A Dreadful Thing

17: TALENTED

Orla

When Orla was twelve years old, she was in some of the worst trouble she'd ever gotten herself into before.

It was Morty's fault, naturally. The district had been doing renovations in the school, and someone had left out an untended paint tray. Orla had giggled at the first sticky, paint-covered handprint Morty pressed onto the wall, and maybe she'd laughed at the subsequent dozen—on the ceiling, the floor, one on Orla's cheek. The counselor found her cackling in the hall, surrounded by a mess, and though her hands had been curiously clean, that hadn't saved her a trip to the principal's office.

They'd called Mr. Byrne. Orla remembered sitting in that office, her shoes not quite able to meet the floor, feeling very small and out of place with her guardian in the chair next to her. His feet had met the floor just fine, his posture painfully straight, and his arms crossed against his chest. Orla hadn't been able to look up into his gaunt face, too petrified to see how pale he'd gone in his anger.

The school fined Orla for destruction of property, which meant Mr. Byrne had to pay a large sum he didn't really have, and they insisted he keep her home for the next few days. It hadn't been a suspension, but it'd been close. Orla remembered tears on her sticky face, Mr. Byrne's hand tight on her arm as they left.

It was all quite reminiscent of the aftermath with Marissa Mallard and the so-called "knife."

Orla felt the same trepidation she did that first as she did now, seated on the wooden bench outside the Dean's office in the Jupiter Forum. Her hands gripped the knees of her uniform pants, her palms still damp with sweat, quivering when she held them up. Bile turned in her throat, but Orla didn't cry.

Unlike last time, this hadn't been Morty's fault.

Itla Crane's voice still echoed in her ears—grating, continuous like drops of water flicking against her forehead at uneven increments. Orla had walked into the Arithmetic class, unsure what to expect, though it had been apparent from a single glance at the board that Master Odeis' class was reviewing algebra, and Orla's school had only taught her through pre-algebra. She'd struggled to take notes as fast as she could, all while Master Odeis—a pretty but rather mean woman who didn't seem to care for Orla's inclusion much—pushed them faster to get through revisions and begin geometry. Itla Crane mocked Orla the entire time.

Her fingers tightened on her pants, pulling the fabric tight.

Orla didn't know what happened. She'd felt—not ill exactly, but not normal, an uncomfortable, hot, searing sensation behind her eyes, between her brows. She'd passed it off as a headache, not dissimilar to the ones she got from Morty, and kept concentrating on her work. The insults, though, had started getting to her, and it'd gotten more and more difficult to see the open journal in front of her.

She remembered stomping out of the room when Master Odeis dismissed them. She remembered almost running into Arden Raferty in the corridor, and then Itla Crane followed. She kept talking, and Orla's headache blazed, the skin of her palms on fire, fingers prickling—.

Then, Itla Crane had called her trash, just like Marissa Mallard had, and it struck Orla how terribly similar Bilarthus was to Dirgemore, and how the more things changed, the more they stayed the same. At Dirgemore, she was the strange, straggling foster kid; in Bilarthus, she was the weird, ignorant latecomer. In either case, teachers disliked her, other students mocked her, and she failed to meet their academic standards.

Itla Crane called her trash, and the feeling in Orla's head snapped.

It might not matter after this, she thought, glum. They'll probably kick me out for this. Not even a full week in.