About a week after the encounter with the new nurse, one of the doctors began to become better acquainted with Belove. Apparently, some concerned observer decided that Belove was not fit to mix with the other high functioning students. The doctor enquired about Belove's thoughts and emotions. Sometimes she would reply saying "I feel floppy." or "I think there is a dead kitten in my brain." without further explanation. Other times she would just hum loudly, louder with every interaction, until the shrink gave up.
Sometimes Nurse Klara was there at these chance encounters, crossing her arms and generally looking bigger than any person should. Belove became quite agitated around her.
One day, during their hours of free time, the girls were chatting about these developments in low, annoyed voices. Suddenly, Tainne interrupted the conversation with a sharp "SHH!"
They fell silent.
"What is it?" whispered Faith, her tone an odd mix of bored and inconvenienced.
"I thought I heard something."
"Maybe it was a spider crying." said Belove loudly. She pushed her tongue against her sharp teeth and made a high pitched whistling noise. Taine and Faith clapped their hand to their ears but did not reprimand her for it.
Whose head should pop around the corner but Reverof's, her cold eyes annoyed.
"Vot vuz that noise?"
"It was your feet. You have nice shoes. It would be such a shame if they were stolen by a unicorn." She bobbed up and down on the ledge she was sitting on. "Yesyesyes."
"No. I mean that visteling noise that I just heard."
"Yes. It was me whistling. Yesyesyes."
Nurse Reverof shook her head dismissively and muttered "Stupid gerl." as she walked away. Belove hissed at her. She stopped and slowly turned around.
"Vot deed you say to me?!"
Belove hissed again.
"This is an assault!" she cried "Help! I am being attacked by a low functioning patient!"
More footsteps were heard rushing to the scene. Faith noticed the subtle wounds on her face, neck and arms. She looked as though she had just fallen down the stairs. Exactly how she would look if Belove had attacked her. Belove kept hissing. Tainne was glaring at Reverof as if she would take a few swipes at her if she didn't think that it would be bad for Belove. Reverof caught Faith eyeing over her wounds and looking hostile. She smiled, and winked, and then made a big show of being injured when the other nurses entered.
***
"Beloved." said the doctor. Belove didn't respond. The doctor sighed.
"Beloved, why did you attack Nurse Reverof?"
"I did not. I told you. There was a snake in my mouth. I made it tell her to go away. That's all."
"Right." said the doctor slowly. "So you bit her."
"SHE DIDN'T!" roared Tainne. As witnesses to the supposed attack, Faith and Tainne were also in the doctor's room. Faith didn't know why they were here; no one appeared to trust the word of the students.
The doctor ignored Tainne.
"Faith?"
Faith looked up.
"Faith, what happened?"
Faith stared her dead in the eyes. "Nurse Reverof," she began, "is stone cold evil. Belove only hissed at her."
"Then where did the wounds come from?" he asked gently.
"She did that to herself."
A small smile appeared on his face, and his voice was overly comforting when he said "Of course, of course. Now the headmaster wants to organize a retake of the aptitude test for Beloved, but for this particular mishap I think I can persuade him to let her off with a few detentions. The headmaster's office is this way." He opened the door and showed them out. Faith wasn't sure, but out of the corner of her eye she thought she saw the horrible nurse grinning slyly. But when she turned to check, the nurse was nowhere to be seen.
YOU ARE READING
Faith
Random"Anything is possible. Most things are just aggressively unlikely." Faith never had it easy. She was a girl who had to grow up in this patriarchal world. And there was also the small matter that whoever touched her inexplicably died. Hated by her fa...
