Chapter Fifteen: New Friends

Following the two girls who originally came into the library, kids trickled in pretty fast. One of the first girls walked over to a bookcase and made the familiar motion, turning it into a door. Everyone made their way across the floor, still engrossed in conversation within their cliques. Eventually they all managed to make it into the next room, waving hello to Master Oilreid along the way. A few even smiled at Evie, though she didn’t recognize any of them. She watched dispassionately. She half hoped Bridget would walk through the door, but it really hadn’t been that long since she left.

Master Oilreid noticed her standing there after all the other kids had gone though. He touched her shoulder and nodded his head toward the other room. “I’m teaching a class now. I would like it very much if you came.”

Evie had never been in a classroom before, but if she were to imagine one, she thought it would have looked much like what they walked into. Or perhaps several of her imagined classrooms put together would have looked like this. It was shaped, like the rest of the rooms she saw in the library, almost circular. Several walls met at corners all the way around. Each wall hosted a giant blackboard on the top half and cabinets on the bottom. Ten desks faced each blackboard, except that they bowed into semi-circles, rather than straight lines in order to fit. Her mind immediately pictured the star shape she would see if she peered at the desks from above the room. The set up allowed for a large open area in the middle of the room, despite the desks. All the kids stood inside the star, talking and laughing with their friends.

Master Oilreid held both hands in the air as he walked into the room behind Evie. The crowd quieted and turned their attention to the teacher. He spoke in a loud voice that echoed through the cavernous room. “Hello everyone! First off, let me introduce our new student.” He put one hand on each of her shoulders. “Evie has just arrived in the spritested with her cousin, Bridget.”

Without even thinking Evie said, “She’s my sister,” in a near whisper.

Master Oilreid didn’t look surprised. He simply continued on, “Pardon me, it seems Evie and Bridget are sisters. We also want to welcome their traveling companion, Trevor.” Evie looked up in shock. The old man had a hand pointing back toward the door, where Trevor managed to sneak in unnoticed. In two steps, Master Oilreid had an arm around Trevor and ushered him toward Evie. To the group of children he said, “Bridget may join us later. She is receiving instruction in her particular talent. That caused an eruption of whispers. Master Oilreid cleared his throat and said in a somewhat louder voice, “Shall we begin?” The room went silent once again.

With a sly little smile he continued in a quiet, confidential tone. The rest of the students seemed to be on the tips of their toes listening. “Around five years ago, a delegation of emeray arrived at the spritested. Their objective was to better understand the culture of the native forest sprites. They spent piles of gold on the trip, research materials and carrying out the various experiments. It was only a few days ago that the delegation thanked the sprites for their cooperation and made their way slowly back to their native people. The president of the emeray welcomed the delegation back with an enormous feast and asked them to present their findings. Naturally, they rambled on about their objectives and methods of observation, as emeray tend to do. But when it came time to present their conclusions to the gathered dignitaries, they were able to put all their findings into one sentence. The leader of the delegation proudly announced that three-fourths of all the sprites in this spritested make up seventy-five percent of the population.”

The group of kids burst into laughter. A few, Evie noticed, furrowed their eyebrows in confusion, mostly younger students. Evie hadn’t known that the man was making a joke. She thought he was starting a lesson on emeray? Whatever those were. It took her a moment to review the words in her head before she chuckled a bit in amusement. She felt sure the joke would have been funnier if she really understood who the teacher had been talking about.

Master Oilreid had both his hands in the air again and the laughing and chattering died down. He said, “Now we are going to break into small groups to start today, so that we can continue working on our individual projects. Please explain the joke to anyone who was not laughing. Remember, these jokes are not just for lightening up the mood. They will help you understand the concepts we discuss in class.” He lowered his hands and everyone began heading from the center of the room to the smaller classroom-looking sections.

Master Oilreid called out to a couple of older girls who turned to him and went silent. “Janis and Jenelle, will you ladies take Evie into your group and let her know what we are doing? She has been given a lot of previous instruction, so she should not have a difficult time catching on.” The girls nodded in unison and Master Oilreid turned to usher Trevor over to another group.

Janis flashed a beautiful smile at Evie. She was beautiful, almost as pretty as Bridget, though very different. Janis and Jenelle looked like sisters. They both had the same black hair, black eyes and dark brown skin. They wore identical ponytails and similar long dresses. Evie had never seen anyone wear a dress when it wasn’t a holiday. Most of the girls in the village just wore skirts to play in. But these dresses looked casual. She’d never seen anything like the cut. They went strait down from the shoulders instead of forming to the girl’s shapes. Each girl held a bag of books over her shoulder that matched the material of their dresses. For a moment Evie thought the girls were twins, but a closer examination showed that Jenelle looked about her age and Janis seemed to be a few years older. Her face just looked more mature. Both girls were thin, but Jenelle’s face still rounded at the edges, as if she was very young and hadn’t completely outgrown her baby fat.

Evie smiled back, a little weakly. Her stomach fluttered in excitement to start learning whatever she could. She had always enjoyed lessons, even though they’d never had anything to do with magic. But she still felt so stunned and unsure. She had really hoped Master Oilreid would help her more than he had and she couldn’t stop running his words through her head in hopes of understanding. Suddenly another thought came to the front of her mind. As the girls led her toward a section of the room she asked, “What is an emeray?” Both girls burst out laughing again.

Janis answered with a smile, “They are a different forest people, kind of like the sprites, but they don’t have any magical ability. We learned about them last week. Master Oilreid said they are completely devoted to research. He said they’d devote an entire lifetime to studying a specific snail and write heaps of books based on it. It’s said that they’ve a library even more impressive than this one.” At her first words Evie thought she was a souray. But as she continued to speak Evie noticed her accent sounded slightly different from Trevor’s and Master Oilreid’s. It seemed less precise and clipped. She’d never heard anything like it before. She’d never seen anyone like these girls before, either.

The girl gazed at Evie for another moment as if waiting for a response. When she didn’t get one, she continued. “Master Oilreid starts every lesson with a joke. He thinks that if we understand why a joke about what we’re learning is funny, we really must understand what he’s trying to teach us. Last week we studied emeray and fractions.” She giggled and continued in a confidential tone. “The only problem is that the man is really not that funny. So, most of us laugh whether we get it or not so that he’ll think he’s teaching well. Which he is, of course, even when we don’t understand his daily opening joke.”

The three had continued walking while they chatted and as Janis finished her explanation, the walls surrounding the small section of classroom they entered shimmered and became solid. Evie stopped walking and stared. A moment before she had walked through very large room with several smaller classrooms around the edges. Now she stood in a triangle shaped room, as if walls had sprung up to separate this section from the rest of the huge library room. Of course it shouldn’t have surprised her after all that had happened since she left her village. But her mouth dropped open anyway.

Janis and Jenelle both smiled at her. They must have guessed what was going through her head. The small room contained two other people as well. A boy with blonde hair and glasses was scratching numbers across the chalkboard. He might have been one or two years younger than Evie. Every few seconds he would step back and examine what he’d written while tapping a chalk-stained finger on the side of his nose. He wore clothes a lot like Trevor’s when she met him, except his outfit was dark blue rather than black. He muttered too quietly for her to determine if he had the same accent. If he noticed them, he showed no sign.

Another boy straddled a chair sitting backward. He looked rather bored. His black pen twirled around is fingers with amazing ease. He rested his chin on his hand atop the back of the chair so that only his eyes moved when the girls entered. It was enough to startle an already jumpy Evie, though. She looked away from the magical walls to see his piercing green eyes staring at her and jumped again.

Janis took two steps toward the boy and smacked him on the back of the head. “Stop glaring, Devin. She’s already uncomfortable. She doesn’t need your ugly mug scaring the daylights out of her.” His glare didn’t go away, but it seemed to be reserved especially for Janis now. He rubbed the back of his head and looked sullen, staring at the girl in disgust. Evie noticed his clothes now, too. How had she missed them before?

He wore what seemed to be a nice coat over his trousers. Before she had left her village she’d never seen such finely dressed men when it wasn’t a holiday. But he didn’t look dignified like Trevor and the others she’d seen. His coat hung open to reveal a bright yellow shirt underneath. The whole outfit looked wrinkled and too big. He seemed, well, like a slob in nice clothes. His sandy red hair stuck out everywhere around his head, curling so it looked even messier. He was old too: definitely older than her, probably older than Janis.

With another murderous look at Janis he said in an irritated tone, “Can we please get started? I have better things to do today than stay cooped up in this old library.”

Janis almost appeared sympathetic. Evie got the feeling the tension between them was more playful than malicious. “You are not a moron, you know. You could do great things if you didn’t hate lessons so much.”

In a sullen voice, he responded, “I do not hate it. It is just that you-know-who did not show up today. Which means he is out there torturing small animals or burning down homes and I can not even make his life difficult in return.” His chin went back down onto the rear of his chair as Janis sighed. Evie gazed around, perplexed. Who was he talking about? After a minute, she shrugged. Since she didn’t know anyone, she had no chance of guessing. She could be logical and logic said there was absolutely no sense in worrying about it.

Janis clapped her hands loudly, as if she wanted to take charge of a very large class of unruly children and everyone in the room turned to look at her. She even managed to get the attention of the boy at the chalkboard for a second. It didn’t last however. Before she could begin talking he stared at the floor with his eyebrows furrowed, obviously deep in thought. “Phineas, Devin, this is Evie. She’s going to be in our research group. Evie, this part of class is called cooperative teams. We all have different talents here and our goal is to learn to work together using those talents. We are given a challenge to complete as a team. Only, in order to do it, we have to work together.”

“Which means we all do what Janis says!” Devin added with a smile.

Janis cleared her throat and shot Devin an irritated look before continuing. “Which means!...that we have to get to know each other a little bit better in order to continue. So, tell us a little bit about yourself, Evie.”

Evie took a step back. No one had ever asked her that before. She grew up in a small village where everyone knew everyone else. She’d never met a real stranger until Trevor and Anna came to her house. It all amounted to her having no idea what to say in order to introduce herself.
Janis smiled encouragingly, but seemed to understand that Evie struggled. She turned to her sister and said, “Maybe you should start, Jenelle.”

The younger girl nodded and grinned. “My name is Jenelle and I am from a town outside the main kingdom. It is inhabited entirely by vedaray, like my sister and I.” Evie’s eyes widened. What was a vedaray? She asked without even considering whether it might make her look dumb or be insulting. Luckily, Jenelle just kept smiling and explained, “We can see feelings. Everyone else can tell what someone feels by the way they act. We can tell even if they don’t show it on their faces. We see colors around people, auras. Different colors mean they are feeling different things. It’s difficult to learn what they all mean, but I’m working on it.”

Evie’s mouth dropped open. “I’ve never heard of such a thing before.”

Janis answered, sadly. “That’s because there aren’t many of us left. We live away from other people because there have been times in the past where we were hated and hunted because people were afraid of what we could do. They thought it was too much like mind-reading.”

Evie shivered unconsciously. It would be scary to have people read your mind. She suddenly felt a little wary of these two friendly girls. “You know what people are thinking?” She asked.
“No.” Janis answered. “Nobody can do that, Evie. Your thoughts are your own. We just know if you’re scared or angry, even if you don’t shiver or yell.” She smiled proudly. “During different periods of history vedaray were leaders and counsellors. We have a lot to offer. Master Oilreid recognizes that. He doesn’t think there is any reason for people to be afraid of us. You can trust him.” Her smile looked sympathetic this time. Evie colored. She hoped her momentary wariness hadn’t been showing plainly on her face. Then it occurred to her. Perhaps Janis had seen an aura. She was going to have to be careful what she thought…felt…around these girls; if that was even possible.

Out of the corner of her eye Evie noticed Devin flip the chair he was sitting on around and lean back with his feet up on a desk. He looked so cool and relaxed. None of this talk affected him in the slightest. He sighed and said, “The thing about vedaray is that they can be sympathetic enough to make the rest of us ill. I think it is best when you don’t know what people are thinking. Then you don’t have to pretend to care.”

Janis shook her head and said, “Let’s move on to Phineas. He’s more interesting than Devin.” Evie doubted it. That boy had gone right back to staring at his blackboard. If she had to rank the people she’d met since leaving her village in order from most interesting to least, Phineas would come in just slightly above Elder Banied’s horse.

At having his name mentioned, though, he turned and blinked at Evie. He looked right at her, but she had the distinct impression he saw right past her. A moment later he glanced back toward the blackboard as if he’d already forgotten that Janis had spoken to him. His lips moved slowly in silent muttering. Janis clapped her hands again and said in a loud voice, “Phineas! Pay attention! It’s your turn to introduce yourself to Evie.”

The boy looked irritated for a second before he extended a hand to Evie and said in a flat tone, “Hello. My name is Phineas.” He paused for a second and got that distant look again. Then, without warning, his face split into a smile. It surprised Evie. She had seen two emotions from him in the past minute. She wouldn’t have thought he had so much personality. When he spoke again she understood the reason for the smile. “I am working on calculations. That is one of my great strengths. Since you are in our group, I thought I’d figure the odds and be able to tell what your talents are by probability. That will help us understand how you are useful in our project.”

Evie understood none of that, but it didn’t sound all that interesting. It surprised her, a little, to learn that being a geek was a talent like using magic. The boy turned back to his board and the chalk screeched loudly. Janis exhaled irritably and then smiled at Evie. She explained, “Phineas is half souray, half emeray. He’s a very rare kid because emeray don’t usually marry outside their own group. Also, usually a half and half will only show the traits of one parent. Phineas is one of the few that seems to have at least some characteristics from both parents, although he may grow out of that. Right now he’s the only emeray at the school.”
That got Evie’s attention. This kid was one of those creatures the joke described? Without thinking she said, “So, he’s a researcher, like Master Oilreid mentioned?”

Phineas flipped around and glared at her. He said in a voice very different from the distracted tone he had used earlier, “For your information, that joke didn’t even make sense. If there had been a group of emeray researching the spritested, the conclusion that seventy-five percent of the population made up three-fourths of those here would be an important statement about the isolationist tendencies of sprites. That conclusion is obviously flawed, however, since we are a part of the population of this spritested and none of us has any sprite blood that we are aware of. Of course researchers may have defined the population as being only the people who were of sprite blood. On that hand it would say something about sprites not intermarrying with other people. That’s not accurate either. There are a few sprites here who aren’t one hundred percent sprite. So, you can see that the research you so easily scoffed at could have important merit in understanding the cultural habits of the people here.” He nodded as if it all made perfect sense now, which left Evie’s head ringing.

She said the only thing that came to her mind, “WHAT?!” The boy glared at her and everyone else in the room burst out laughing. Suddenly Evie laughed with them. Somehow, just at that moment, she understood Master Oilreid’s joke. She didn’t understand what the boy had been trying to say, but she knew that he defended the ridiculous research that the joke had scoffed at. And she found the whole thing very funny.

The light-hearted moment didn’t last long. Soon, Janis called everyone to attention once again. She gestured toward Devin and said, “Your turn.”

Devin still had his head in his hands, giggling madly. When it became clear that everyone else was just staring at him he lifted his head and made a helpless gesture. “But he…” he laughed, “…and then she…” He seemed unable to get control of himself despite the fact that Janis and Jenelle stared at him with almost identical looks of consternation. He cleared his throat, “It was funny, okay.” With a sigh that seemed to say, “fine, then,” he looked at Evie. “I am Devin. I am a souray: just a plain, ordinary, boring souray. I have no odd blood or interesting abilities. Although I can do this…” He flashed his hands in a throwing gesture and the chalkboard lit on fire.

Thick, black smoke billowed up to the ceiling and Phineas jumped back in surprise. The sides of the board began to curl inward as if it had been made of paper and the fire rushed down to the stone floor. Amazingly, the stone burned as well as the board had and within seconds the entire front half of the room seemed alive with flame. Evie would have run away, screaming, but Phineas hadn’t moved since his original jump. He seemed to have gone into shock, staring, tight-mouthed at his dwindling calculations. Janis stood still, also. Her hands were planted firmly on her hips and one of her feet tapped like a scolding mother. The fire ended in a strait line that made a square with two sides as the ceiling and floor and two sides as the walls. Once it had taken half the room completely, it stopped spreading. Oddly, the smoke stayed confined by that invisible line as well. Only then did it occur to Evie that she felt no heat from the fire.

Devin ignored Phineas, who had turned his scowl to the older boy, and Janis, who still tapped her foot. But when Jenelle said in a small voice, “Devin, please. Evie has been through a lot. Don’t scare her,” he waved his hand again with a sigh. The whole thing vanished. It was simply there and then gone. The chalk board, which had been no more than a smouldering skeleton a second before, looked the same as it had before the fire began. It even had a line of chalk extending from the last number Phineas had written before his surprised jump.

Janis acted as if the whole thing had never happened. She said to Evie, “Devin has a particular talent for illusion. He still struggles when it comes to actually doing things.” She made “actually” and “doing” sound like slaps in the face. Not that Evie thought he didn’t deserve it. If she had been lighting things on fire during her lessons with Elder Banied, she would have gotten into more trouble than she could imagine.