Melaleuca turned to Quixote.
‘I dread to ask what happened in detention.’
He told them of the freezing waters and how he had overcome them. Truth and fantasy mixed as he reported shooting icicles at flying bats.
‘Did only Mohg see?’ Melaleuca asked.
‘No one else was there.’
‘Just as well Qui,’ Ari said. ‘I had to back away from a challenge today, because I did not want to risk giving us away. You need to think of others, namely us.’
‘I know. I just can’t help it.’
‘Help it,’ Melaleuca said.
The horn sounded and all the students started filing inside.
A prefect turned up and took them to their next class; learning how to push each other over and get up again without showing any emotion. Though fun at first, after an hour it became tedious again.
Quixote of course got sent to detention again. Racked and stretched, he made Mohg goggle in amazement, as he lay there unaffected and told Mohg that it tickled. There were more lessons on suffering, falling, being strong and hard.
The last lesson of the day started in a classroom where the desks sat in a large circular ring. In the middle, a small raised platform stood, with what looked like an altar on it. Several drains lay around it, and knives, swords, scissors, sharp curled pointy instruments and an assortment of other torturous tools sat.
On their desks sat a knife, a pair of scissors, and a small hammer. Lexington touched the knife with a finger.
‘I don’t like the look of this.’
The other students seemed as old as them, and at least wore the same clothes, though from the looks on their faces, they appeared as unsure as the cousins felt.
The door burst open and in marched Task-Matron Bircher followed by several black-clothed seniors, including Imerelia, Prangard, Gregand, and Jerkin. As he passed them, Jerkin smirked.
Task-Matron Bircher ushered her rotund body onto the platform. From her elevated height her hardened knees protruded out of her knee-less trousers, along with podgy squashes of fat, oozing to squeeze its way out. Her great gut pushed hard into her red shirt, and her great cape fell to the ground from her shoulders, adding even more bulk to her squat form.
‘SILENCE,’ she yelled out of her pig face, to class already hushed.
The students sucked in their breath, daring not breath again until she spoke.
‘Soon you will undergo your second tribulation, the Unforbidden Forest….’ Adding with great delight, ‘Some of you will die, some will go mad, some will survive.’
She paused, swinging her eyes around the room gauging their response, resting her cold stare on the cousins long enough for everyone else to become aware of them as well.
She threw her Galeslar-clad arm up high, and screeched, while rushing about the circle of desks.
‘TO LEARN TO SUFFER YOU MUST FIRST LEARN TO CAUSE OTHERS TO SUFFER! THAT WAY YOU WILL BE ABLE TO RISE ABOVE YOUR OWN SUFFERING!’
She pointed to an object on her thick decorated Galeslar, tugging at it and surging around the class, so they could all witness it. Between her fingers she held a small dried ear.
‘ONLY FEW ATTAIN THE RANK OF TASK-MATRON, AND FEWER THE RANK OF SAH TASK-MATRON. FOR MINE OWN RANK, I LET MY OPPONENT DIE SLOWLY AND REMAINED CENTERED, SOLID AND STRONG!’
Lexington looked at her cousins with dread. She felt for her notebook, shut her eyes, and in her mind tried to imagine this was a play, just a nasty horrible play, and she was a reporter, merely, reporting and watching.
Ari steeled himself. He wanted to protect Lexington, though after being called a coward this morning he wanted to rise to whatever challenge was about to come. He looked at Melaleuca to check if she was okay. Fire blazed in her eyes, and he could see she readied herself as well. Already she had made it black or white. Either they survive or they don’t. And they would survive.
Quixote heard some of Task-Matron Bircher’s babble, but became fascinated with the tools on his desk. In his mind, he had already used them to carve his name in the desk and to pretend sword fight with Ari.
Task-Matron Bircher relaxed all at once, dropping her stern voice.
‘But for most of you it will never happen or it is a long way off. Today it is quite a lot simpler.’
She snapped her fingers.
From out of their pockets the seniors produced a number of pigeons. They took them to the desks of the students and hammered them to the desk via a small leash attached to their legs.
Task-Matron Bircher beamed.
‘Kill your pigeon!’
All around them students picked up the knives, and like brain-washed robots, began cutting, stabbing, and bashing the pigeons. Feathers flew, pigeons squawked and gurgled, and sickening thumping noises filled the classroom.
Task-Matron Bircher’s eyes alighted upon the unmoving cousins. Staring at their pigeons, they waited for Melaleuca’s decision. Task-Matron Bircher flicked her eyes toward Jerkin, who snapped to attention, nodded, and strode over to them.
‘Kill it.’
Gregand yelled at a girl next to Quixote, ‘KILL IT! HURRY!’
The girl reached for her live pigeon.
‘But I did!’
Task-Matron Bircher swung her fat body in the direction of the girl.
‘Slap her.’
The hard slap echoed around the classroom.
Ari, Melaleuca and Lexington glanced at the poor girl, noticing that Quixote’s pigeon lay on his desk, its entrails hanging out. He gave them the “okay” sign, while the poor girl next to him, red cheeked, attacked her pigeon.
Melaleuca looked with pity on the pigeon, reasoning that thousands of them die every day, what would another one matter. Besides, her cousins came first. Melaleuca and Ari’s eyes met. She nodded at him, and he reached out, resentful, and snapped the pigeon’s neck in one swift move.
Melaleuca relaxed, imagining she was a real Vahn student used to this treatment. With little thought, her uniform and bracelet shot her arms out, and she snapped the pigeon’s neck.
As the only student with a live pigeon, cooing on her desk, all eyes sat on Lexington. She lowered her head, not wanting to kill it. Incensed by the senseless slaughtering, she decided to use her gentleness. Raising her head, she defied Task-Matron Bircher, and tried to make her face appear as gentle as possible.
Melaleuca’s heart sank. Impressed Lexington stood up for herself; she could see murderous intent on Task-Matron Bircher’s face.
‘Play along,’ Melaleuca said.
Task-Matron Bircher heaved her body before Lexington.
‘Kill it.’
‘It is a stronger person who stands alone against the crowd,’ Lexington said.
An icy expression formed on Task-Matron Bircher’s face.
‘I said I would enjoy breaking you.’
Unflinching, they stared back and forth at each other, until the tension threatened to suffocate the class.
Task-Matron Bircher snapped her fingers, pointed to Prangard and then to a boy. ‘Put him in the middle.’
Prangard shoved the boy into the middle.
‘Kill the pigeon or he dies.’
The boy’s face collapsed in a heap of worry.
Lexington hesitated. She did not want anyone to die, though she spotted a flaw in Task-Matron Bircher’s logic.
‘If he dies, it will be by your command, and on your head.’
‘Three more students, now!’
The seniors ripped three more from their desks, frog-marching them into the middle.
‘KILL IT! KILL IT SLOWLY OR THEY ALL DIE!’
Lexington held her ground, trying hard to ignore the four students in the middle.
Task-Matron Bircher snatched herself about, bellowing at the class.
‘Look at her! She is weak! She cannot even slay a pigeon to save four of her fellow Vahnites.’
Quixote thrust himself up.
‘Or maybe, she is so tough, that she wants them to die! Did
you think of that?’
‘A week in detention!’
She glared at Quixote and then bent down and plucked up an ant, placing it on Lexington’s desk, saying in put-on, sweet voice, ‘Ohh, maybe you can squash da little wittle bug, ehhh! Do you think you can do that?’
Task-Matron Bircher squashed half of the ant’s body with her fat thumb, leaving the other half to flail around. She leant in close to Lexington, whispering, ‘You mistake us for brutes. We care for the land. We care for the animals. If we don’t, we do not eat. If we do not eat, we do not survive. BUT!!!!’ she roared again, ‘IF WE CANNOT STAND TO INFLICT A LITTLE SUFFERING THEN WE WILL FALL.’
Reporter, reporter. Pretend I am a reporter.
Feeling her heart pump like crazy, she wished she had never come back, yet somehow she managed to pull out an imaginary notebook and pretend to jot notes down. Task Matron Bircher drew her head back in surprise and Lexington saw this as her chance to counter her logic once again.
‘The wind has no substance, yet it wears a strong mountain down.’
‘Kill kill kill kill,’ Jerkin started chanting, encouraging the class to take up the chant.
By the time the class was in full chant, Lexington had shut her eyes and held her hands over her ears.
Chapter 28 - Marauders Amok
Daquan pounded his desk, screaming at the two hapless spies returned from the Throughnight Cathedral-Mansion.
‘WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU SAW NOTHING?’
‘Jus’ saw them coming and going,’ the spy said, cowering.
‘THAT’S ALL? Nothing else?’
The spy looked down.
‘WHAT ELSE?’
‘M’lord. We can’t be sure.’
‘I WILL BREAK YOUR NECKS!’
The spy took a step back.
‘We saw peoples dressed likes...well...Marauders. Ain’t sure. It was nearly dark.’
His rage abated, and Daquan cheered up.
‘Brilliant, brilliant……So trained children have been sent here.’
***
Amidst all the commotion, Lexington lifted up the pigeon. It lay lifeless in her hand. Task-Matron Bircher flicked its head, making sure she had killed it.
‘That wasn’t so hard was it? Well done. You have taken your first real step.’
Task-Matron Bircher turned to the relieved students in the middle, and screamed at them.
‘You are all banished to the Borstal for one year.’ Assured of her superiority she turned back to the cousins.
‘You can defy me. You can defy every Discipliner in the Vahn, but when word gets around that your inaction led to their borstalisation, well...heh....let’s see how long you can stand alone.’
As she left, the eyes of the class burnt a crisp glare of disgust into the cousins.
***
At the end of the day they wandered off speechless to meet Pembrooke, alongside gaggles of students all leaving the Vahn.
Con sidled up besides Melaleuca.
‘I heard,’ he said in a low voice, looking straight ahead.
‘Heard what?’ she asked, looking at him.
‘Look straight ahead. I heard you guys put on a good show for old Bircher.’
‘Really.’
‘They are scared of you, I tell you. Join us. We need you.’
‘Later.’
She rushed ahead of him.
They stayed silent in the cart until the Vahn disappeared from sight. Quixote leapt up.
‘WAHHHOOOO! We showed them.’
Melaleuca tugged at him.
‘Yes. But we have to draw less attention to ourselves.’
‘Bit late,’ Ari said. ‘By tomorrow we will be hated and loved.’
Melaleuca squeezed Lexington’s arm.
‘That was very tense Lex.’
With her back to them, Lexington said, ‘I didn’t kill the pigeon. Something else did. It happened inside of a second. Something rushed up to me, killed the pigeon, and then rushed away. I felt its wind.’
Melaleuca let her arm go.
‘What were you going to do if you could not kill it?’
‘I don’t know. I got stuck.’
Quixote chuckled.
‘Didn’t kill mine either. I grabbed the dead pigeon off the girl’s desk next to me when no one was looking. She had to kill two of them.’
He placed his hands behind his head and put his feet up on the edge of the cart. ‘Yep. If Lex had been more like me, she mighta done the same.’
Lexington sat upright.
‘What? And make someone else suffer on my behalf?’
‘Hey, at least I didn’t kill my pigeon. Anyway those others are off to the borstal because ─ ’
Melaleuca flopped herself back.
‘Oh you two, enough.’
‘Yes enough Quixote. If being like you means being irresponsible, then you can...well...It’s just total fun and adventure to you.’
‘It’s what we are supposed to do.’
‘One of the things we are supposed to do! Anyway….I will...will ─ ’
‘Discover new magnetic laws of physics.’
‘Enough!’ Melaleuca said again. ‘Lex! Ignore him and he’ll stop.’
Ari prodded Quixote with his foot, shaking his head. Quixote hung his head low, and Melaleuca sensed him take it to heart.
‘Sorry, Lexington. I was just playing,’ he said.
She turned to rebuke him, but saw he really meant it. ‘Sure. Quixote….I just wish for once you would take something serious, even while having fun. Not always be silly.’
‘But that is who I am.’
‘Yes…I know. I so know.’
She beheld the rare sight of his genuine sincerity for a few seconds and then leant forward, tousling his hair, and asked, ‘Do you really adore me?’
Quixote went bright red and squirmed.
‘What?’
‘You admitted it last night.’
Quixote looked at Ari, and then at Lexington, and then became coy.
‘Of course.’
‘Then why do you do the things that you do?’
‘I don’t know. It’s fun when you get upset.’
‘I don’t find it fun.’
Quixote played with his Galeslar, still squirming. ‘Hey, let’s put flowers on our Galeslars tonight.’
Frustration crossed Lexington’s face.
‘What? Why?’
Quixote giggled.
‘Just imagine the looks on their faces.’
A light bulb went on inside Lexington’s mind.
‘It’s the reaction you like isn’t it?’
‘I guess. I like rattling people.’
‘But why? Why rattle them? Why?’
‘Lex,’ Quixote said as if it were a well-known fact, ‘something solid cannot be rattled. What I rattle needs to be tightened or removed.’
At last, she saw a glimpse into his personality.
‘You’re an iconoclast,’ Lexington announced.
The cousins looked at her bamboozled.
‘Someone who breaks through un-truths, removes lies, ahh, takes people to task over…Well, anyway, it means there is more to your silliness than meets the eye.’
She leant back and put her hands behind her head and put her feet up. Quixote patted her knees.
‘See, you can learn from me.’
‘We’ll see,’ Lexington replied.
Soon they sat in the darkness at the end of the tunnel waiting for the secret trap door to be opened. Pembrooke pulled on the cord, and it rose up. He gee-ed the horses along while saying, ‘I’s bet the old lady will stick youse guys in the Thistle ceremony. She don’t like youse, loved to see ya hurt. Here, don’t tell her I told ja.’
Aunty Gertrude’s icy voice crackled in the air.
‘She already knows.’
Pembrooke cringed as the horses neighed at Aunty Gertrude. He pulled the cart up to a nervous halt, and leapt off first.
‘Miss, I was just ─ ’
‘Silence. Leave. I will deal with you later!’
She booted his rump hard which seemed to affect him little, and he sauntered off.
The cousins hopped out, and she grabbed at their arms, lifted their shirts and prodded their bodies.
Melaleuca yanked her shirt back.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Looking! But I shouldn’t have to look. They should stand out like a thousand suns!! Bruises, scars, marks, welts, cuts, scrapes, signs of discipline. Not your puffy white, lily-pure, soap skin.’
She stepped back, and with closed eyes, calmed herself, saying in a mock caring voice, ‘Not that I want you to get hurt,’ adding with a sour face, as if holding vomit down, ‘Just want…you to...do well.’
She turned away from them, screaming in mid air, ‘Has everyone gone soft??’ and then turned back, refreshed for her catharsis.
‘Who gave you those clothes?’
‘Matron Henlenessy,’ Melaleuca said.
‘I see…Hmmph…and the Galeslars?’
‘Task-Master Phrenia.’
‘Do...do they...’ A weak malicious smile crossed her lips. ‘...do they hurt?’
Quixote rolled his shoulders back and forth.
‘Sort of, I guess.’
‘Really. Good. Yes, good.’
She pressed lightly on his shoulder, where the dlup holes were.
‘Does that hurt?’
‘No.’
She tapped his Galeslar with her fingers.
‘Does that hurt?’
‘No.’
She hit it softly.
‘And that?’
‘No!’
Melaleuca motioned to Quixote to pretend to be hurt.
Aunty Gertrude smashed her hand down hard onto Quixote’s Galeslar.
‘Tell me it hurts!’
Quixote collapsed to his knees, clutched his shoulder and cried out in pain. Aunty Gertrude started to grin but unable to contain himself, Quixote burst out in laughter.
She launched herself at his legs, smacking at them with her open hand.
‘Stupid boy, stupid boy, stupid boy, stupid boy...’
‘Stupid.’
Smack.
‘Stupid.’
Vahn and the Bold Extraction, The Page 8