Evaluations of the Tribe Page 10

  The Little One watched Teacher and the other Little Ones practice their being without even giving it a thought. Of all the nerve. They had so much power, so much of a blessing, and they didn’t even realize it. They were probably already planning to omit her from the Evaluations, but they were going to be sorely mistaken once she was old enough to take part in them. No, making it through the Evaluations wasn’t just an expected task anymore for Aly. It was an obligation, and no one was ever going to look down on her again once she finished them.

  Then again, maybe everyone in the tribe was right, and she just couldn’t handle the fact of being useless.

  “Stupid hands,” she said to herself as she started sweeping again.

  Aly got bored with broom work by the third minute and stopped to see how everyone else was doing. By the looks of it, at least the entire class had orange or red balls of being leaving their palms. Not the strongest, per se, but at least they had something.

  Aly held out a palm and pushed. As expected – nothing.

  “Stupid,” she said again as she punched the broom’s handle. “Ow.” Green oak wood was the densest wood on the planet, so she might as well have been punching a handle made of stone. The mastra shook the sting off her knuckles and went back to watching her classmates.

  Teacher was showing everyone different movements meant to enhance their inner being’s circulation throughout the body. As usual, Catty took to the instructions naturally. When Teacher called her to the front to follow his steps, their in-tuned moves looked like they were dancing.

  Left hand swoops to the front. Right hand swoops to the front. Palms face forward, and push. A strike. Rotate palms once, and push. Another strike.

  “Very well performed, Catty,” Teacher said as the class clapped.

  She bowed and took her place back with her peers.

  “Wow,” Aly said, now leaning against the broom.

  “And thus, we shall all perform this together, very good?” Teacher turned around and went into a basic stance.

  “Such a showoff,” Requai said as Catty went by.

  Catty acted like her words meant nothing, but she was already telling herself not to channel as much being as she got back to her spot. No one liked a teacher’s pet. It was bad enough some of the class, masters and mastras alike, were calling her out for being fancy and spoiled because she always had something nice to wear, unlike the rest of them.

  Catty acted like she messed up her form the second time, just so she wouldn’t hear others whisper about being such a “goody good.” She looked around to see if anyone saw her mishap, but everyone else was too concerned with bettering their form to care. She felt heavy-hearted, realizing that she would lose, one way or another.

  Aly picked up her broom and started sweeping again. Since she was frustrated, the Little One put more force into her sweeps than before. The giant leaves at the broom’s base nudged the pile of twigs and rocks that she piled up. The mastra’s left brow went up as she watched the debris roll away. Funny. It reminded her of a being shockwave.

  She looked at the broom, and then back at the class. She shrugged as she got into the same fighting stance as everyone else, figuring she might as well have some fun while doing work.

  “On my mark,” Teacher said. “And one.”

  While the class moved their left arm on “one,” Aly swung the broom to the right like a racket.

  “And two.”

  Aly tossed the broom into her right hand and swung in the opposite direction.

  “And push.”

  The Little One paused, not knowing how to mimic everyone else’s attack with a broom in hand. She was contemplating going back to sweeping, but went into her fighting stance along with everyone else. However, instead of holding the broom in one hand, she held it in both. The mastra nodded at her own genius and awaited the order.

  “One.” Left sweep.

  “Two.” Right sweep.

  “And push.” This time, Aly chambered her arms back to her chest and pushed her hands out, just as if she was shooting a ball of being. Of course, no ball came, but she was willing to settle for a reasonable replacement for the time being.

  “One.” Another left sweep.

  “Two.” A right sweep, but this time, the Little One lowered the broom to the right before she swung, making a swoosh from an upward angle.

  “And push.” Aly swung the broom down with an overhead strike. The Little One got out of her stance and stood straight up, amazed.

  “How fun!” She ran over to a bag resting against a tree and grabbed a dankerball, skipping deeper into the forest.

  By the time sparring sessions ended, the Little Ones had worked up a sweat. Not even Catty wanted to think about staying afterward for practice, so they hurried over to their pile of belongings instead.

  “Truly, I wish I were as good as you, Catty,” Glani said as she picked up her bag and scrolls. “How are you so skilled?”

  “I am not so skilled,” Catty quickly said. “I simply work hard.”

  “Ah, and we do not?” Requai said.

  “Nay! You know I did not mean such a thing.”

  Glani giggled. “Indeed. It is as my folks say.” She straightened her back and put her hands on her hips. “Truly, we are to do well for the mere greater good, Little One.”

  The mastra’s laughed at the mockery as they headed home. Catty, however, paused when her ears twitched. She heard something getting walloped with a stick and bouncing off trees.

  “Hold,” she said. “Do you lot not hear that? Come.”

  Requai and Glani called over the other half of their group so they wouldn’t be left out. They followed the sound until they came upon Aly, who was striking a mid-grade dankerball back and forth. The Little Ones didn’t say anything as they watched, mesmerized by Aly’s phenomenal moves with the broom in hand. A swing to the right, a strike from overhead, and then a swoosh to the left, just to keep the ball’s momentum.

  The mastra looked like she was hypnotized as she struck the ball. She only smiled when she was able to add in a new attack, and by the time a minute went by, Aly had a different style to her moves. A spin strike here, an uppercut there, and then the girls jolted when the mastra put a roundhouse kick into the mix.

  “I mean... Wow.” Catty nudged Requai. “Truly, she is good at this, yes?”

  “What of it? What use is it, when a single shot from one of us could lay her out flat? You try to be passive about it, yet you still speak up for that odd one.”

  “Truly, I do not!” Catty twiddled her thumbs. “I simply mean she does well for one who lacks the skills as us. She might as well be around for good fun, yes?”

  Requai didn’t look convinced, so Catty marched over to Aly.

  Aly caught the ball and turned around when she heard Catty’s foot snap a twig. When she saw the others, she could tell she needed to put on her excessively nice face.

  “Yes, Mistress?” she said.

  “Catty, you dolt,” the other mastra whispered. “Just Catty.”

  She turned around to see if her friends were behind her, but the others stayed back, probably so they could evaluate the mastra’s performance.

  Aly shook her head and held the dankerball even tighter. “I beg, just walk away.”

  Catty thought about the way she left Aly in the tree that morning. She was wrong. There was no other way to put it. Still, she might as well have been on a firing squad with each person just begging for her to give the wrong answer.

  “What?” Catty said. “You want to know if I would like to play?”

  “Pardon? I never said such a––”

  “Why am I to waste time with a dumb broom when I am good enough without one?”

  “Ooh,” the girls in the back said.

  The only hint of Aly’s irritation was when her pupils widened. She closed her eyes and counted to ten, just as Shanvi suggested she do whenever one of the mastras picked on her. She made it to seven when she opened her eyes, sighed, and smile
d.

  Without warning, Aly tossed the dankerball into the air, struck it with her broom, and sent it soaring against a tree. The ball bounced against three other trees before it flew back at her. She ducked and smirked when she heard the ball go bung as it smacked Catty in the face.

  “Agh!”

  The other five mastras went hysterical as Aly caught the ball when it came back to her. She bounced it once as she towered over her fallen foe, still grinning.

  Catty sat up and rubbed her face. Everyone was caught off guard when she started to cry. The Little Ones stopped laughing, knowing that Teacher would hear her wails.

  “What trouble is there?” they heard the older Goolian say, not even five seconds later.

  Teacher shoved through the five and knelt down beside Catty. He picked her up and wiped her eyes with a cloth. She had a flushed spot on her cheek matching the shape of a dankerball. Aly gulped and tried to roll her ball behind her back.

  “Aly did it,” the other mastras said in unison.

  Teacher turned and glared at the gray-eyed mastra, who went stiff as green oak wood.

  “Surely this cannot be true, Alytchai, yes?” When the Little One didn’t say anything to defend herself, he stood back up and shook his head. “Truly, I am deeply disappointed.”

  The five avoided eye contact with Aly as she got her scolding. However, Teacher placed his hands behind his back and pointed at Catty.

  “This is truly out of her character,” he said. “Thus I take it you were to give reason for her act, Cattalice.”

  Catty stopped sniffing as she glanced at the rest of her friends. They didn’t say a word.

  Teacher nodded. “Uh huh. And thus I see the guilt in this one’s eyes as well. It has been a long time since you caused trouble, Catty. Am I to fear a return to misbehaving?”

  “Nay, Master,” the Little One quickly said. “My gravest apologies.”

  “Spare no such words to me. For I am not the one you wronged.”

  Catty nodded and turned around to face Aly. Without looking at her, she bowed. “Apologies, Mastra Alytchai.”

  The sparring priest crossed his arms. “And what shall we say, Aly?”

  The mastra bit her lip and thought of some words she heard the grown-ups say when they thought the Little Ones weren’t close enough to hear them.

  “My thanks,” she said instead. “And you have my apology as well.”

  “No more trouble, very good?” Teacher said. “And I shall not hear any more of this. Off you go, the lot of you.”

  Teacher took Aly’s ball and left. She watched Catty turn around to leave, probably hoping that was the end of things. Instead, she lashed her tongue out and smacked the Little One’s ear with it, just to let her know otherwise. The gesture was the highest insult a Goolian could give another.

  Catty turned around and clutched her fists, yellow fumes rising from them as she glared. Requai and Glani grabbed her by the elbows and pulled her away.

  “You shall get into even more trouble,” Glani insisted.

  “Truly, just leave her be for now,” Requai added. “We always have the morrow, yes?”

  * * *

  Aly kept some distance between her and the rest of the mastras on the way back to Kutenbrya that evening. Besides her irritation with them, she was too busy studying while she walked. She was especially fond of the scrolls that dwelt with astronomy.

  The Little One looked up at the darker part of the sky, where the suns no longer were, so she could verify a giant group of stars that almost looked like clouds. She had seen the stars for as long as she could remember, but it was neat knowing what they were called now.

  “So, that is what it be,” she said to herself.

  The other six stopped talking and turned around.

  “What nonsense does this one blabber about now?” Requai demanded.

  “Oh. Apologies.” Aly turned and pointed at an area of the sky that showed the cloud of stars. “That is to be the galactic plane. Neat, yes?”

  Catty looked where Aly was pointing and shrugged, since she only saw what had always been part of their sky. Nothing special. She went back to the more interesting conversation the six were having before.

  When the mastras split up and went their separate ways, Aly still had her nose in the scrolls, too preoccupied to worry about her surroundings unless she was looking up at the sky to verify a particular star or planet. Her ears twitched when she heard Catty running after her, so she sped up.

  “Perhaps you should go home today, Mistress.”

  “Nay,” Catty said, catching up. “I just remembered that my pappai needed me to retrieve your pappai’s sales report for the quarter. I shall not be long.”

  Aly paused and shrugged. “Indeed. Yet I fear my pappai shall insist that you stay and do homework there when he is to see you.”

  Aly’s hunch was right. Shanvi immediately asked Catty to stay, not even a minute after they entered the hut. What an annoyance. She didn’t know her pappai could tell the two were having one of their typical quarrels, and this was his way of making them sit and settle things. He even offered the two their favorite treats at the counter so they’d have no choice but to interact.

  “And what is the product of six and seven?” Shanvi asked thirty minutes into the mastras’ homework as he tallied the sale numbers again.

  “Forty and two,” Catty answered after a momentary pause. She dipped her finger into the blue bowl of paint she and Aly were supposed to be sharing.

  “Very good.” Shanvi turned around to see if he needed to refill the paints. “Oh. I thought you two were to use the same bowl, since you are using similar colors.”

  “Nay,” Aly said, rather coldly. “She can use her own... I mean, she may use her own if she likes.”

  Shanvi whistled nervously and went back to work, knowing that directly lecturing the two about their current relationship wasn’t going to help matters.

  Aly examined Catty’s painting, noting her sky interpretation. She wasn’t impressed. The real sky was a lot more elaborate, especially the sunsets. There were never any clouds, but they were still as magnificent. Watching the stars come out and form a blanket of crystals overhead was fascinating to the Little One, especially now that she knew what the stars actually were.

  Aly looked at one of the white dots outside her window, recalling that it was many astromilos away. She knew what a milo was, but she just learned about astromilos a few days ago. Since she was too young, her current books didn’t explain the difference between the two forms of measurement in much detail, but she knew “astro” meant bigger. Much bigger. With that, she wondered how far something could possibly be to look so small. Stars were other suns, after all. And to think that other people lived around so many of them was absolutely amazing.

  Catty tugged a bead in Aly’s tents when she didn’t give an answer.

  “Pay attention.” Catty groaned. “Your pappai was to ask you what four multiplied by nine was.”

  “Thirty and six,” Aly said, annoyed. “I knew the answer. I was simply wondering.”

  Shanvi unrolled a scroll. “Now, Aly. Catty speaks well. Truly, there be nothing of importance outside, very good? Thus, continue with your painting, dearest.”

  “Apologies, Pappai. Yet, if I may?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Remember how I was to tell you about our discussion about aliens in class the other day? Truly, do you not ever wonder what they do?”

  Catty grabbed her head. “Great. This again.”

  Shanvi laughed as he double-checked his report. “Well, of course. I was to have such thoughts when I was your age, yet as I grew older, I became wiser. I realized how little importance the other people’s dealings are. They mean no harm to us, thus there be no need for concern.”

  “Yet what of those Cyogen rumors we heard of months ago?”

  “In case this one has yet to notice, such things are merely a common item from time to time, Aly,” Catty insisted, now wanting in on
the conversation, apparently.

  “And you speak truly, Little One,” Shanvi placed his papers down on the counter. “Do not let the old ghost stories told around the campfires trouble you. Truly, that is all they be, mere stories of a history from eons past. And, since they be nothing more, we best concern ourselves with what we know as fact, and not mere speculation.”

  “Master Shanvi,” Catty cut in, “my pappai was to tell me of a similar rumor about a war prior to my and Aly’s birth.”

  “Ah, truly.” Shanvi stroked his beard as he thought about the many rumors he had heard over the years. “Indeed. That one. Goodness me, that rumor lasted for three long years. It spoke of Ufre fighting the Wethan and Sauthian nations, and we only learned it was a fib... What was it? Ah! I believe it was a solar cycle prior to your births. And – if I do recall – I believe there was even one when I was yet a lad, myself. Do you see, Aly? I beg, do not let such silly talk distract you from reality.”

  Aly shrugged and went back to painting.

  “Hey,” Catty said, turning around. “How is this for a thought? Perhaps the war spoken of prior to our birth is the same war the village was to fuss about a few months ago, yes?”

  “If that be the case, then such notions show why we should not concern ourselves over the acts of the more ‘civilized people.’ Our kind’s last dealing with the other nations revealed their advanced technologies and whatnot, and how they waste such intellect by destroying one another.”

  Catty stopped painting and frowned. “How sad.”

  “Truly. Now, back to––” Shanvi froze, then hopped over the counter, startling both Aly and Catty.

  “Pappai, does something trouble you?”

  “Stay here.” Shanvi went and looked out of one of the windows. “By Truth’s Grace.”

  The two watched the master bolt out the door, not saying another word. Catty looked at Aly and the Little One just shrugged, not having a clue what was going on. Seconds later, the Little One’s blood went cold as they heard what had made Shanvi run so quickly.