfully. “At least I lasted a couple of minutes. How about you?”
The mastras stopped smiling and looked at Requai. Her left eye twitched.
“So, are you coming over to my place or not?” Catty asked.
The group waited for someone to speak on their behalf, and there was a long moment of silence because of it. Requai cleared her throat and Glani’s ears twitched.
“Actually, I remember telling Requai we were all going to study at my place,” Glani said. “Sorry. Maybe I’ll see you later.”
Catty only had to look at the other mastras to see where this was going. She crossed her arms and turned her head up, not impressed.
“Fine,” she said. “Later, then.”
As the others hurried off to catch up with her, Requai looked over her shoulder at Aly, who was probably still baffled by the passive compliment Catty just gave her. She then shot a smirk at Catty and left with the group, not saying another word.
When they were out of sight, Catty uncrossed her arms and watched her friends leave. She wiped her eyes and cleared her throat, hoping that would hide her sniff from Aly.
“Sorry,” she heard the mastra say.
Catty turned around with a smile. “For what? Actually, I just remembered that I forgot to ask Master Slew something about the – what’s the Universal word – ‘assignment.’ Later.”
Catty headed back the other direction, since following behind her friends would have been too odd for her. She kept her mouth as tight as possible so she wouldn’t cry, and wondered how she was going to take the long way home without anybody noticing.
Aly scratched her head as she got up. Before going any further, however, she saw one of the first stars in the sky and paused, recalling that it was a solar region that actually had a planetary nation.
“Planet Argutas,” she said out loud, recalling the name.
Probable population: Ten and half a billion.
Government: Direct Democracy.
Current Leader: Rashule.
Planet and civilization type: Class 1.
“Wow.” The Little One skipped off the road and into the wild grass. She didn’t travel too far since she didn’t want to miss her curfew, not that she ever did. It wasn’t like she ever got invited to the other mastras’ homes after school, anyway.
The Little One fell back into the grass and smiled. When alone, she didn’t have to think about how cruel the other children were or how everyone back in the village gave her looks. No, out here, she was just one with the world and she couldn’t ask for more. She hummed a happy little tune as she rested her hands behind her head. She then imagined how odd the Argutain people probably looked. None of the aliens could look similar to her, after all. That would be boring.