Content Warnings:

  SpoilerMild homophobia.

  [colpse]4. Lucy Raises A Compint17 June, 2023Life at the Manor was far from easy, but Penelope Ewing’s project was a bastion of luxury compared to the horror stories that seeped through from the inner city during the early post-Fsh years.

  The children were tasked with a mixture of chores and csses - the chores ranging from cleaning to farming, and the csses attempting to emute the education system that the adults of the Manor were familiar with. They were a mess. Most of the volunteer teachers had no experience in the role, and without any internet access, researching new subjects proved to be challenging. Many of them stopped taking it seriously within the first few months, and it didn’t take long for the students to follow.

  Penelope was well aware of this, but it had proven to be an impossible hole to fill. You could not force people to care. Yes, she could punish those that acted up and didn’t take things seriously - but what would that achieve, other than resentment and potential blood on her hands?

  She sat at the desk in her tiny office and bedroom, and nearly died of fright when she caught a glimpse of her own reflection. Her eyelids drooped halfway down her cheeks - a symptom of years without proper rest. She spent a lot of time papering over the cracks in her appearance - making sure her hair was well-groomed and her clothes were as nice as possible - but she couldn’t combat biology.

  "You’re so vain," she said to her reflection, imagining her mother telling her off for focusing on something so petty, while there were so many bigger things going on.

  She missed her mother - having long accepted that they would never speak again. She’d gone back to America a few years before the Fsh, while completing her PhD in Biomedicine. It was all a waste now - her knowledge reduced to nothing but reading the books and papers that were piled around her neat, but far from tidy, office in a system that she had neglected to share. Still, it allowed her to pretend there was a point to it all.

  Whenever scavenging parties went into the city, she would ask them to bring back any books they found. Most of the adults felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude towards her, so she often had to politely berate them for bringing back too many books, and not enough food.

  A small knock at the door tightened her spine. Three taps in quick succession, far earlier in the day than she was used to.

  "Come in," she said, raising her voice so that she could be heard through the thick, wooden sb.

  The doorknob twisted in one direction, and then in the other, accompanied by a high-pitched squeak from the hallway behind. When the door finally groaned forward, it revealed a small girl standing on the other side of it.

  Penelope didn’t recognise her immediately - which meant that she wasn’t one of the troublemakers. She was small, though - smaller than the age of her face suggested. That was the detail that brought her name to Penelope’s lips.

  "Hello, Lucy," Penelope said, pleased with herself for remembering it - knowing how much it mattered to the children to be perceived. "How can I help you?"

  Lucy Hanley raised her tiny head to look at the woman perched above her. She took a moment to pce her hands on her hips before speaking.

  "Good morning, Miss Ewing. I would like to make a compint."

  The girl couldn’t have been more than eight years old, yet spoke with an adorable level of confidence and drama. Penelope managed to hold in any indication of how endearing this was and instead gave a serious-seeming frown and nodded her head, doing her best to convey genuine concern.

  "Of course, Lucy. What is it that you’d like to compin about?"

  "The teachers are stupid!" she said, kicking her foot on the floor without hesitation and stating it with the authenticity of somebody who clearly had no idea how nasty her words were. "They don’t know the answers to any of my questions. They just tell me to be quiet and read - but how am I supposed to read if I don’t understand what I’m reading? It’s stupid. They’re stupid!"

  The girl was clearly getting worked up about this, her face growing a deeper shade of red with each passing second. Penelope raised an eyebrow, thinking back to conversations she’d had with some of the volunteer teachers. Some had raised issues about pupils that kept pestering them with questions, and she couldn’t help but smirk at the possibility that all of those cavils were about the same student.

  She tried her best to sound sympathetic, nodding her head and maintaining eye contact - which Lucy held firmly in return.

  "I’m very sorry to hear that, Lucy. It is very tricky for people to learn new things right now. We don’t have as many books as we need, and people are trying their-"

  "But you have so many!" Lucy said, waving around to gesture at all of the books that were stockpiled on top of the multiple, colour-mismatched cabinets within the office.

  Penelope paused, feeling the object of the compint shift towards her. "Yes, I do. But even these books contain only a tiny, tiny amount of what we know. You would need a million books to answer all of the questions that you ask, Lucy. Maybe more."

  The girl looked up at the ceiling, tapping her little finger against her lips - clearly thinking about the feasibility of acquiring one million books. After a moment, Lucy released her finger and returned her gaze back to Penny, shrugging away the tension.

  "I understand, Miss Ewing. I would like to withdraw my compint."

  Penny gave a smile, holding in a sigh of relief. "Excellent. I’m so gd that I could help you with this, Lucy."

  Lucy wasn’t finished, however, as a cheeky smile grew on her face. "Could I borrow some of your books, Miss Ewing? I promise I will take super good care of them."

  "I’m not sure that would be a good idea, Lucy. These books are all very complicated - I think you would have a hard time with them on your own."

  "Oh..."

  As Lucy’s smile defted, a sly line crossed Penny’s lips. For the first time since starting the project, she had found somebody who cared. It might’ve been a na?ve little eight-year-old, but she couldn’t help but be charmed.

  "But I can help you understand them, if you’d like."

  The little girl’s eyes lit up.

  9 November, 2026Kiran hated doing chores. He loved running through the grass, adored dancing with Lucy, and didn’t hate csses - but he hated chores. There wasn’t much to enjoy about crawling around the dusty wooden floors and scrubbing. He didn’t really care if the building was dirty, but Miss Ewing insisted that everybody make an effort to keep it spotless.

  The only silver lining was that if Lucy was free at a time when he was scheduled to work, she would join him. Sometimes she would help; other times, she would at least sit near him and read one of the books that her special retionship with Miss Ewing provided. Today was one of the tter days.

  "Do you know what an atom is?" Lucy said, not looking up from her book, as Kiran scrubbed the floor with a sponge and a pail of river water.

  "No," he stated bluntly.

  "Penny told me that everything is made up of them, but that they’re really, really small."

  Kiran nodded his head, but rolled his eyes once he was sure that she couldn’t see him. Lucy would insist on calling Miss Ewing "Penny", and it made him feel uncomfortable in a way he couldn’t quite fathom. It might’ve been the discredence towards authority, or it might’ve been something resembling jealousy.

  "I can’t see any."

  She giggled. "They’re too small to see, silly."

  "So, how do we know they exist then?"

  That seemed to stump the child, as she stroked her chin and thought for a moment. "Good question. I will ask Penny!"

  Kiran smiled to himself, as he rubbed with vigour at a particurly nasty part of the floor. He knew she was being kind to him - that she wouldn’t have admitted defeat so easily to anybody else - but she went easy on him. He sometimes worried that this was because she pitied him, but realised that whether or not that was true - he didn’t care. Others made him feel like an outcast. Lucy made him feel special.

  The other week, one of the scavengers had recovered a DVD of a movie called Shrek. Miss Ewing had been able to procure a small television, powered by the Manor’s sor panels, and had pyed the movie for everybody as a "special treat". They had all ughed, but Kiran knew they hadn’t understood it. Not like he had. He was the only one having to hide his tears as the ogre hung his head in shame, for daring to believe that he belonged with the beautiful princess.

  An outcast feeling unworthy of the best girl in the world’s love.

  He understood that.

  "Are you going to tell me what happened to your eye?" Lucy said, finally putting the book down and looking at the boy directly.

  Kiran’s face flushed with embarrassment, making the blue shades around his right eye and cheek even more visible. He had hoped that she wouldn’t notice - or that she wouldn’t bring it up.

  She already knew that the other boys were cruel to him and called him names. It had been pretty basic at first, but ever since one of the older girls had told them that his st name was traditionally only for women, things had escated. What had started as snide mockery had turned into homophobic slurs and punches. He didn’t really understand the insults - especially since he was confident he wasn’t actually gay - but their fists hurt.

  The good news was that Bryce, the worst offender, was rumoured to be leaving soon. It was nearly time for him to ‘graduate’ out of the system. Kiran only had to survive a few more months.

  "Kiran?" Lucy said, her concern growing sharper when she didn’t receive an answer. She moved closer to him and crouched down on the damp floorboards. "Please, if somebody hit you - tell me."

  He couldn’t tell her. It wasn’t just shame; he knew his best friend was a firecracker. If he pointed her in the direction of Bryce Hoskins, she would start a fight - one that her tiny body wasn’t built for. He loved this aspect of her, but understood that he had to wield this power responsibly.

  "Nobody hit me."

  She frowned, but before she could say anything else - the ground started to rumble. The pair looked up to find the source of the earthquake: three young girls, around their age, racing down the hallway - giggles as loud as their stomps.

  Kiran’s heart sank as he saw them. Brooke Matheson and her minions.

  They thundered past the two cleaners, leaving a trail of wet, muddy stains on the freshly cleaned ground. He gasped, taking a step back to admire the damage.

  "Hey!" Lucy yelled out, as the girls looked like they were going to keep going - but then ground to a halt. "We were cleaning."

  Brooke stepped forward, towards the much smaller girl. Her blonde fringe fell perfectly, despite the motion from running, framing the dastardly smirk on her face.

  "Aw, sorry, Luce. Maybe if your little gay boy friend said something - we would’ve noticed."

  He felt himself sink into his skin, wishing the ground would swallow him up so that he could protect himself and not have to show his face to these monsters anymore.

  Lucy closed the distance further.

  "That’s not nice, Brooke."

  The taller girl snickered, raising her arms in a way that further exaggerated the size difference between the two children. She tilted her head to look downwards.

  "Oh, yeah?"

  "Yeah," Lucy said, a scowl on her face - as she leaned forward and headbutted Brooke in the stomach as hard as she could.

  LilAgarwal