Well-Read Friends of Politics and Dead Authors

I've always seen only one side of Kriester: I've seen rich boys in school uniforms and girls with Michael Kors purses walking the streets as if they owned them. I've seen them driving their German cars. I've seen them paying a coffee with a fifty-dollar-note.
I have only seen the image. I have missed that they had brilliant minds. That they were all little geniuses.
Augustus, the noble, can read since he was three years old. You can ask him anything about English literature.
Alex, the protector, just began to play his eleventh instrument. His voice is smoky from smoking a pipe.
Eliza, the unique, could solve a Rubik's Cube in twelve seconds.
Titus, the dignified, won the state science competition with his science team the past five years.
Fallon, the superior, loves poetry.
And then there was Peter, the rock. He reads a lot, but most of the time he draws. Draws landscapes as well as caricatures.
They were all like that: great. The best at something they perfected.
They were passionate.
And I wasn't sure I would ever be able to be one of them.
I was Xenia, the foreigner.