Descendants of the Kings (Book 2)

Mister wolf and the little warrior 3.2

"I don't know," she shrugged in feigned casualness.

She tugged on her hair, which had come undone from the tight sausage curls, revealing her natural and more bouncy waves. Callan said nothing and patiently waited as she pulled off the tight bow holding back the top half of her hair. Mud-stained fingers worked the tightness of her hair free, and she smiled in contentment when a frizzy tumble of curls was left in its place. Callan held back a smile. Minna had hated having her hair in tight up-dos as well.

"I like learning how to fight," she said after a moment. "But I also like to play with dolls and jumping rope and hoop-and-stick. But no one wants to play with me," she sighed. "The girls don't want to play with me because I'm odd, and the boys don't want to play with me either, because they say fighting is for boys."

"Cordelia Montgomery and Grace Ullswater told them all not to play with me because being odd is contagious--" she stretched out the word to pronounce it properly "--just like scarlet fever. She said odd people get spots and warts and die, so no one plays with me now," she scowled.

"Hartie is the only one that plays with me, but that makes me sad, on the account of all the other boys being mean to him because of me," she pouted. "It's not fair! They won't play with him because he plays with me, and also because his family doesn't have so much money. Miss Judith told mummy I shouldn't be allowed to play with him either. She says he's not proper, she said he was peasant trash," Elowen's nose wrinkled with rage.

"He is not trash," she seethed, crossing her arms. "Just because he doesn't have so much money, doesn't mean he's bad. He's a perfectly lovely boy!" she sniffed, using a gesture Minna so often employed. "Mummy says she shall not keep me from playing with him. She lets him come over all the time, and she takes me to play on his farm. Hartie is my bestest friend, he'll always be," she announced fiercely.

Callan smiled at her defiance, and Elowen narrowed her eyes. "You don't think those awful things are true, do you, Mister Wolf?"

Callan lifted his hands placatingly. "Of course not, little one. I would never. Your Hartie does seem like a lovely boy. He seems like a most wonderful friend. Those are hard to come by, you are very wise to hold on to him. Friendship is a treasure more valuable than all the gold in the world."

Seemingly mollified, she nodded in agreement. "Yes, that's true. Mummy says one good friend is worth loads more than many bad friends." Ella frowned and bit her lip again. "But... I just wish I had more. Well, maybe not more. I just... I wish they wouldn't pick on me so much."

She flushed pink in embarrassment, as if she'd said too much. Callan held in a sigh. "Are they mean to you?" he prodded. "What do they do?"

"Stuff," she shrugged, mulishly looking down at her muddy knees. She pursed her lips and kicked off her shoes in defiance, sending the little white slippers flying. "They call me names. I hate my name," she whispered harshly.

Callan's brows raised. "And why would that be? It's a perfectly lovely name. I find it lovely."

She looked up with a puckered face. "It's not nice," she insisted, fisting grass and ripping it out. "Everyone picks on me because of it. All the other girls are named Charlotte or Emily or Anne. My name is Elowen," she scowled.

"Those are all very nice names, but your name is nice too," Callan said soothingly. "Yours is very unique. It suits you."

"Why do I have to have a unique name?" Elowen grumbled. "I don't want a unique name, I want a name like everyone else. I want a name no one gets to pick on. I'm tired of being Elo-loon."

Oh, his poor Elowen. What horrible little children. Truly, they could be innocent and sweet, yet oddly malicious. He wondered how children could be so oblivious to some things, yet so spot-on with insults. Childhood insults were always poignantly specific and hard-hitting. It was uncanny.