The classroom groaned in unison, and Flora brightened a little at the fact that Mendel’s lack of social graces kept the taunting of the other students directed at him rather than her own embarrassment from the Weaving. To say that Mendel was the smartest kid in class would be like saying the sun is the brightest star in the sky. When he was just a scrawny ten year old, he was already debating mathematics with his teachers. Now, four years later, he was correcting them and was expected to become an Institute scholar next year. Accordingly, all the students hated him.
Still, Flora couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for Mendel as he shrunk his head down into his shoulder blades like a turtle hiding in its shell. Having finished his task, Mendel shuffled back to his seat, two down from Flora, nudging her in the ribs as he tried to squeeze his gangly frame past her. The kid was all knees and elbows.
For the rest of class, Flora focused on avoiding further attention from the teacher by staring intently at her desk. She had learned long ago not to give the other students any excuse to torment her. Mendel either didn’t understand these rules or didn’t care. He continued to impress Mrs. Gardner while endangering his own survival amongst the other students.
Flora looked away from the social disaster and instead examined the subtle curves and shapes formed by the willow root which flattened to form her desk, even angling up slightly to create a comfortable surface for her writing. As the leaves rustled in the wind, the mottled light on her desk shifted as well. The shadows danced across her path, acting out stories that only she could hear, the dimming of her characters marking the passage of time as the sun lost its vigor.
“Good job today,” Mrs. Gardner concluded. “We’re finishing a bit early this afternoon so that you can all help prepare for the festival tomorrow. Have fun.” She lifted her finger as if to scold them. “But not too much. Remember that graduation exams are in ten days.”
Golden-haired Rina raised her hand eagerly. Mrs. Gardner sighed. “And everyone please remember to vote for Miss Asgold’s entrance in the food growing competition,” she added.
Rina chirped out, “It’s a spicy broccoli.”
Mrs. Gardner walked out to the endless wall formed by the drooping leaves. “Thank you Prostatis for your hospitality,” Mrs. Gardner said as she placed her hand gently on one of the branches, searching for the sensory leaves.
“Thank you Prostatis,” Flora repeated with the other students.
The branches near Mrs. Gardner’s hand began to curl, peeling away from her touch like the drawing of a curtain. Slowly, an opening in the canopy formed, first a sliver of light, and then a full door. Eager to stretch her legs, Flora ducked out the opening and into the playing fields where the students gathered after class each day. Kids were already filing out of six of the seven other classroom trees that surrounded the field, one for each of the eight grades. Flora looked at the empty seventh grade tree and felt a slight pang of grief at the unspoken tragedy. She was the youngest student in the eighth grade, not just at her school, but in all of Terrene.
As the rest of the students made their way to the fields, Mendel caught up to Flora.
“I must commend you on your solution to the derivation,” he said. “It is rare for someone to jump to solutions so quickly.”
“Knowing myself, it’s more like I fell into the solution,” Flora said, referencing her accident at the Weaving. She found that if she made fun of it, no one else would. “I just got lucky. I’m not smart like you.”
“No,” he agreed. “Not in the same manner, but I have observed a statistically significant tendency for your intuition to be accurate, and your common use of sarcasm suggests - .”
“Mendel!” Crick stepped in between them shoving Mendel backwards with his hand. “Were you trying to make a daisypin out of me?”
“I made no attempt to make you appear to be a humorously patterned flower,” Mendel said as Flora tried to make herself invisible.
“Shut up!” Crick said in a low voice, grabbing the neck of Mendel’s shirt. They were the same height, but Crick easily weighed twice as much. “Don’t show your face at class tomorrow, or the next day.”
“That is an unlikely scenario,” Mendel said, not seeming to understand the threat.
Crick raised his fist. “I’m serious,” he warned, lifting him off the ground by his shirt. Flora could see the anger in his eyes, feel it seething from his pores. But Mendel still seemed oblivious. She knew she shouldn’t interfere, but if she didn’t-.
“I do not see how that statement really correlates with your previous -.”
“Well, I’ll show you.” Just as Crick pulled back his fist, Flora dove in.
“Oh wow,” she said loudly so that everyone could hear. “I’m sure your mom would be very impressed if you sucker punched the scrawny smart kid. I hear the Institute loves to admit bullies. They’ll send a scholar over here to pick you up right away.”
Crick turned towards Flora, dropping Mendel back on the ground. “Ah,” Mendel said. “There’s the use of sarcasm I was just talking about. I find the telling of an outright lie difficult, but -.”
“Oh, it looks like Fainting Flora wants to protect her boyfriend.” Crick said.
“Oh, very mature,” Flora said. “Maybe that would have made me run home to my mother when I was five. But now it just makes me feel sorry for you. You better go back to fighting with your fists because words just aren’t your strong suit.”
“I don’t fight girls,” Crick said. “Especially not ones that constantly lose fights to rocks and trees, Scarface.”
“Ah yes,” Flora said. “But I got that derivation right while you were stammering about excuses. I guess that means you lost to someone who loses to rocks and trees. What does that make you?”
Crick made a big, fake display of laughing in response. “Are you calling me a loser? Look who’s talking. You’re the ultimate loser. We try not to pick on you too hard because everyone knows you were just one birth away from being a brain dead baby.”
“Oh come on,” Flora interjected. “You’re going to bring up the birthing incident?”
He added, “You’re the loser that’s always losing things: your footing, your consciousness. In fact, you even lost your father.”
Anger exploded in Flora’s head. She launched herself towards Crick, throwing her entire body towards his massive frame. She balled her hand into a fist, praying that it would make it to his chin, but it was too late. Blackness closed around her, leaving only the blue dot, throbbing in her vision. For a second, she heard laughter, and then nothing.
************
Flora opened her eyes to see a face hovering inches away from her nose. Her hand instinctively slapped at the face a fraction of a second before her brain recognized its features.
“Oh I’m so sorry, Mendel,” she said, sitting up to find herself still on the grass outside the classroom. Crick and the other students were gone, leaving Mendel and herself alone in the field. She looked down at her shirt. Someone had written “Beware of Freak” in terrible penmanship down the front. It would take an entire week to grow another one. Her hand went to her head. They had tied up her hair into weird knots, which meant Lily and some of the other girls must have helped out. It was nice to know that she had contributed to class bonding.
She walked over to Mendel, who was nursing his reddened cheek by the class tree. “Again, I’m sorry about that,” she said. “What were you doing so close to my face anyways? It’s not the safest place to wait.”
“There’s um, some additional indigo ink on your forehead,” he said. “I was attempting to remove the stain before it set.”
Flora began rubbing vigorously at her forehead with her lycravine sleeve. “What does it say?” she asked.
“It’s a uh, a matched set with your shirt,” Mendel replied. “And unfortunately, the pigment seems to have already formed a permanent bond with your skin.”
“Oh Graywater!” Flora cursed. ??
?My mom will see this, and she’ll be all over me again. Sometimes she treats me like I am one of those brainless babies.”
“Mmmm,” Mendel said. It was considered inappropriate to discuss the birthing incident, but Flora wasn’t feeling very appropriate.
“Oh come on,” Flora said, sensing Mendel’s apprehension. “Just because people won’t talk about it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. A whole year of babies being born brain dead without explanation. How can people not talk about it?” Her voice was getting hoarse, the blackout having parched her mouth.
“People trust in the Institute,” Mendel said. “After all, their decree limiting new births has prevented a recurrence of the tragedy. Don’t you trust in the Institute?” Mendel handed her a blossom of water. He had come prepared.
“I’d trust them more if they shared some of their abundant knowledge with us. I don’t like taking guidance from people who won’t deign to talk with me.” Flora took the water from Mendel’s hand, downing the entire blossom in a single gulp. “Though I guess I know you, and you’ll be an Institute scholar next year.”
“Yes, I am hopeful that I will score highly enough in the graduation exam to earn admittance.” Mendel said.
“Then after you get in, can you try to find some answers for me?” Flora asked. “Like about my condition, and, well, my father.”
“I thought your father died,” Mendel said.
“No,” Flora said, “People just assume he died. He disappeared one day, and there’s really nowhere in Terrene to disappear to. If there’s any record of where he might have gone, it would be at the Institute.”
“Well, I can’t promise much,” Mendel said. “In fact, I’ve never heard of anyone being able to come back after going to the Institute.”
“But you’ll try?” Flora added.
“I’ll try within the legally allowed framework,” Mendel agreed.
“Thanks,” Flora said. “And also for the water, and for being here. It’s nice to have someone here when I wake up.” She threw the empty blossom back into the ground where its hidden seed would soon sprout another drinking blossom.
“My actions were a necessary reciprocity for your intervention with Crick on my behalf,” Mendel said. “Your actions served my interests at a detriment to your own.”
“You’re welcome,” Flora said, a long-absent smile coming to her lips.
************
“Flora dear, are you awake?” her mother called out from her door, beginning their daily ritual.
“Of course,” Flora replied, almost bowling her mother over in her haste to exit the room.
“Well,” her mother said, feigning shock. “That’s not what you say the other three-hundred and sixty-four days of the year.”
“If you threw a giant festival full of food, fun, and flowers every day,” Flora replied. “Well, you might find me to be a morning person.”
“Look, I know you want to go off on your own today,” her mother said. “But maybe we better stick together. I know you don’t have many friends and -.”
“And going to the festival with my mother is really going to help that?” Flora asked. “I’ll be fine. Plus, you promised.”
“Hmm, well, would you like some breakfast before you run off?” her mother asked.
Flora was already dressed and almost out the front door. “And ruin my festival appetite?” she asked. “Not likely.”
Before her mother could say another word, Flora was out the door and running toward the town center.
“Wait, you didn’t remember to water your mattress.” her mother called out.
“It’ll be fine,” Flora answered without turning back to look.
“Well don’t blame me if you sleep on dried grass tonight,” her mother answered, but Flora hardly heard her. The entire village of Terrene spent a week after the Blooming preparing an enormous festival. Flora’s stomach was growling, but it would only take thirty minutes to get to Podek where she could gorge herself on delicious festival food. Flora started running down Southern Spoke Road towards downtown. The sooner she got there, the sooner she would be fed. But more importantly, there would be an Institute scholar at the festival.
Every year, the Institute sent a representative to the Blooming Festival. The Institute scholar would sometimes bring rare treats to share with the children. Flora thought back to when she was six and a man in the white robes of the Institute had thrown her a piece of candy seed. She grabbed it and ran away from the crowd, guarding her treasure jealously. She sucked on the candy for the whole day, the seed constantly changing its sweetness so that she never got bored of it. She remembered how she cried when she woke up the next morning to find that she had swallowed the seed.
“Wait, Flora.”
Flora stopped and looked around to find that she had just run past Mendel who was calmly sitting in the middle of the road.
“Hey,” she panted, trying to catch her breath. “Mendel. What’s. Up?”
“I’m taking a study break to check out the festival,” he replied. “You’re just in time as the Institute representative should be arriving soon.”
“So why are you sitting in the middle of the road then?” she asked.
“I was waiting for you,” Mendel said.
“Because?” Flora asked suspiciously.
“Well, it occurred to me that Crick may still harbor some animosity towards me,” Mendel said.
“Oh, quite likely,” Flora said.
“And it is also probable that he may have similar feelings about you,” Mendel added.
“So far your genius brain hasn’t told me anything very illuminating,” Flora said.
“Well, it is likely that Crick and his cohorts are visiting the festival today and may cause us harm if we are sighted,” Mendel said. “I’d like to propose that we venture into the festival together as there is some protection afforded by greater numbers.”
“Fine, whatever,” Flora said. “Just don’t get in my way.”
She took off once again towards Podek, with Mendel trailing behind her. Soon they reached the outskirts of downtown where dozens of small shops lined the streets. A gray-haired man wearing a wonderfully colorful pair of patchwork jeans and a wide-brimmed straw hat was walking out of Martha’s seed shop. Some children were playing around Madam Maureen’s candy shop. They were playing “tree” where one kid would try to stay standing while the other two climbed on top of him. The crowd of people on the street started to thicken as they approached the first of the floats.
The float before them was a ten foot high work of abstract art growing out of a large cart. The group of six artists walking with the cart were all workers at the textile workshop nearby. They had worked over the last few months to plan, plant, and grow the arrangement that they were now pulling slowly through the streets.
From the barrel of soil in the base of the cart, a dark, twisted tree grew in a five foot diameter coil, very slowly reaching up to the sky. Through the center of the coil, a slender white tree shot straight up with no branches at all until it reached past the coil. At the top, the slender tree broke into a dense web of branches and leaves, creating a parasol over the twisted tree easily twice as wide as Flora could reach. Hundreds of tiny grape-like fruits grew on strings that wound horizontally along vines that hung from the parasol, creating three colorful rings. The top ring was purple, the middle ring green, and the bottom ring red.
As people walked by, they stopped to admire the work. Some chatted with the artists and offered their compliments. Many more grabbed a few grapes and ate them. That’s what Mendel and Flora did as they went by.
“Oh, I’m starving,” Flora exclaimed. “Hey, these are really great.” Flora said to Mendel.
As Flora and Mendel got closer to the center of town, they saw more floats. The first one they passed was a giant cabbage, the size of a kitchen table. Out of the center of the cabbage grew a small orange tree. The next one was made entirely from tomato plants grown
upside down from a suspended net. It looked like a massive chandelier with several layers peeling away from the center. The tomatoes were a bit tart, but still delicious. The hospital workers who brought it made sure the tomatoes weren’t bruised. The aqueduct engineers had a float that actually floated. They grew hydroponic plants suspended in a giant bowl of water.
By the time they reached the central square, Flora was no longer hungry, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t interested in eating more. The square was filled with people in their most colorful garb. It was typical for someone to keep one shirt for their whole adult life. As the shirt got worn, patches of color would be sewn on to repair it, creating a multi-colored tapestry, balancing color and placement. Flora glanced down at her plain indigo shirt. Her mother had dyed it to hide the graffiti, but now it looked brand new, and being labeled a shopper wasn’t much better than being labeled a freak.
“Why’d you stop?” Mendel asked, nearly running into her.
“No reason,” Flora said, trying not to imagine people staring at her shirt. “I was just thinking of how to get close to the Institute scholar. If he can answer some of my questions, then you won’t have to.”
“That is unadvisable.” Mendel said. “Unsanctioned interaction with Institute scholars is forbidden. Getting caught could jeopardize the results of our graduation exams.”
“Then I won’t tell you my plan,” Flora said, “and you can remain completely innocent.” But the truth was she didn’t have a plan, at least not yet.
Flora pushed her way into the main square where a large clock tower rose high above the other buildings on the north side. It was the oldest building in Terrene and the only one made from stone. Some said that the clock had been running smoothly, needing only the most minor of adjustments, for almost a thousand years. Small stands were arranged around the other sides of the square, each with a one foot tall number chalked above the front. Flora looked around and saw Rina working busily behind stand number fourteen.
A small wooden deck had been erected in front of the clock tower to act as a stage. A short, portly man with an impressively long patchworked jacket walked up the steps to the deck. His thick black mustache joined up with a well-trimmed goatee. He had joyful black eyes and rosy cheeks that gave him a youthful vigor despite his balding head. He looked around and then slowly raised his arms.