There once was a girl, and this girl couldn’t have been more than 8 when she found her calling. Well, no, that’s a lie. This girl didn’t find her calling at 8, but she knew what she wanted, which was more than you could expect from most 8 year olds. This girl had olive skin and black hair that fell around her face, because she couldn’t be bothered to tie it up since it would fall out her next fight. She didn’t look at much of anything but the floor during school hours. She found that the less people saw her green eyes the less she was questioned about her father. No one questioned about her mother, the one who stayed with her and raised her, and who looked like her in every way except those hated green eyes.
The bell rang. Evelyn walked out of her class, head down in the crowd of kids talking to their friends. Whenever a kid came close to her, the girl shrank away like other people were toxic. As a result, there was a wide margin of kids around her. She counted the tiles underneath her feet, but backwards, towards the last tiles until she was free from her 6 hour prison. Twenty, nineteen, eighteen…“Evelyn.”
The girl closed her eyes and tilted her head up. In front of her was her teacher, who eyed her backpack. “Evelyn, do you mind if I look through you backpack?” A pretense. The teacher didn’t need to ask. With Evelyn’s history of lifting parts of computers, the school was free to search her whenever she chose. But that didn’t mean she had to like it. “Yes, Mr. Chatterlos, I do mind. I just want to go home.”
Mr. Chatterlos laughed and pulled at Evelyn’s backpack. “Now, now, no need to throw a hissy fit. You know the rules, and I have probable cause. Unless of course, you’ve been teaching yourself Calculus, there is no way that your backpack should be that big, or that heavy. Don’t think I don’t notice the way your shoulders droop.”
“You know, Mr. Chatterlos, in some cultures observing me that closely could be seen as doing something highly illegal and not meant for little girls to have to know about. Do you look as closely at Susan or Elodie, or am I the only one with the pleasure of your observational skills?”
Mr. Chatterlos ripped off Evelyn’s backpack and opened it up to see gutted computer parts sticking out at every angle. He raised a single eyebrow. “My, my. Haven’t we been busy?”
Evelyn frowned. “Aw, they were throwing that old thing out anyway! It’s worthless disassembled or fully functional! Are you really gonna call my mom for helping to clear out trash that was scheduled for decommission anyway tomorrow?”
“You know the rules, Pirate,” Mr. Chatterlos spat. “Anything that gets stolen gets reported. Anyone caught stealing gets suspended. Principal’s office. Now.”
Evelyn frowned at his tone and promptly kept walking out of the school building. She had finished all of her homework anyway, she didn’t need her backpack. But Mr. Chatterlos grabbed her by the shirt collar. “Hey! Don’t touch me!”
That got the hall quiet. The few remaining kids started to stare and whisper. Mr. Chatterlos didn’t find what Evelyn was saying funny in the slightest, and dragged her in the direction of the office. Fire burned in Evelyn’s eyes in pure indignation. “If I were an adult, I’d wallop you!” she exclaimed.
“Let’s both be thankful then that you are not, in fact, an adult,” Mr. Chatterlos quipped. “Keep up, Pirate, you’re getting suspended for a week.”
Evelyn groaned. “I can make it worth your while if you don’t suspend me,” she whispered.
Mr. Chatterlos stopped and turned to her again. “You would bribe a teacher to turn the other way about your stealing?”
Evelyn nodded.
“...I’m listening…” he said.
“Look, I don’t need half the stuff in here for what I’m making, it’s just a remote control plane for a friend of a friend, so I don’t get my lunch money stolen from me since that’s the only way those kids can buy one.”
Mr. Chatterlos frowned. “You bring a lunch.”
“And you never wondered why I started in the middle of the year? And why I suddenly wasn’t getting cornered in the lunch room? They don’t want food, they want my money.”
“Why didn’t you report it?” Mr. Chatterlos asked.
“Would you believe the Pirate?” Evelyn sighed.
Mr. Chatterlos looked like he might turn away from the problem, before he frowned. “You can add bribery to the list, Greenstick. And lying through your teeth. Let’s make that detention two weeks, shall we?”
Evelyn groaned and let her head drop to study the floor again. She had almost had him!
Those green eyes wouldn’t meet her mother’s brown ones in the car. Evelyn’s mother was livid, and Evelyn didn’t know that was an emotion that her mother could exude until now. She had seen her mother angry, sure. But livid? Not even when her father came home drunk in the middle of the day did her mother get this upset. “Two weeks.”
Evelyn flinched. “M-mom, I can explain…”
“Oh, there’s no need, Ev. I know exactly what happened back at the school. Mr. Chatterlos was all too eager to explain it to me. Bribery, stealing...how can you just throw away your own future like that, Ev?! You’re a bright girl, I know you could do well in school, but you choose not to! Don’t even think about saying otherwise, because we both know what I’m saying is true! Back in kindergarten, you were put into the gifted programs, and you loved it! Now you get put into the most remedial classes. Why don’t you want to succeed later in life?”
“Maybe the remedial classes are what I actually need, ever think of that?” Evelyn asked quietly.
“You and I both know that’s not true! Don’t give me any excuse otherwise, young lady, we both know you don’t need those remedial classes.”
“I need intellectual stimulation that school doesn’t offer,” Evelyn huffed. “The Internet could, you know! Why do you think I was stealing those parts?! All the science magazines on technology teach you how to build your own computer, I could reassemble it at our house and then I could finally learn stuff again! I haven’t learned anything from school since they taught me routine was the only way idiots can perceive things!”
The car slammed to a stop and Evelyn was left winded in the back seat. She looked up shocked at her mom, who was glowering at her in the front seat. “Don’t you dare say that ever again. Are we clear?”
Evelyn, not knowing what was wrong but knowing she’d get into more trouble if she didn’t comply, nodded. “May I ask why not, though? I genuinely don’t understand.”
Her mother took a deep breath and Evelyn could swear it looked like she was mumbling a prayer. “Because the people you are calling idiots aren’t idiots, Ev. You should never call anyone an idiot, for any reason, but especially not just because you’re angry. According to you, any kid in the gifted program could be an idiot.”
“The gifted program is just for kids with good recall, they could be,” Evelyn argued. Her mom shot her a look. “What?! It’s true! The tests only work for kids with good recall and who work well under stress! And nobody can teach me anything at that school, not even the gifted classes, so I may as well have an easier workload.”
“Is that why you flunked all your tests?!” her mom yelled.
“Well… yeah.” Evelyn shrugged. “I told you my plan months ago for this, and you gave me your blessing.”
“I thought you were joking about that, Evelyn! You told me yourself you weren’t going to go through with it!”
“Yeah, well, Dad was there and I didn’t want to get beaten!” Evelyn crossed her arms and looked away. “I can’t believe that you of all people didn’t take me seriously…”
Evelyn’s mom sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose before turning back to the road and starting the car again. “I do take you seriously, Ev. But you said ‘I’m joking’. What was I supposed to think?”
“Dad making a surprise appearance ‘cause he needed money for a drink may have changed the usual circumstances. I instantly knew that. Didn’t you?”
“No, Ev. Why would he cause such a reaction in you?”
Evelyn got quiet and pulled her legs into herself. “Maybe I remember him almost beating you to death. And me being the only thing that caused him to stop, because he couldn’t hurt his own kid. My eyes are the only thing that saved me, I’m sure of it. And I hate them.”
Her mother shook her head. “I can’t believe you remember that. I had prayed that you wouldn’t.”
“It’s not the sort of thing you easily forget, mom,” Evelyn said drily.
“No, no, I know that. It’s just...sometimes people can block out memories. I was hoping you would.”
“Are you kidding me? That’s my motivation. To actually learn something. I never want to be like dad. Ever. I would sooner die.”
“Don’t say that,” her mom snapped.
“I would, though. I’m not taking it back,” Evelyn asserted.
Her mom looked back at her, sighed, and shook her head, continuing to drive. “Kids these days…” she muttered.
Evelyn got home and raced to her room, pulling out an old box from under her bed. It was labeled as china dishes, but it hadn’t been used as that for years. Evelyn took off her shoes and pulled out the computer chip from the heel of her right shoe. She counted herself lucky that Mr. Chatterlos hadn’t notice a change in her step, she had hollowed out the heels in her shoes ages ago so she could sneak out parts that she really needed for her computer without getting caught if her backpack was checked. And she knew Mr. Chatterlos was expecting her to take something today. So she got to keep the most valuable part she needed yet. This was the last chip she needed to complete her last circuit board. After this she just needed to find a keyboard, and possibly a mouse if the touch screen didn’t work. She pulled out the board and placed the chip onto it, then put the board into the computer. Turning the computer on for the first time left Evelyn shaking in nervous excitement. It went off without a hitch. She smiled and put the computer back in its box and hid it under her bed, so her mother didn’t find out how much she had stolen from the school’s old equipment.
Her computer close to completion and Evelyn satisfied with the day’s work, she hopped onto her bed and looked out her window at the charcoal sky. She desperately wished there were less light pollution from the city so she could actually see the stars and the other planets of Blackwing, and understand the fascination everyone had with space. Even her father, deadbeat though he was, found the stars beautiful. “I wish I could see out there, and have someone to share it with,” Evelyn whispered. “Just once, I’d like someone who could be my friend without being completely dull.”
She knew her mother would chastise her for insulting the general population again, but she also told Evelyn to always tell the truth, so which was the lie? She sighed.
“Evelyn!” her mother called. “Dinner’s ready!”
Evelyn sighed and climbed off her bed, running down the stairs. “Coming, mom!” she called.
Once at the table, her mother frowned. “What has you in your room so often?”
“The window,” Evelyn lied. “I try to see the stars.”
“You know you can’t see the stars for all the light pollution, you’ve known that for years,” her mother said, further suspicious.
“I know. And it’s stupid. But I always like to hope that the power can surge, just for a minute, and I can see a real star beyond Blackwing’s sun. Maybe even see the original solar system, if I’m lucky. But, I just wish I could see what everyone is talking about when someone has stars in their eyes, or why the sky at night is so much better than during the day. Understand things that are hard for me to understand otherwise.”
Her mother narrowed her eyes. “I can tell when you’re lying.”
Evelyn smiled innocently. “I know. But about what?”
“That,” her mother said as she put out plates for dinner, “Is a very good question.”
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