Du Nord: The Believing heart lost years (EN)

The gossip is like water

Tuesday 11 October 2005, Luna Nova

"Daniella is unable to keep her mouth shut because of all this, she spread the word to the school about who my adoptive mothers were and also about the homosexual relationship they had with each other, which became the most shocking news at the time and earned us the heaviest scolding, which I honestly don't know why I got involved in such a thing, but there we ended up in Professor Finnelan's office because of these rumours."

The week has barely started, and now the school newspaper has even published an announcement about the couple who were my mothers. Luckily, there was no publicity about me being their adopted daughter, well, it's just written that I told them about it and I'm a supposed adopted daughter, so far so good, but I don't understand why I ended up in this room.

"Very well, spreading rumours about former students, I thought that stuff wouldn't be brought back here, after 15 years since they graduated it's still very much alive" said Professor Finnelan.

"I haven't spread anything, I've asked Daniella to keep quiet, she's the one who opened her mouth to tell half the world who I'm related to and about my mum's past" I tell her.

"So you lied? Did you do all this just to get attention? Are you really that big a liar, Chariot?" I feel a bit silly about it all, but it's not a lie, I can see everyone's face looking at me with disgust.

"No!" I didn't lie, until I saw the teachers raising their hands.

"Well, allow me to talk to Miss Du Nord more privately about it, leave the room and come back only when I call you, we have to clear this up with her" says the teacher and I swallow my saliva.

The girls, on the other hand, are leaving, they look at me with a bit of anger, I think I've really lost their respect after that, I only see Daniella still calling me a liar, whispering and with that everything is closing the door, I'm getting more and more confused, why do I have to stay here alone and sort this out? What's wrong with my presence? I can see that even the teacher is asking me to sit down.

"You'll say you lied" said the teacher.

"What?" I say shocked.

"You're not lying, I know they're together, that's why I want this rumour to be buried, I don't want Laura McLaren and Bernadette Cavendish's homosexuality to resurface, it's not enough that there was a wave of homosexual students in the 1990s, which led to many places having to be closed and refurbished to stop it, now there's a new wave in the 2000s, that is, if you still like studying here, you can deny it" But this is pure homophobia, there's no reason to erase my mothers' history.

"That's unfair, it's erasing a history that happened, they were great students here, they made history, why would it be wrong to talk about them?" I ask the teacher.

"Because people are easily influenced, there's a social contagion that makes them want to be homosexual in order to feel more popular, since now that's what kids think is so popular, to be different and we don't want that, it would be the end of the witch lineage, the fall of Luna Nova, I can't let this degeneration continue here, or else I'm going to have to take more drastic measures, I don't want this to influence younger generations" She's such a homophobe, I even clench my fist and glare at her.

"What if I don't want to?" I ask her.

"I'll make your life in Luna Nova a living hell, you'll still come out as a liar, only you'll lose all your privileges, so what do you want? I can make everything worse for you, make you do even more work, even more lessons, even get you kicked out of your team's room even if you're still on their team, you choose... You're not Laura McLaren, you're not going to achieve anything with this revolutionary mentality you got from your foster mum" I've never seen her like this with me, I'm literally being blackmailed.