Call of the Water (COMPLETE)

3. THE BEGINNING

"Do you know who that is?" I asked Opal quietly when I didn't get the answer to my previous question.

"I think she's one of the teachers," Opal replied and took a sip of her chocolate milk.

It made sense. Our eyes followed the mysterious woman on her way to the teachers' dining room separated by the glass doors.

"She's strange," I whispered and cast a glance towards the part of the dining room reserved for the teachers. They all looked so humanlike to me. "Do you know which race any of them are?" I asked, in a hush tone.

Opal lifted her hand close to her face, discretely pointed at one of the teachers and said, "That one is a dwarf." Her finger moved to the right. "And that one is a dwarf. When it comes to the rest of them, I have no idea. The tall ones are all alike to me." She paused, waiting for the woman with a scarf around her neck and gloves on her hands to walk through the glass doors and close them behind her. "What was I saying?" My dwarf friend seemed to be keen on continuing the conversation. "Ah, yes – the tall ones. Well, after they do to you whatever it is they have to do to make you more humanlike, it's hard to tell. I mean, it's easier with the likes of them," she said, twitching her chin in the direction where our roommate sat with her friends. Then she just kept on talking. "They are almost radiant and, if you ask me, they will have to tone it down before they let them into the real world. But for the rest of you, there are no significant differences. If I stand directly in front of you, I'm looking at your chest or your belly."

I smiled. I didn't know a lot about dwarves, but if they were anything like Opal, they were a very likable race. And they loved to talk, and talk, and talk...

I did read one interesting fact about the dwarves, I remembered.

"Is it true that female dwarves have beards?" I had to ask, not knowing whether my question would cross the boundaries of politeness.

"Yes," Opal replied without hesitation. If anything, I would say that she answered my question with a sense of pride in her voice. "The older the dwarf, the thicker the beard."

With my elbows on the table, I leaned in to get a better view of her face. She was completely beardless. "Will you have a beard, too?" I asked to quench my curiosity.

She looked at me as if I asked her how long it would take to empty out the school swimming pool using nothing but a tea spoon.

"No," she said wistfully. "That was the only thing they had to change about me. I had a series of treatments whose goal was to 'inactivate hair follicles'. That's how they put it. My mother underwent the same procedure. She took it a lot harder than me. Hadn't left the house for three whole days! Father had to carry her out! You see, her beard was already fully grown, mine was just a shadow. But, if we intended to live side by side with humans, it had to be done. Otherwise, they might think that my father is married to another man. And let me tell you, there is no way my mother would allow anyone to mistake her for a man! She is a female dwarf and proud of it."

The bell rang, its sound echoing off the dining room walls. The students started to exit and I followed, accompanied by Opal. We were off to our first class - Music.

I was the last to enter, Opal by my side. We took a minute to admire the classroom that looked like a miniature concert hall. Under the arched ceiling lay a stage with a grand piano. Comfortable velvet chairs with armrests that could turn into small writing pads were arranged in a semicircle in front of it. Rows of seats filled up the room all the way to the back. We entered through the side door, I noticed. There, in the back, was the actual entrance: double doors with velvet curtains pulled aside.