The Lord of the Plains (15 page)

Razra edged closer, ‘well, this gemeng,
Molzolzor, snuck into Astar and stole Zolcar’s identity, that’s
Jeitar’s friend from the other show, remember?’

Riley didn’t know what to do so she gaped,
dumbstruck.

‘Anyway, Jeitar…’

By the time Ms Thrope called the children in
for class Riley had heard about most of Jeitar and Molozor’s most
recent adventure. As they were heading in Razra whispered the end,
‘So Molzolzor was really Molozor’s
father
, and that’s why
Molozor ran away to Astar, because his father was an
evil
gemeng! He escaped, but Jeitar’ll get him and save Astar.’

‘Astar needs saving?’ Riley asked
weakly.

‘Well Molzolzor’s plotting to destroy
it!’

When the day ended Riley was relieved to see
Aerlid waiting for her at the fence. She ran to him, and Aerlid was
struck with worry. When they walked home Riley told him they had to
watch out for Molzolzor.

‘Molzol…who?’ Aerlid asked weakly.

Riley told him about how an evil gemeng was
plotting to destroy Astar. He got the whole story out of her, and
zoomed in on ‘ceta’.

Aerlid quickly detoured back to the clinic
to talk to Keila.

When he was finished he had to explain to
Riley Molzolzor wasn’t real. It was a serial play put on for
children at the Children’s Theatre of Astar.

She was very relieved to hear that.

Razra was friends with most of the children
in their class, so even though Riley had made a friend, she often
sat alone. Razra was not a mean boy, but he had a need to push the
boundaries and find where he stood in the playground hierarchy. He
already knew his position in his own family, and he needed to know
the same for school. He often came across as pushy and mean and his
friendships tended to seesaw between love and hate. This didn’t
concern him, for wasn’t it the same with his siblings? One minute
he could be fighting with Meila, the next they’d be ganging up
against Fann.

Riley wasn’t a brilliant student, however
she was perhaps the most well behaved. The other children weren’t
sure how to treat her. She didn’t behave like the other gemengs,
who were always pathetically pleased when a human deigned to play
with them.

Today all the children were gathered outside
under Ms Thrope’s watchful eye. This was to be the first day they’d
have a physical lesson, and in mixed classes the first lesson could
always be…problematic. Ms Thrope had just finished explaining to
everyone how they had to be careful with each other, and not to
play rough etc etc.

Riley listened attentively. There was a
pause as Ms Thrope cast her eye once more over the assembled
children. ‘The rules are simple,’ she announced, ’if you are
touched by whoever is ‘it’ you must stop. You can only move again
if someone circles you twice without being tagged themselves. I
don’t want to see any rough play! Jann, you will start as ‘it’.
GO!’

The children began running around and
laughing. Riley, who had been instructed by Aerlid not to be
faster, stronger, better than the strongest gemeng in the class,
watched and ran carefully. She was silent and mostly ignored.

After some minutes of play Ms Thrope
declared that Leili was it. Riley freed two people easily- perhaps
moving quicker and more agilely than she should have. Then she
allowed herself to be tagged.

‘Razra, you’re it!’ Ms Thrope called.

Riley was freed finally and ran to free some
more people.

‘Riley, you’re it!’

Riley stopped, startled. She looked at Ms
Thrope who gestured at her to get on with it. She was the first
gemeng to be chosen.

Riley looked around, spotted someone who she
knew hadn’t been tagged yet and chose him as her target. She ran
after him. The boy was panting. Riley let the chase continue for
some seconds then started building up speed. Ms Thrope watched in
apprehension as she approached. Then Riley tapped the boy on the
back, so lightly the boy didn’t notice and kept running. Riley
stopped in consternation. She didn’t want to hurt him. She was
meant to be gentle.

‘Darni, stop, you were tagged!’ Ms Thrope
called, and nodded at Riley. ‘You may tap a little harder than
that. Not much harder, just a little bit.’

Just to be on the safe side Ms Thrope called
another human as ‘it’ before Riley could experiment.

Aerlid frowned as Riley told him about her
day. It was a routine they had. They sat in the living room, he on
one chair she standing up, as it was her preference.

‘And we’ve been learning to write.’ she was
saying.

‘Riley.’

She fell silent.

‘Why are you talking like that?’

Riley looked at him blankly.

He sighed as he tried to explain. ‘The way
you are talking, it is not how I taught you.’ he said.

‘That’s how they talk at school. I’m fitting
in.’

‘It is poor language.’ he said harshly. ‘It
is talking like a baby!’

He hadn’t noticed how poorly the Astarians
spoke until he had noticed Riley’s speech changing, perhaps because
he had been so tired when he first arrived that he had got used to
it without noticing it. The Seiaan spoken in Astar was not the same
as when he’d learnt it. Only a child would have been permitted to
use it in the way the people of Astar did. Seiaan had never been a
complicated language, and what complexity it
had
possessed
had been stripped from it. At best, Keila and Jania thought he
spoke in a very formal way. At worst they had trouble understanding
him. He didn’t have trouble understanding them though. No more
trouble than any adult had understanding a seven year old.

It was a tragedy to hear it spoken so but
perhaps… ‘Very well,’ he choked out. ‘Speak that way among the
people of Astar, but with me, please speak properly.’

Riley nodded, her big green eyes watching
him intently.

Oh, if someone had done to his language what
the Astarians had done to theirs…

‘You were saying they’d begun teaching you
to read.’ he said carefully, as a man expecting a mortal blow.

She nodded.

‘Show me.’

They had no paper so for the next hour they
went outside and Riley made shapes in the dirt.

It took him about that long to figure out
what, exactly, he was looking at. Back when Seiaan had been spoken
properly
it had never been a written language, they had used
Akran instead for their writing. Sometimes they had also used
Bedon- a language from a land which had been further north. This
was… he rather thought it was a sloppy mix of poor Akran, misguided
Bedon and an attempt to force Seiaan into written form.

He swallowed and choked. It wasn’t likely
that teaching her to read Akran or Bedon would be very useful, but
allowing her to learn this… nonsense was the kindest word for it…
that would take some getting used to.

For half an hour or an hour every day the
children learnt to read. In the beginning Ms Thrope taught them on
the blackboard but they had progressed enough now that in groups
they were given simple books to try and read. Ms Thrope as usual
kept a very close eye on her charges. The children had been
informed that if a book was damaged the entire group would have to
split the cost. They were also aware that if they were very,
very
good they might earn the chance to take a book home for
the night- once again if it was damaged or lost their family would
be paying for it.

Because of the risk involved not all
families wanted the honour of keeping a book for the night. Those
that were interested gave their names to Ms Thrope. Riley was among
the few gemengs that had their name on the list. Aerlid had been
positively delighted at the thought of having a book to teach her
to read with, after he had recovered from the shock of what was
considered written language in Astar. Riley’s lessons continued
after school as well. At the moment they made do with writing with
sticks in the dirt.

When Riley returned home that day Aerlid
once again asked if she had a book with her.

‘No.’ she replied and put her backpack on
the table. ‘Are we going to train now?’ Under the table her animal
skin bed roll was carefully stowed. They did not have enough money
to buy a second bed yet. Riley preferred to sleep on the floor
herself rather than have Aerlid do it.

Aerlid fixed her with a hard look. ‘No. You
are going to sit down and tell me about your day.’

Riley sighed and took a seat, her short legs
dangling far from the floor. ‘We read and did numbers and geography
and played and I had to do immersion with the other gemengs.’

Immersion was a time when gemengs were
taught basic things about life in Astar that humans already knew.
Despite the fact that most gemeng children had been born in Astar
all gemengs were required to take part and were tested. For Riley
however, it was very useful and this was a class she tended to
share with Aerlid. During this time the humans learnt about
gemengs. What they learnt Riley didn’t know- she didn’t believe
Razra was a reliable source on this topic.

‘What about history?’

‘No.’

Aerlid frowned. ‘When are you going to do
that? Next year?’

Riley shrugged.

‘I would like you to ask.’

Riley nodded.

Aerlid relented and asked her what she had
learnt in immersion.

The next day Riley waited until the other
children had left for lunch before approaching Ms Thrope with her
question.

‘Ms Thrope, I have a question.’

Ms Thrope fixed her with a steely gaze.
‘Yes, Riley, what is it?’

‘When do we learn about history?’

There was a pause. ‘What?’ she asked
finally.

‘When do we learn about history?’ Riley
repeated herself exactly.

‘History.’ Ms Thrope repeated.

‘Yes.’ Riley now thought Ms Thrope had not
misheard her, but had not understood her, and started to explain
what history was. ‘Well…when was Astar colonized? Where did the
humans live before? Where did they come from?’ These were things
she had gathered Aerlid wanted to know.

Ms Thrope frowned severely at her. ‘School
is for important matters. We don’t waste our time with trivialities
like that, that sort of thing is for the CTA. Now go and eat your
lunch.’

Riley nodded, her task accomplished, and
obeyed Ms Thrope’s command.

When she repeated Ms Thrope’s response to
Aerlid he very nearly exploded.