The Origin of the Shifters

Chapter 3: What's Dyslexia?:

Jay then followed the woman, looking down in shyness as he walked alongside her.

They then arrived at a room Jay hadn't seen before. It was small, yet felt a little comforting.

"So Jay," The woman talked to Jay with a calm tone. "Jake explained to me that you find reading difficult. Is that right?"

Jay, unsure of this claim, went with what Jake said anyway. "Yeah, why?"

The woman walked over to her desk and retrieved some worksheets. She put them in front of Jay as he sat looking at them in confusion at the words.

In his eyes, all the letters and punctuation were moving around and the words were hard to read. It was like they were flying around everywhere.

"Is everything alright, Jay?" The woman asked.

Jay sat in his seat looking puzzled. He found it hard to read it, as he found it difficult like he was trying to understand hieroglyphics in an Egyptian tomb.

"What are all these symbols? Jake and Dylan never told me that I had to decipher codes..."

The woman stood looking at Jay in astonishment. She never heard a student refer to letters as symbols or codes.

The woman then went over to her drawer and retrieved 3 coloured, see-through rectangles with a line on the bottom of each of them. She explained to him to put the colour over the words to see if he could read them. There was pink, green, and blue. Once he got to the blue one, the words stopped swirling but he still couldn't read it. Because he lived in the forest with his family, he had never touched or even tried to read a book in his life.

"Why don't we try pronouncing the letters and then we can start on words, alright?" The woman replied.

The poor thing must have Dyslexia... The woman thought as she saw Jay trying his best to read it. But one by one he was pronouncing each word. Each time, he found it difficult. He could only read certain words.

She then approached Jay. "Jay, what are your parents' numbers?"

Jay tilted his head. As the woman had brought out her phone, Jay had never seen a phone before. As the woman held it, Jay scrunched his face up. He looked at it with mesmerized eyes. He then walked around the room exploring. He held books and pencils. He had never seen such strange objects in his life.

"What are all these things? They're all made out of trees. Mum told me about how people cut down trees for their own resources. That's just cruel..."

The woman watched closely as Jay picked up objects, looking and observing each one. She was surprised he acted this way. He picked up pencils and paper sheets, looked at them, and put them back.

He then saw a blue sheet of paper on the woman's desk. "D-Dys..lex..ia... What's that?"

The woman looked at Jay with pitiful eyes. He looked at how he reacted with both mesmerization and confusion at each object he picked up. "That's what I think you have, dear." She whispered under her breath, hoping Jay wouldn't hear her.

After the session ended, Jay joined Jake and Dylan as they walked back to the forest with him.

"That woman who took me said I have something called Dys... Dys-"

"Dyslexia?" Jake helped Jay pronounce the word. Jay nodded. "Well she doesn't know that you live in the forest, does she? I mean, you've never read a book in your life."

Jay sighed as he ran to the river, turned to his form, and splashed around in the clear waters until he could tell that the human scent was gone, or at least untraceable.

As he returned to his parents' den, his mother was once again laying down clean, leafy bedding as she saw her son come inside.

"Ah, Jay! How was school?" Aspen laid down the leaves and turned to her son with a joyful and relieved grin.

Jay looked up at his mother with a curious expression, his blue eyes reflecting from the sunlight shining through the den's entrance as the sun was starting to set.

"Mum, what's Dyslexia? One of the female human teachers said she thinks I have it."

Aspen looked at her son with a puzzled expression, but it was like she knew and she sat down with her son as she did the night before.

"From what I found out, Dyslexia is something in your head that makes it hard to do something humans call 'reading'," Aspen explained. "Beings with Dyslexia find it hard to understand the 'words' on a tree square, or as humans call it 'paper'."

Jay understood it a little better.

"Jake thinks it's also because I've never read a book before." Jay remembered what Jake said as Aspen nodded as she listened.

Aspen then embraced her son as the sun set on the horizon. As the night approached, she and Jay went to their leafy beds and lay next to each other. "Go and find out for me, tomorrow, ok? Me and your father can use the experiences you have with good and bad humans to get ideas on how they act."

Jay nodded. He didn't just find School as a learning experience, but a mission for his parents to explore tactics on keeping humans out of the territory. He then turned to his form, got comfortable, and curled up asleep.

As the dawn approached and Jay awoke, he got himself ready and joined Jake and Dylan on the bus once more. He walked alongside them with excitement and confidence in his stride as he sat in the tutor room with his friends and prepared for the day ahead.

As breaktime approached, Jake and Dylan led Jay to a place where only they sat in at breaktime. The bench was beneath a tree that curled over it above so the sun wouldn't shine in their eyes. They laughed and joked. As the bell went, they zipped up their bags, threw away their waste and leftovers, and headed to the next class.

But as they headed down the corridor, Jay felt a little self-conscious. Once more like on his first day, he heard students whispering amongst themselves about him. He hung his head low and kept himself to himself.