Little Miss Different [in editing]

17: I Got Feelings For You

Content note: contains depictions of ableism

This is it! This is it! It's Katie's first ever school day!

She has her green and pink uniform; she has her timetable - she's even allowed to wear her pink tiara to school! This is going to be brilliant!

She's dug out lots of old fruit notepads she's never used, brightened them up (with Lucie's help) with pink washi tape with penguins on and wiped the dust from their covers. She has lots of pink pencils with differently coloured leads ready in her pencil case and lots of pretty pens snuggled up next to them. Katie also has her favourite rubber - a pink one with a picture of a daisy on it - hidden away in the pencil case too. Lucie has managed to persuade Katie not to take her neon-pink, eye-hurting pink pencil case, so she's opted for a baby pink one instead - plastered with kitten stickers!

Lucie is wearing the school uniform and her friendship bracelet. She has her stationary in her bag already. "Katie, is everything in your bag?" she types, knowing how forgetful Katie can be.

"Yes yes yes! I've checked twenty-one and a half times!" says Katie shriekily, bouncing in the doorway of Lucie's room.

"Katherine, stop bouncing!" yells Rin Himura from where she stands, tidying up Lucie's dressing table. "I've got enough of Lucie's mess to deal with without your input!"

At the school

Miss Starling and a ginger-haired pregnant lady are waiting for Katie and Lucie. "Hello, girls!" says Miss Starling. "This is Mrs. Chrystal. She's going to be your form tutor, Katie. I'll bring yours down in a minute, Lucie, they're busy dealing with a rabbit that's hiding in the gym."

[Image description: a pregnant young lady with shoulder-length ginger hair, twenty-three freckles and vermillion eyes, with one hand supporting her back, smiles at the viewer, with a speech bubble reading 'Project your voice' against a white background with lots of multi-coloured stars. This lovely piece of art was drawn by @LotusWaterlily - thank you so much!]

"Hello, girls!" says Mrs. Chrystal. "I'm a drama teacher. Do you two like drama?"

"Sometimes," says Katie.

"I find it hard, because I have to use my phone to talk," types Lucie.

"Don't worry!" reassures Mrs. Chrystal. "I'm sure we can find a way to make it work!"

"What is your baby's gender?" asks Katie.

Mrs. Chrystal smiles. "Well, the scans say they're a boy baby, but if they realise that they're not a boy, that's okay by me. I fully support LGBTQIA+!" Nobody notices how happy yet conflicted Lucie looks at that statement.

Because Lucie has a problem.

Lucie has a crush.

But she's not crushing on a boy. She's crushing on a girl.

Lucie is gay, but she doesn't know how to tell anybody.

She's worried her mother would consider it a symptom of her Down's Syndrome, or that she'd become alienated at school. But the drama teacher's statement makes Lucie realise that maybe she should tell Katie that she's gay. Katie deserves to know.

In Katie's form

To Katie's delight, Amanda and Taylor are in her form. "Hey, Katie!" calls Amanda.

"Hello," says Katie, sitting down and readjusting her tiara. "Hello, Taylor. Which gender are you today?"

Taylor is wearing their braids in a very tight bun today. They scribble Katie a note. 'I'm a boy today,' it says. Taylor smiles. Katie notices that he is still wearing the nice genderfluid flag on his nails. Katie thinks it looks pretty.

"We want to introduce you to some of our other friends!" says Amanda. "This is Haley." A white girl with light brown hair and hazel eyes waves.

 "This is Sam. He's transgender and is really nice to everybody." A black boy with short cornrows grins at Katie. "He's not in our class though - he's one of the year elevens that my older brother knows, but he comes and hangs out with us during form and break times."

"This is Louisa. She's one of my best friends." A girl waves at Katie.

"I have albinism, as well. I come from Nigeria like Amanda and Taylor," she says quietly. "Oh, and what about Chloe?"

Amanda gestures at a short girl with a medium-brown skin tone wearing the school's conservative uniform and a ruby red hijab. "Hi," she says shyly.

"Finally, here's Joe. He's late to the party," Amanda remarks, grinning at Joe.

"Hi!" says Joe cheerily.

Katie grins excitedly. What a large amount of friends she's made in such a short time!

In Lucie's form

Lucie casually slides into a seat next to a boy with bright blond hair and grey eyes. Lucie doesn't make any effort to socialize at first, too concerned about her sister after the r-word incident yesterday, but slowly loosens up every minute that passes when Katie doesn't come tearing into her form, yelling about an ableist downstairs in her form room.

"Hey!" says the boy. "Are you new?"

Lucie turns to him and smiles, but the year eight boy's friendly grin falters slightly. "Hi!" she types. The boy gives her an uncertain smile then turns to his friends.

"Is she deformed or something?" he whispers.

"Don't be rude, Jayden," whispers another boy. "She's not deformed. She's the eldest daughter of Rin and Desmond Himura. The one with Down's Syndrome."

"Can we swap seats though? I don't want to catch whatever she has."

"Only so she's sitting next to a nice person and not a rude piece of trash-talking rubbish," replies the second boy, and moves into the seat next to Lucie. He has dark brown hair and green eyes. "Hi! I'm Aiden. Who are you?"

"I'm Lucie," types Lucie in reply. "Nice to meet you."

"You're new, right?" confirms Aiden. Lucie nods. "I love your hair." Lucie smiles at the compliment.

"Thanks," she types.

"Why do you type?" asks Aiden. "Why don't you talk?"

"I'm mute," types Lucie. "So I use my phone instead."

"Oh," says Aiden. "That's cool! So do you get the voice control to say it or something?"

Lucie grins a little. "No, I have a text-to-speech app. But I can make noises with my mouth a bit. But they won't sound like words necessarily."

Aiden frowns. "Can't you get therapy to help you say some shorter words?"

"My mum's all focused on 'curing' my sister."

"Who, Katherine Himura?"

"Yeah. And I'm not too keen to find out what sort of speech therapy she has in mind for me, considering the autism 'charities' she's allied with," types Lucie. "But I'm optimistic. My mum might still be able to be persuaded that her daughters aren't diseased."

"I hope she does," says Aiden. "'Cause you're super cool anyway, mute and Down's Syndrome and all."

Hi! First of all... thank you to @LotusWaterlily for your fantastic drawing of Mrs. Chrystal! Also, were you surprised about Lucie being gay? Which character are you excited to learn more about? Who's your favourite friend? Let me know in the comments!