Supernatural Taxes

32) Indifference stings a fair bit more than scorn.

Monday morning arrived and a half asleep Atla left for an early morning lecture by Mr. Brouwer with Thanos in tow. He'd agreed to come with today, one of her last lecture days, to explain all the work that she didn't understand and help her cram study between lectures. In exchange he'd get the rest of the day off.

Uni felt oddly quiet, not the whole place, like when the orange curse was going around, that was deathly. Instead it was more of a moving bubble around her, as she walked through campus with Thanos floating around her people would quite down and their conversations became unintelligible, anybody that was in her path gave her and Thanos a pretty good berth too, at least a meter or two. Obviously Atla was being watched and commented on, but nobody would let on that they were doing it, just averting their gazes and restarting a conversation when she glanced at them. "Mmmm," Frowned Atla.

"What's wrong?" Asked thanos innocently, probably long immune to this level of social disdain.

"Nevermind," she said under her breath. A big guy bumped into her, almost definitely on purpose. Atla wouldn't lose her balance from that, but it put her on guard. The big guy just kept going and muttered, "Watch it freak." Atla raised her eyebrows at that role model for maturity then kept going. She pulled her hoodie up and decided not to look at her surroundings too much.

Atla slipped into the back row near the entrance of Mr. Brouwer's class, there she kept her head buried in a textbook until the lecture began. In front of her two girls were chatting through, which she listened to absentmindedly while her eyes read and reread the same line. They were talking about the crying vegetables and how hard it was to eat food right now.

"Yeah, I get it, y'know it's just so tough eating now when you're hearing shrieks from the kitchen, it's like they're torturing someone, it's horrible. Yeah, I liked salad too but now I'm buying as many imported stuff as I can."

"But you know, they're saying that if something stays in Amsterdam for too long it also begins to cry, any kind of fruit or vegetable will do it, it's just awful."

"I'm only buying processed veggies for now, I just can't handle the greens, especially the way onions start tearing up and crying!" The girl shivered. "It's just too cruel, what sane human being can think of that kind of curse."

"They're not sane, it's some Writer remember."

"True, you never know what those weirdos are thinking, or if they ever think."

"But yeah, eating veggies right now is just too inhumane, only a sadist would be able to do it."

Atla grinned to herself a little, since she'd already overcome her squalms and embraced sadism. Suddenly she felt the two girls looking at her, she looked up from her textbook.

"Of course you'd find it funny," said one of them, frowning at Atla.

"Yeah, you're probably enjoying this, you and your supernatural friends, well we didn't sign up for this Cactus Girl." Atla, opened her mouth to explain she wasn't laughing at them but they both got up and left, with perfect synergy she noted to herself. Was that a side effect of being BFF's or did people practice that? Or was her brain just trying to distract her from the prickling in her chest...

Mr. Brouwer started class and Thanos started his supplementary lecture, every time Atla wrote a "?" in her textbook Thanos would explain exactly what Mr. Brouwer meant and every time MR. brouwer took a breath for more than two seconds Thanos would shoot Atla a question with a one or two word answer that she had to scribble in her textbook. To onlookers she looked even crazier than normal, constantly glancing at her cactus and nodding while writing at the speed of light.