Chapter Text
The journey took little time, they flew high above normal airlanes, too high above the city to see anything but the red and orange roofs and shining golden and silver spires, neat squares of red grasslands, presumable parks and gardens. The four towers of the Junior College loomed up, and in no time at all the aircar was touching down in one of the cloistered, neat lawned, quads. Other aircars and autokarts had been pulling up outside the huge castle like structure of the school as they had flown over the huge front gates between the East and North Towers. Sanjiandrovanri saw small children clinging to adults as they were disembarking, and her stomach lurched and fluttered. More were walking through the walled corridors and tunnels to enter the quad, adults carrying bags, children holding hands with their parents tightly.
The technician respectfully opened the hatch and stood to attention whilst Borusa alighted, and then took her bag and her hand and helped Sanjiandrovanri out.
“Thank you,” she whispered, mindful of Borusa’s attitude was presumably echoed by those around her. The man smiled, and then arranged his features back to one of neutral servitude as Borusa pulled out a pocket watch from his robes pockets and looked at her.
“I must go, the Senior College has need of me, my dear. We need to find someone to check you in as quickly as possible,” he glanced again at the driver, who nodded and walked in the increasing crowds of parents, nurses, and children, so who were studiously not looking curiously at the car and the Time Lord in his Academy High Chancellor gown and collar. The technician returned with a woman dressed in the same green livery and a clipboard as himself.
“My Lord, how may I be of service?” she asked.
“I have young Lady Sanjiandrovanri here, ready to enrol,” Borusa replied.
“Of what House and City?”
“Lungbarrow, The Capitol Citadel,” Borusa replied, briskly, quietly, surprising Sanji, who thought her Father and Uncle’s House had buried itself, taking her their cousins with it.
She heard the gasp of a nearby Time Lady before she recovered her control, but obviously not detachment, as she pulled her child away from Sanji and whispered to her husband something. So perhaps, Sanji reasoned, Lungbarrow was still vanished,
“Ah,” replied the clerk. She scrolled down the screen of her clipboard. “Yes, I have her my Lord, she is assigned to the East Tower, with houseparent Lynch.”
“Excellent.” Borusa squatted down to Sanji’s eye level. “A good tower, wonderful views of the city and the plains, on a clear day you can see all the way to the Citadel and the Southern mountains if you get a southern window. Your fathers Tower, I believe, if memory serves. No one else will remember, many have had selective memory ablations, many others hypnotised or have self-selected to bury those memories. For convenience. I am so sorry, my dear, that you cannot talk of them. It is a rather large ask for one as young as you. But as we discussed, you may talk of your Uncle, if you wish. Now, I must take my leave.” He stood up and held out his gloved hand. Sanjiandrovanri took it and formally shook it,
“Thank you my Lord Borusa,” she said, curtsying, “for taking me in.”
“It was nothing. Study hard. I no doubt will see you in the Long Vac; unless other arrangements are made.” With that, he turned, and left, climbing into the aircar, and soon it was climbing in the sky, with Sanji just staring after it. She stared into the empty sky a long while after it was out of eyesight. The murmur and hubbub of the parents and children and clerks going above her head.
Suddenly, her silent, empty, hearts were startled by the sounds of clapping hands and the buzz of talking abated, and as it did so, she realised that for quite a while it had been only the higher, excited, pitch, of many eight year olds and no adults. She also worried how long she had been staring at the sky. She felt she may have been lost in something of a trance, it was something she had not done before, although she remembered her human avatar Cassandra had done so many times after being made to be ‘special’ by her grandfather. Was she afraid, she asked herself, and then looked in the direction all the other children were looking?
A Time Lady in a similar gown to Borusa stood in the centre of the quad, waiting for the children to attend. Four more Time Lords stood about her, in less ornate gowns. There were three more Ladies, a Lord, and a person whom Sanji was not sure what was their loomed, regenerated, or chosen gender, who stood behind her.
“Time Tots, attend! This is the last term you will be as such. The term will be a gentle introduction to the Academy for you. You are all children of noble Prydonians who have been here before, and I am sure you are keen not to disappoint your Houses. You are most welcome,” she spread her gloved hands apart and smiled. “I am Lady Marta, the Principle of the Prydonian Junior College of the High Academy of the Time Lords. You will address me as Principle and will curtsy if I come to your Tower or class, or you encounter me out and about in the general environs. Once you are in the final year, you may forgo such formality, but that is a long journey ahead for you all. First, I shall introduce the Head of Reception, and she will run by some simple rules and regulations, then I introduce your Houseparents, and will read out your name and Tower. Once you know which Tower you will be in, you must go and stand beside your new Houseparent, and must give them the loyalty and obedience you would for your parents. For the next years, until you graduate to the Senior College, your Tower is your House.”
All the children stood, silent, in awe. Sanji realised she was not the only one to be afraid, more than one child was weeping silently, trying to hide it, failing to exercise the control that their Kindergarten would have taught. A child to her right was actually hyperventilating.
“This is Lady The Crane.”
A tall, thin, women with a long, equally thin, nose, in a very high collar and quite figure-hugging gown, stood forward. “Welcome children. Please attend,” she began, and started to list the rules, and Sanji struggled to listen and remember, but once she was told they would be in the handbook each child would be handed in their dormitory bedrooms, she began again to watch the sky. She must have drifted off, as she was suddenly aware of her name being called. She looked around, panicked, and saw the person of undetermined gender indicate themselves, already with several children around them. She quickly crossed the quad to stand with the others of the East Tower.
*
After two more children joined them, their houseparent clapped their hands and led them off in small crocodile, two by two. A dark skinned boy with his face screwed up with the effort not to cry, his utter despair in his homesickness leaking behind his wall of billowing curtains – interesting, Hoolie and Aris taught their Time Tots to build a mental shield with balloons – Sanjiandrovanri impulsively took his hand in hers and squeezed, entwining their fingers.
“I’m Sanjiandrovanri,” she whispered. “It all is a bit terrifying, isn’t it?”
“I’m Uti,” he whispered, “Lord Utiandromandra of the Green Roofs,” he whispered back.
“Hello,” she grinned. It was, after all, what Father would do to be nice, smile widely and say hello.
“No chatting at the back there!” called their houseparent.
The crossed the quad, went under an arch and crossed a second quad with courts for games and fencing, and then a third quad with a playpark, benches, and fishponds, then entered a long, white, corridor, decorated with the roundals of mundane spaces. Finally, they came to a large, curving, white staircase, with a huge holo-portrait of a stern looking Time Lord.
“Lord Prydonia,” whispered a girl in front of her.
As they climbed, a second holo-portrait seemed to grow out of the first, a man with white hair, who reminded Sanji of her Father when small, expect his face was angry and stern, and his body held stiffly.
“The Other, Imagined,” whispered the same girl.
“Show off, how do you know?” a boy scoffed from further down the crocodile.
The girl began to cry. Sanji patted her shoulder with her free hand. She had done with being the school mouse, always mocked and bullied, once, as Cassandra, and she was determined not to let that happen again. Cassandra had consoled herself that she did not fit in because she was an alien princess, and how right she had surprisingly been, well the alien part, but as Sarah in the Little Princess had said, all girls were princesses!
“My Mother is an art broker,” the girl in front sniffed.
“Mine is a secretary to the High Council,” Uti whispered back.
“So what,” scoffed the other boy, “I have two, and they both design TARDISes, which is so much more interesting, and exciting!”
Sanji suspected this was true, but he was irritating. “So what, I don’t have a mother, but my fathers are-”
“I said silence!” the houseparent roared, from the top of the stairs, counting in each child as they had climbed it, and directing them through huge doors at the top. As the last two got the landing, which was Uti and Sanji, Uti was ushered through the doorway, while the Time Lord grabbed Sanji by the shoulder and held her firmly. “I thought you understood the directive from the President and High Council, Lady Sanjiandrovanri,” they said, sternly.
“I’m sorry,” she said hotly, her cheeks burning, trying not to cry, “but he was horrid to that little girl!”
“Which is why we practice Detachment and Control, and leave any disagreement to the adult teacher, young lady. We most certainly do not intervene. I see I will have to keep my eye on you, which was as I suspected. We are not on Earth now.”
Sanji hugged her backpack, Gallifreyan on the inside, but Earth design, knowing it contained Terran toys, clothes, and books, and nodded, hanging her head. All the false confidence she had found from being Father, and his motto, you own the place, evaporating like tea poured on snow.
“Yes, my Lord. Sorry my Lord,” she whispered, trying even harder not to cry.
*
She followed the houseparent through the grand, ornate, carved faux wooden doors to see a huge circular room. A table was in the middle, surrounded by chairs and then, circling that, three long continuing, soft, orange and burgundy sofas. Behind that were desks with access terminals and paper on blotting pads. Huge diamond shaped leaded windows were above the desks, with black frames, every fifth pane a coloured pane, some showing pictures of young people holding books, or scrolls, or swords, or flaming torches. The rest of the younglings were gathered together under the large, unique, window, an arch of different coloured pieces of glass, all pushed together like a mosaic or collage. Their houseparent turned,
“Quickly, join the others, spit spot!” as they spoke a technician emerged from a door to the right of the grand doors. “Ah, good, you are here,” the houseparent said.
Once Sanji joined the others, they smiled and said, “Now we are all here, sit down children.”
“Not knowing quite what to do, the children all seemed to universally decide to sit on the floor between the sofas and the table chairs. Their houseparent turned a table chair and sat on it, facing the Time Tots. Sanji sat crossed legged, as did most of the others, all looking up.
“Hello. And welcome. I know this is all new, and quite different, for you all. I am sure you will settle in in no time at all. I am your Houseparent, Lynch. Now, if anyone has not met a non-binary person before, you will refer to me as they and them, not she/he or her/him. I am your houseparent, not housemother or housefather. You may call me my Lord, or Sir, rather than Lady or Madam, but that is only because in countless millennia no one has come up with an alternative. Still, many a Time Lady calls herself a Time Lord, as I am sure you have noticed. My identity is important to me, and so I will not be so kind on stumbles after the first week. Take this as an important lesson – a Prydonian meets a person where they are, and respects that.”
A child raised their hand.
“And you are?”
“Suki. Lady Sukinandometi from the House of Kalibus, my Lord.”
“You have a question,” this was a statement. “Here, when we ask for clarification or enlightenment, we stand and hold our hands behind our back, Suki.”
The child stumbled to her feet and put her hands behind her back, but from where Sanji sat, she could see the girl was twisting her fingers nervously.
“I mean no disrespect, but were you loomed or regenerated with both parts, like a hermaphrodite, or is just a question of your artron and aura and mental image of yourself, my Lord?”
“Please, do not be ashamed to ask scientific questions, Suki. It is the latter, and I have always been so, since I was a loomling. I have regenerated in both male and female bodies, but never do I feel attached to the gender I wear.”
Another child held up their hand.
“Yes, child, and you are?”
The boy leapt to his feet and held his hands behind his back, and rushed out. “I have a sibling of my mother who is gender fluid, they always change with regeneration, but often just with their mood. Sometimes I have an uncle, sometimes an aunt, I never know until they visit and I feel their aura, is it like that with you?”
“A good question, and no, not really, I do not alter, I do not perceive gender the way most do at all, but in your rush of scientific inquiry, you forgot your introduction.”
“I am Anromecus.”
“Ah yes, Anromecus, congratulations. You won the East Tower Scholarship, did you not?”
The boy flushed, and looked at the ground. “Yes my Lord, thank you,” he mumbled, as some of the children looked at each other or him.
One more child slowly raised their hand, a blonde girl with very ornate braids.
“A final question. Do not forget to introduce yourself.”
“I am Policanta of the House of Legolas. I am confused, as I was taught it impolite to discuss regeneration.”
“So it is, Policanta, but here at Prydonia, although we place decorum and custom in an important place, scientific curiosity is also a highly sought prize in a good Prydonain scholar. Never be afraid to ask why here, you will have millennia when you graduate to be correct and decorous, my dear. Now, rules and customs and maps. Firstly, this is our Tower med tech, Luce; she and her staff will attend to you. If you feel sick or worried, you go to her. If there is a more mundane problem, you go to the housekeepers’ office next door to the infirmary. Luce will hand you all maps now, the first is of the Tower, the record of the college and the areas accessible to Reception. She will also hand you the handbook, within it are the rules and customs of this house.”
Some children placed the books in front of them, some hugged them, Sanji immediately began to flick through them. They had their own playing field, play park, and swimming pool, library, atrium and cloister. She had been worrying about long dorms, but each shared with one other child in a long corridor of partitions, she could tell.
“Lady Sanjiandrovanri, there will be plenty of time to look. Now is the time to attend,” Lynch said quietly. Sanji slipped the book to the floor next to her backpack. No one else had bags, they had had trunks or boxes, unloaded by house servants and handed to college ones, from what she had seen before enrolment.
“Tomorrow will be orientation, and each of you will be expected to meet the Principle, and there will also be an assessment, not that we don’t trust your kindergarten grades, but it is also good to make up ones own mind without prejudice. There is no shame in what mark you achieve, it is just to see where you are at in the basics. There will also be the beginners feast. Today, however, is for getting settled in. In a moment, Luce will take you, two by two, to your rooms, and you can unpack your trunks, and get to know your roommate. Then we will have simple meal, and the evening will be for exploring the Tower, getting acquainted, and so forth. Then, you will bathe, and come back here for a small supper, and bed. My door is always open, as well as Luce’s, if any of you need a friendly ear.” They smiled widely. “There is no shame in admitting to homesickness and the missing of family. Luce, my dear, if you will.”
“Oh. Um. Yes, firstly, Lord Utiandromandra and Anromecus.”
Uti looked startled for a moment, and Sanji heard his impolite thought about the scholarship tech, and she hoped Anromecus didn’t. his first thought was squashed, however, by one of shame, and he smiled at the other boy. Anromcus too, she saw, had a bag, a large canvas holdall. It looked heavy, as if the dimensional engineering was faulty or poorly grown. She smiled at them both as they passed, and they looked at her if they feared she were unstable, although Uti managed a small, nervous, smile back, but Anromecus scowled. She looked down, and traced patterns in the carpet, until she heard her name.
*
Technician Luce led them to their small room – a bed each, a table between them, and either side of their beds, a desk, a chest, and a wardrobe. A holoboard was above each desk,
“You may select images which please you, and timetables and announcements will be displayed every morning and evening, so do not forget to attend and look,” Luce said, as she finished the tour of the tiny room. She opened a door next to the left-hand wardrobe, “Bathroom. Housekeeping will send in bots daily, but that is not an excuse to be slovenly or lazy. Pick up your towels, etc, and clean up spills and so forth.”
Sanji looked a long while and the large, circular bath, happy, as she loved deep bubble baths. The other child looked worried.
“My parents were assured I would get a private bathroom,” they said, chewing their lip.
“I’m afraid we cannot do that, as this is the only space left for the Lady Sanjiandrovanri, she was late enrolled.”
The child glared at Sanji, but with fear, not hatred or anger. “I won’t come in if you are about your toilette, I promise, or look if you are dressing. I’m worried about sharing a space too,” she tried a Father type beam to reassure him, but worried she looked demented.
“Keli is special Sanjiandrovanri, so you must respect her privacy.”
“Of course,” she nodded, looking curiously at the child who she had taken for a boy, and thought were perhaps nonbinary like Houseparent Lynch.
“I’m transgender, okay?” Keli blurted out.
“Oh?” Sanji replied, nonplussed.
“Would you like Houseparent Lynch to come to explain to you, dear?” Luce asked.
“Oh?” Sanji frowned, why couldn’t Luce? Oh, the them and us of Time Lords and other Gallifreyans was going to annoy her, she had Cassandra’s parents, socialists, views still in her head. Lynch already thought she was stupid and inattentive and disobedient, so much so she wondered if they had dealt with either of her fathers. “Can’t Keli explain, it’s… their? Identity. If you don’t mind,” she added hurriedly, looking at her roommate, standing stock still and trying and failing not to hyperventilate.
“Is that alright, Keli dear?”
“Yes, Technician Luce,” Keli replied breathlessly.
“I shall leave you to get settled and get the next two Tots then. Your box is on your bed, Keli, as you can see. You did not have one, did you Sanjiandrovanri?”
“Sanji,” Sanji decided, and there it was, her new Junior college name. It was certainly shorter.
“Of course. The meal will be within the next two hour. Watch for the announcement on the screen. There will be also a voice announcement if you decide to explore.
“Thank you, Luce,” Sanji said, trying another Doctor-beam.
The Technician looked startled, and checked the impulse to smile.
“That will be all then,” Keli said, dismissively, looking oddly at Sanji, before going to their box and opening it.
Sanji lifted her backpack and dumped it on her bed, the one on the right side of the room. The only natural light came from a large round window above the table between their beds.
“Do you not have a box?”
“No.”
“The bag has an unusual design. What are the straps for? I deduce that the bag is to be worn on ones back or front.”
“The back, it is called a backpack or rucksack, or even haversack. It is an Earth design.”
“Earth? Tellurian? Have you been off world?”
Sanji looked down, was she supposed to tell. “Yes, but it is a secret. Is your transgender thing a secret?” she added, taking the opportunity to find out which way Keli was transitioning, as she was not certain, some children looked so neutral. It was of course different with adults. Back on Earth when she had been, human transgendered people, called transsexuals, were the butt of jokes, or objects of pity, but so were people with a preference to fall in love with their own gender, or people with darker skins, or women… or anyone not white and male, really. It used to make Cassandra’s parents angry, they were anti-racist and her Mum called herself a feminist. Lots of TV had been banned from her – from Cassandra’s – brother and her, and other times they explained history and why it was not funny. She still was sometimes so muddled as to who she was. Father had been so angry at his brother, children should never go through a chameleon arch, he had said. She supposed she could talk about Uncle Brax though. She smiled to make her question seem kind and not rude.
“Yes,” Keli answered decidedly. “There was an accident in the Loom, my brainwaves, artron and aura are female, my body male. No doubt you have heard this happening with a regeneration?”
Sanji frowned, thinking back, it had been such a long while since she had been on her own planet. “Don’t people usually waste an entire regeneration to correct it?”
“Sometimes. It depends on the level of body dysmorphia.”
Sanji worked out the word roots. “Hating your body?”
“More feeling wrong inside, like you put the wrong clothes on but a million times worse. I can’t regenerate until my body and brain are fully mature.”
Sanji thought about this too, thought about all the changes that happened between childhood and adulthood, it was called puberty, and supposed to be horrible. “But won’t your body… um, won’t it change?” she whispered.
“My medical tech will give me hormones to block puberty as soon as it begins – my body will mature in other ways, but not that. Will you keep my secret?”
Sanji nodded. “You are a girl, I thought you were a boy because your psychic walls are very strong for a loomling. If you let it down, everyone will feel your girlness and ignore your broad shoulders and narrow face. I’m sorry, I was rude!”
“It’s okay, it is good advice. I am used to adults’ pity when they sense my being trans, and some of the children at the Kindergarten were mean and even bullied me. Looms rarely make mistakes. I thought you might be nonbinary like our Houseparent, as you have such short hair.”
Keli’s hair was long, ginger, and styled with many braids flat against her head, with orange ribbons at the end of each one, to match her uniform.
“Oh no. At least, I don’t think so.” Cassandra had wanted to be a boy, her human avatar, but that felt more like she was cross at the sexism of her planet, and maybe sadness and hurt from being made to be special by her grandfather. As soon as she had her body back, Sanjiandrovanri had wanted pretty dresses, but did wanting pretty dresses necessarily make you a girl? This was a house Tower with lots of complicated questions about gender she had not expected until puberty. “This is a popular hair cut on Earth during the time period I was there.”
“Children are not allowed off world, especially Time Tots. How is it you were off world?”
Sanji shrugged. “The President has redacted everything. I will commit high treason if I tell people! But that is probably treason, telling you. Please keep my secret!”
Keli stood with her mouth wide open in shock. She pulled herself together, and said, “Wow. Okay. That is a much bigger secret than mine!”
Sanji nodded earnestly. “It will be awfully hard. Have you heard of Lord Irving Braxiatel?”
“The bookman? I saw a documentary on Public Record 7. Is he your Father?”
“Uncle.”
“And that was why you were off world? To get books from Earth?”
“In a manner of speaking,” Sanji replied, wincing internally, as that was a phrase Father used which annoyed Papa so much. Never forget rule one, your Father lies, Papa said to her, when he came for his belongings, after Father threw him out for hitting her. Her sisters had been there, and Ushas, all to make sure Papa did not hit her again. She had forgot that. Memory was funny. She watched Keli awkwardly take out pieces of clothing and look and them, before putting them back. “Would you like me to unpack for you?”
“Would you, I’ve never done this, my nurse and the housebots did everything, I’m not quite sure what to do!”
“Of course,” Sanji said. “I’ve been unpacking and repacking and so on since I was a tiny Time Tot. I’m not allowed to quite tell you why, but I moved about from adult guardian to adult guardian. No one thought to engage a nurse, apart from Ushas, but she really believed in self-reliance, so I still had to tidy my own rooms.”
“Who is Ushas?”
“A biochemist. She’s a renegade now. She was friends of my fathers. After her I went to my Uncle.”
“Irving Braxiatel? The bookman?”
“Yes.”
“I saw you arrive, with the actual Chancellor of Prydonia, my Mother said.”
“Oh, yes, that’s a secret too. He maybe my next guardian, or I might go to my Uncle. Or I may even stay here.” She looked around the room. “I’ll respect your side if that happens.”
Keli stared, horrified. “No family, no house, off world belongings, you are like an alien! Are you an alien?”
Sanji shook her head. Although I have a human grandmother, apparently, she thought behind her newly built strong wall of balloons. She hoped proper psychic walls would be taught soon, not kindergarten ones.
Keli had many pretty gowns on top of her uniform clothing, and several temporal mathematics games and books, and a rag doll with ginger plaits and dark skin, dressed in a tiny Prydonian uniform. She also had many beautiful gowns.
“That’s Carli, I’ve had her since I was very small. I have many other dolls, but they said only one toy.”
“They said only one item of clothing, too,” Sanji said, as dry as her Papa, as she put each beautiful gown carefully on a hanger. She soon ran out, but took them from her wardrobe. She would only hang her compulsory clothing; her human clothing could stay in the bag.
Keli giggled. “I know,” she said, hiding her smile behind her hand.
“Well, I won’t tell if you don’t tell on my extra toys. I couldn’t bear to leave them! They’ve been with me as I moved around. I was going to keep them in the bag, but…”
“I won’t snitch, promise. Oh, you are clever, how are you folding that underwear?”
“It’s easy, shall I show you?”
Keli watched Sanji’s hands fold the next long sleeved undertop, but scowled with confusion. “I don’t think I will ever get that! I can do all kinds of equations in my head, but my hands and feet never go where I want them! Thank you,” she added, as Sanji folded the last pair of knickers and stood on the bed, and lifted the empty box and put it on the top of the wardrobe.
“I think it is meant to go there,” she decided, wobbling, dropping the box and falling on her bottom on the bed, making it and Keli bounce.
“I think the servitors will come and collect the boxes.”
“Oh? Oh well…”
“Will you unpack now?”
“Later, let’s have a look around. I’d hate to get lost tomorrow.”
“That sounds fine, and we can see who else is in our Tower. I can’t believe we have a Technical caste scholarship!”
“Why?”
“There is only one every one hundred years, my grandmother told me. She was one, centuries ago. Oh, please keep that a secret.”
“Oh? Shall we go?” Sanji rummaged through the enrolment pack and found the maps.
Keli nodded and stood up, taking Sanji’s hand. They looked at each other and took a deep breath, then pushed open their bedroom door to the long dorm corridor, where all the twin room were off. Of any other children, there was no sign.
*
They followed the map, found their classrooms and exercise spaces, as well as places for assembly and meetings, before setting into the parks.
“Is this just for us in the East Tower, or all the Towers?” Keli wondered nervously, biting her lip and pulling at one of her plaits.
“I think it is just for us. I can feel the dimensional transdencence, we are still in the east Tower.”
“How do you notice, you noticed it before?”
“I think it must be because I was off world. I only returned three days ago.”
“Oh? Oh weird. I mean, for you,” Keli amended hurriedly.
“I am weird,” Sanji decided, “always have been. It’s my fathers. But oh, I’m not allowed to talk of them. Ever!”
“Are they redacted?”
Sanji nodded and looked down at the grass. Keli slipped her hand in hers and squeezed. “It’s okay, I will keep your secrets. It is hard to have such big ones. I want to ask questions but am worried about committing Treason. Come, look, there are fish!” Keli pulled Sanji to one of the ponds, and they watched golden fish dart about for a while, until Sanji could look up without crying.
“Look, swings!” she cried, as soon as she felt able to be happy, or pretend to be, and ran across the grass, pulling Keli. “I love swings!” Or Cassandra did, and the human part of her was still her, wasn’t it? She jumped on one and began immediately to work her legs and get higher and higher, until the chains wobbled against the crossbar, as if she might flip over it.
“Sanji!” Keli squealed. “You’re so high! How do you do that? My nurse and parents would push me!”
Sanji stopped working her legs and let the swing’s momentum slow, but she jumped off while still quite high, for kicks. Keli screamed.
Someone laughed, but not unkindly. They turned and say Uti and Anromecus emerge from the Wendy House climbing frame slide arrangement.
“That was cool,” said Uti.
“Foolhardy,” said Anromecus. “Do you have no sense of danger?”
“I can push you – Keli, is it?” Uti offered.
“I want to learn, like Sanji,” Keli replied, although she bit her lip nervously, she was so clumsy. Dyspraxic, her med tech called it.
“Me too,” Anromecus said. “Tech parks are not so well equipped,” he explained, not wanting to look pampered like the Prydonian born children, with their nurses and housebots to push them.
Uti and Keli looked at their feet, as if he had breached propriety. They fell awkward at his mention of not having their background, which was privileged, but they had not thought it so until now.
“Well that stinks, totally unfair!” said Sanji angrily, not in the least embarrassed or awkward. “Doesn’t surprise me though, let’s all sit on a swing, okay. It’s merely the application of push and pull upon gravity.”
They sat beside each other, each on a swing, watching and imitating Sanji’s legs, trying to get it right, all laughing, and lost all sense of time, until the bell called them to the meal.
“Are we friends, do you think?” Anromecus asked nervously.
“Of course,” said Keli shyly, patting his arm.
“I hope so,” said Uti, and they all looked at Sanji, who scowled worriedly.
“As long as you don’t hate me when you know I’m weird.”
“Well, I don’t fit, so why would I hate you?” Anromecus said.
“And you were kind when I was scared!” said Uti.
“And we are roommates,” Keli said, looking meaningfully at Sanji, saying you know my secret too. She held out her hand. “Come on, let’s get something to eat.”