Chapter 12

Loran

Meg saved our team by practically hurling herself across one little boy to prevent him from scoring. I felt bad for the kid, but sacrifices must be made. He wasn't hurt, and, to celebrate, our team did some extra practicing until there hardly was any sun left and we had to go home.

I came back into the house, smiling and out of breath. Omama Mae was sitting at the table, frowning.

"Loran, they've put up signs."

I stop. "Of me?"

She nods. "They're looking everywhere for you. Today, an officer came here and made sure I had no information."

I turn to go upstairs. "I'll get my things."

"Wait!" Omama Mae says with ferocity I've never heard her use. "I want you to stay."

"Why? If you want me to go, I'll go."

"I don't want you to go. What would Terrient say? You are more vulnerable out there than you are in here."

"But you are not..."

"You mean that you being here puts me in danger."

I nod.

"Loran, I am an old woman. I will die soon. If they find us, we will both be arrested. I would sacrifice myself for you and your family."

Silence is heard throughout the room. "What's... sacrifice?"

"I would give myself up for you. I would die if you could escape."

"The Allerakin soldiers will not just kill you and let me go."

"Forget it."

"Omama Mae?"

"Yes?"

"How come you didn't tell me about the signs earlier?"

She pauses for a second, then says, "I didn't want to trouble you before the game."

I climb the stairs up to the attic, one by one, deep in thought. Omama Mae really cared for me. She's treating me like her own. This made me think about my parents. Where were Omam and Baba right now? Were they alright? If they were in the custody of the Allerakins, they would not be fine. They would be in big trouble. They had to be in custody, or else a soldier would probably have come telling us the news. I open my reading book to the page that I must memorize and recite to the class tomorrow.

On sunny day, Willihem was playing along the bushes.

He took little sticks

and made them talk

like little Allerakin soldiers.

"We can defeat Erelaria!"

One stick said to another.

"Allerakin!"

They would prance off to battle.

Willihem moved the sticks to the next bush

They drew their swords

And Willihem gave them each a smaller stick.

Together, they defeated the Erelarian army

"See now," Said his Omam dear

"The Erelarians are so weak

Your little stick-men can defeat them."

I hated this poem. It portrayed the Erelarians in such a terrible way- I could hardly bare it. I took my pen, and, very shakily, wrote down each word of the stupid poem.

Your little stick-men can defeat them.

Your little stick-men can defeat them.

Your little stick-men can defeat them.

No! I think. We are stronger than you ever will be. We know what's right. We know who's weak. And it isn't us.

The Erelarians are so weak

...so weak

...so weak

...so weak

I fling the book across the room. "Lies!" I scream. "Lies, do you hear me? Lies!"

"Dinner!" Omama Mae shouts from the floor below me.

I heave a big sigh and stomp down the stairs. There sits Omama Mae.

"Would you care to tell me what that was about?"

"The book tells lies," I mutter.

"Oh." She responds. "Allerakin curriculum is very biased."

"Excuse me?"

"The Allerakin school books only show one side of things, or their political views."

I sort of got that, but I just dig into my cooked potato. It has a bit of milk in a pool on top of it, which gives it a bit more taste. I devour it.

"Terrient will hopefully be here in two days time. Then, we will receive our weekly allowance." I was eager to see Terrient and see what he would bring us.

I quickly finish my potato and jog up the stairs to get back to work. Much as I may loathe it, I must memorize this verse.

"On sunny day, Willihem was playing along the bushes.

He took little sticks

and made them talk

like little Allerakin soldiers."

I begin, but forget the next line. "We can kill Erelaria? We will fight Erelaria?" I try saying out loud, but neither sounds quite right. I look back to my notes, and memorize the entire thing this way. I go downstairs and recite this to Omama Mae. She is working by the fire, but diverts her attention to me so she can listen to my hard work.

"On sunny day, Willihem was playing along the bushes.

He took little sticks

and made them talk

like little Allerakin soldiers.

"We will-I mean can defeat Erelaria!"

One stick said to another.

"Allerakin!"

They would go- walk- prance! off to battle.

Willihem moved the sticks to the next bush

They drew their swords

And Willihem gave them each a... each a... smaller stick. To act like a sword!

Together, they defeated the Erelarian army

"See now," Said his Omam... dear

"The Erelarians are so weak

Your little stick-men can't defeat them!"

I end with a Humph.

She claps.

"Terrible, isn't it?"

"Children here grow up hearing about how terrible Erelaria is. These books just strain the fact."

"Omama Mae?"

"Mm hmm?" She's gone back to her work.

"Did you support Allerakin?"

"Yes. They made everyone think that Allerakin was always right. If you didn't support the ideas, they would kill you."

"Did you support them the night that I came?"

"No. I realized a while ago, when I was helping Meg on her night work about the founding of Pinia that Airavia and Ekkaria have every right to be a country. But I couldn't leave Allerakin. This was and always will be my only home. I grew up here and am determined to stay here. This country will never grow if we just keep moving around. We need to dig roots. I will stay in Allerakin."

"Omama, why do the Allerakins think what they think?"

"They think that Airavia is a great place of land. They want it to be the capital. That's what they think Ho Pinia would have liked the best. Now, off to bed! Early morning tomorrow, eh?"

"Good night, Omama Mae."

"Good night, Loran."

I climb up the stairs slowly and change into my night-dress and slip between the straw. It keeps me warm, even though the Pinian climate is quite hot, when the sun is gone, it gets a tad chilly, and my night dress has sleeves that cut off at my shoulders. I stare up into the leaky rafters and think of what Omama Mae said about digging roots. I agree with her, but why live in Allerakin if you don't have to? I must live here, but she didn't.

Then it occurs to me. How would these Allerakins deal with it if one of their people just moved straight over to the enemy ground? I think about this, but my eyelids grow heavily and I just droop... off.... to sleep.

When I wake the next morning, It is a gloomy day with a sky cluttered in clouds. I slip into my red dress and patter downstairs. Omama is sitting at the table, drinking some hot water with herbs. She pours me a glass, and I drink every drop and am still raging with hunger. It eats away at my stomach as I sit at the table silently.

"Ummm... Do we have any more food?" I ask, breaking the awkward silence.

"No, hardly any food nor money. We have to wait for Terrient or my customers. Now go get eggs, dear."

I scamper out into the dull lighting where I find two, oval eggs resting in the chicken boxes. I pull them out greedily- they are still warm. In the kitchen, Omama cracks one into a pan and places it over the fire. She cooks it until it is a little white circle with a puffy yellow mound in the middle. She pokes at it a bit before transferring it to a small wooden box and sliding a lid over it. She hands it to me. "For lunch."

I run upstairs and load my bag with the box, books, ink, and brush and rush out the door. Meg is waiting for me, kicking around the dust. We set off together.

"How was your night work?" She asks me.

"Fine." I lie. "Want to hear?"

"Sure!"

"On a sunny day, Willihem was playing among... no, along the bushes.

He took sticks... little sticks

and made them talk

like little Allerakin soldiers.

"We will-I mean can defeat Erelaria!"

One stick said to the others- no, another.

"Allerakin!"

They would leave for- prance! off to battle.

Willihem moved the sticks to the next bush

They drew their swords

And Willihem gave them each a... each a... smaller stick. err, to be like a sword!

They defeated the Erelarian army- Together!

"See now," Said his Omam. Omam dear

"The Erelarians are so weak

Your little stick-men can't defeat them!"

"Great!" Meg says with a smile.

"Thanks! How was your math?"

"Eh.. Challenging. I think I will stay in during lunch to work on it."

We walk in silence for a minute as we pass busy shop fronts.

"I wish I had some coins. Then we could buy a nicer potato ball sack. Ours is pretty messy, you know."

"Yes... Tell you what, next one we get, I'll give to the game. Unless Omama Mae has other plans."

"Thank you so much! You see, my family doesn't eat many potatoes, only the ones we can grow and Omam is helpless even at those. I'd tell you..." We had approached the school building. Connor and Li were rolling all over each other, on the ground. It was a flurry of elbows, hands, and knees. Out came the Miech, screaming and clanging her bell.

"Stop this nonsense at once!" She screamed so loudly that I was sure Omam and baba could hear her no matter how far away they were. The boys instantly looked up. Connor had a bloody nose that had dripped all the way into his mouth. Li's eye was black and puffy. The kids that had been watching the fight slowly backed away. Desperate to get as far from the scene of the crime as possible, Meg and I snuck into the school building. We put up our lunches on the shelf, me only holding my three books, ink, and brush now. We walk into the classroom and sit down at our table.

A shout can be heard from the front, "Why do you have to fight every single week?"

Haliy comes in next.

"The Miech sent them home, as always. She has no intent to solve one of their fights at school. I'd declare, she never will. She just sends them home."

A pack of all of the first rows is next, then the second rows, then everybody else. The Miech storms in, muttering under her breath, most likely about the fight. She approaches the front of the classroom.

"Tommas?"

"Here, Miech." The list of names goes on and on. She finally gets to me, where I raise my hand.

"Here, Miech."

She flips her book to the next page. "Recitations." She murmurs. "Loran, reciting The Weak Enemy." I look up. "Just come to the front of the room, dear."

I walk carefully up to the front of the class and spin around. My hands are behind my back as I begin:

"On a sunny day, Willihem is playing by the bushes.

He takes little sticks

"We will defeat the Erelarians!"

One stick says to the others.

"Allerakin!"

And they... prance? off to battle.

Willihem gave them little sticks

And moved them to the next bush

And they defeated Erelaria together.

"See," said his Omam dear.

"Those Erelarians are so weak

That your little sticks can defeat them!"

The children are silent. I wait.

"You may return to your seat, Loran." I stride down the passage in between the tables. "Olli, The Bird." A small boy tiptoes up from the third row to the front and recites with confidence,

"The Bird

The bird came back

On a sunny day

After his trip

Across the never ending sea

He flew up high

into the Allerakin sky

Where the sun beamed on his face

The Children all hurried and were precipitant

to hear his gleeful cry

As he swooped over the babbling creek

They played so

And realized that they had work to do.

So never be drawn away from your work

For those who are sedulous

Will be rewarded"

"Thank you." The Miech begins to make her assignment rounds as Ollie heads back to his third-row seat.

When the Miech comes to me, she begins in a very stern voice. "Did you even practice that reading?"

"Yes, Miech."

"How much?"

"Maybe an hour?"

"How did you practice it?"

"I copied it, said it line by line, and recited it to Omama and Meg."

She turns to Meg, who nods earnestly. "It was fine. She did it much better there."

To me, the Miech says, "Copy it. Five times. And recite it tomorrow." I sigh and get to work.

On sunny day, Willihem was playing along the bushes.

He took little sticks

and made them talk

like little Allerakin soldiers.

"We can defeat Erelaria!"

One stick said to another.

"Allerakin!"

They would prance off to battle.

Willihem moved the sticks to the next bush

They drew their swords

And Willihem gave them each a smaller stick.

Together, they defeated the Erelarian army

"See now," Said his Omam dear

"The Erelarians are so weak

Your little stick-men can defeat them," I write. I mouth the words before copying it again, mouth, copy, mouth, copy, mouth, copy, mouth, copy until she calls for attention.

"Before Break," she begins, gesturing to the board, where each row number is written next to a set of words, "I would like you to copy down the words for your table row and below. Then you may go."

Bedlight, I write. Besmirch. Bight. Brine. Ditty. Dray. Erstwhile. Forsooth. I don't know what any of these mean, but I write them anyway. Hither. Heir. Mizzen. Ness. Oft. There are so many that I go to the next page as students trickle outside. Meg stays beside me and writes, though I think that she is already done. When I finish, she sets her brush down, too, and wipes it off on a scrap of paper. We go to get our lunches, but she goes back into the class.

"Um.. Meg? Can I come, too?"

"Sure! I need to work on my Mathematics, and the Miech might not be too much of a help." She whispers, looking this way and that with a mischievous grin.

We both grab our lunches and books, leaving nothing except for her potato sack for holding books and my patterned sack, and tiptoe back to our table. She opens up Taking Mathematics Further to her night work page, and I open my blank book to where I have copied down the passage that I am supposed to memorize it. We gobble down our food in a matter of counts, and are straight to work. I teach her the concept and she works on the problems while I mouth the words to the piece. I write them in the tiniest script, mouth them with big, articular lips, and say them nice and clearly.

"On sunny day, Willihem was playing along the bushes.

He took little sticks

and made them talk

like little Allerakin soldiers.

"We can defeat Erelaria!"

One stick said to another.

"Allerakin!"

They would prance off to battle.

Willihem moved the sticks to the next bush

They drew their swords

And Willihem gave them each a smaller stick.

Together, they defeated the Erelarian army

"See now," Said his Omam dear

"The Erelarians are so weak

Your little stick-men can defeat them!""

Meg claps, and I notice even the Miech has looked up from the work she is looking through. "Good job!" Meg says. Was that reciting, or reading?"

"Reciting." I beam.

"If you can do that," the Miech begins, "I think you can do it for the class tomorrow."

"I'll keep practicing." I say.

"There's your night work." She begins writing something down, but then looks out the window to the sun. "Good Gracious. They'll never come in if I don't tell them to!" she says.

Meg and I giggle and tail the Miech out to the coat room, where we veer to put our boxes on the shelves and she continues out to the yard to herd up some students.

"Hey!" Meg points at me. "You look a little bit like Pri-" she's interrupted by the stampede of kids. "Um, never mind."

That's not good, I think. If Meg can see who I am, then I'm not in luck. This is really bad. So bad. I have to be more like a commoner.

H,