Content Warnings:

  SpoilerHomophobia.

  [colpse]6. Rainbow Book10 November, 2026"Do you realise how difficult you make things for me when you act like that?"

  Penelope was stood up, arms folded as she tried to put on her most menacing face, while staring down at the sheepish girl. Telling off troublemakers had become a staple part of her role, but she was struggling to hit the rhythm she usually found. Their fight had been broken up almost immediately, but Penelope had waited until the next day to speak with Lucy. She needed that time to figure out what she was going to say.

  Lucy was clutching her hands together, acting delicate as she sat on the opposite end of the desk. She was shuffling slightly - clearly not pleased with this outcome.

  "She was being nasty to Kiran," the eleven-year-old girl said, mumbling as she spoke without much confidence. "Someone had to do something."

  Penelope let her fester in the silence. She regretted doing this in her office - allowing Lucy to sit in the same position she always did - it was hard for her to separate her from the bright mind that sat there most days. Should she separate them? They were the same girl, after all. Nevertheless, she detested bullies, and there had been many times when she had felt the need to restrain herself to avoid getting violent with some of the brats. She was never going to feel too much anger over this.

  A heavy sigh puffed its way out of her lips.

  "Listen, Lucy. There are a lot of people out there" - she pointed out the window - "who will tell you that violence is the answer to everything. It might be true out there, but it’s not true here."

  Penelope crossed her arms as she continued. "I am proud of you for defending your friend. Believe me - I am. However, I know that you’re smart enough to find a better way of handling situations like this. Tell me, how could you have handled it better?"

  She could see Lucy straining herself not to protest, and from the way her eyes flickered to the window and the pacing guards outside - she knew exactly the hypocrisy the girl was dying to point out. Penelope knew her pacifist stance was na?ve in the new world, but she didn’t care - Lucy would be better than her.

  "I could’ve told you," Lucy said, sighing in defeat.

  "Good girl," Penelope said, nodding away any lingering tension as she intended to move on swiftly from the awkwardness.

  "Now, let’s be done with that. We can’t let it distract from today’s learning."

  Like all of their mentoring sessions, what followed was a series of tenuously linked subjects - driven by the questions Lucy would ask, and the plethora of information within Penelope’s collection. They never ran out of things to talk about, and every subject was provocative and engaging. The girl seemed to soak all of the information up like a sponge - often recalling it better than Penelope did - which was a lot of pressure for the woman, but she thrived in it.

  Penelope had worried that her lecture would drive a wedge between the two of them, but it appeared to have done the opposite. Lucy seemed more comfortable than ever - and as weird as it was, she felt the same. Until today, their dynamic was limited to the four walls of her office, but Penelope had been given a glimpse into the things that mattered most to the child, and naturally, she was curious to dig deeper.

  "You spend a lot of time with Kiran, don’t you?"

  Penelope had asked her many questions, but had never seen one leave her so pink-faced until then. The girl’s eyeline shot to the floor, as Penelope smirked - believing she recognised the signs of a crush.

  "Yes," was all Lucy could muster.

  Penelope felt brave. She knew it was unprofessional to push further, but she couldn’t help being curious about the personal life of the girl she felt so protective over.

  "Is he your boyfriend?"

  She felt embarrassed as soon as the words left her lips. They immediately sparked a violent head shake from Lucy - one that didn’t seem to want to stop.

  "I’m sorry, I was just curious," she said, before realising the situation was even more dire than her apology acknowledged. Lucy sat frozen, her shoulders vibrating and lip trembling, and before Penelope could say anything else - the girl erupted into tears and fell from the chair to her knees.

  Penelope shot upright, racing to pce a hand on Lucy’s back as she cowered on the ground. Great job, Penelope, you’ve done it again, she thought to herself - as she tried to understand what had triggered such a reaction.

  "It’s okay, it’s okay," she whispered. "Whatever it is, it’s okay."

  The girl’s head bobbed up and down, though it took several minutes to sniffle away all the tears. She continued to stare downwards as she quivered out some words.

  "All of the books that we’ve read... the movies we’ve seen... I don’t... I feel-"

  She whimpered again, as something tried to cw its way out, but she resisted it.

  "I feel like a freak. I don’t-" she took a deep breath, "I don’t want to be like Daisy or Juliet or Princess Fiona and fall in love with a boy, I want..."

  She trailed off, breaking down into tears again, evidently not knowing what she wanted. Penelope pulled her into an awkwardly shaped hug. It made sense to her now. Media forced the idea of love onto young children, when they weren’t ready for that concept yet - and now Penelope had done the same. She didn’t need to be ready for a boyfriend yet - of course she didn’t!

  "That’s okay," she whispered, trying to find her own mother’s voice rather than her own one, knowing the first was significantly better at providing comfort. "You’re so young, Lucy. It’s normal to not have those feelings yet - to not want to fall in love. It doesn’t make you a freak, not one bit. I’m s-"

  She stopped, because Lucy had started to shake again, waving her head with vigour, as if to shake Penelope away. The girl’s nails dug into her palms as she strained out her words.

  "No. I want to fall in love... Just not... Not with a boy."

  Oh, duh. Penelope felt like an idiot and wanted to sm her face against the desk as punishment. She’d always considered herself a queer ally, telling herself that if she ever had children of her own - she’d be the coolest, most supportive mother in the world. Yet she’d been so consumed by the heteronormative culture that she hadn’t even considered this an option. At that moment, it felt bzingly obvious.

  She squeezed Lucy’s shoulder pyfully. "You want to fall in love with a girl?"

  The girl paused, searching through her brain for the honest answer - before shamefully nodding her head.

  "Well, that’s perfectly normal too!" Penelope said, trying to sound upbeat and excited, rather than downtrodden and anxious about the uncharted territory. "Lucy - I’m so sorry for not teaching you about this all earlier. If I’d known, then I absolutely would have. That’s my fault."

  The girl didn’t budge, continuing to sniffle. Penelope bit her lip as her brain sketched out the situation. She didn’t have the command of words to say anything that would make this right - but when she looked at that small child, she saw a smaller version of herself looking back, and she could use that to her advantage. What would I need? she thought to herself.

  She slowly got to her feet and paced over to one of the cabinets, abandoning Lucy on the ground as she flicked through a stack of books. She slid out one that had a shiny, rainbow coating and handed it to the crying girl.

  "Read this," she said, tapping Lucy on the shoulder. "Consider it homework. It will make things better, I promise. We can discuss it in our next session, if you’d like."

  A single teardrop fell on the colourful front cover, as Lucy pushed it aside and pulled Penelope in for the tightest hug she’d ever experienced.

  She smiled - never feeling so warm before.

  Winter was coming once again, and there was a nasty wind outside - but it was as if the book kept Lucy shielded from the worst of it. She sat by a rge tree at the edge of the Manor’s grounds, with Kiran by her side - doodling in a sketchpad that he’d acquired. She wasn’t paying him much attention; she was too busy drowning.

  Penny’s kindness had been reassuring, but this book was exactly what she needed. Every sentence assured her that she was not a freak, and that she was definitely not alone. She’d thought her feelings were unique, and that she was the first ever girl to feel this way. But, since the dawn of time - lesbians had prevailed.

  That was the bel she’d stuck to. It felt right. She didn’t feel any affinity towards boys, and while there was no particur girl that she had feelings for - it was a feminine body that she dreamed of when she closed her eyes.

  She was halfway through a section on a lesbian talk show host when she became aware that Kiran’s eyes were fixated on her.

  "You okay?" she said, breaking the hold that the book had over her.

  Kiran’s face went red, and she followed his gaze as it dropped down to the open page of his own book. A shaded pencil sketch of a girl with messy hair and a small nose stared back.

  She giggled, as he tried to hide it. "Have you been drawing me?"

  With a guilty look on his face, he nodded his head. She didn’t understand why he seemed ashamed, and so didn’t hesitate to snatch the pad out of his hand to flick through the rest of the sketches. If anything, she felt embarrassed for noticing that she had been his muse for so long - the book was full of Lucy sketches.

  "These are really good," she said, smiling at the representations of herself.

  "Thanks," Kiran murmured, still not looking at her.

  It took her a while of staring at all the depictions of herself to realise that not all of them were Lucy-shaped. Some of the women had a slightly longer nose, darker hair and a different skin tone. It was hard to tell from the pencil sketch, but she was sure that these were drawings of somebody else - somebody she didn’t know.

  She frowned, wondering who Kiran was secretly hanging out with. He’d never mentioned this other girl. Why had he kept her a secret?

  "Who is she?" Lucy asked, tracing her fingers over the pencil sketch of the bright and carefree girl, ughing as her hair swept in the wind.

  "Nobody," Kiran said, looking at the sketch himself. "She’s not real. Just somebody that I made up."

  Lucy let out a sigh of relief. "Okay, that’s good. Does she have a name?"

  "Um, not really."

  She smiled at him, and went back to reading her own book - as he returned to sketching - not thinking any further about Kiran’s other muse.

  11 November, 2026As soon as Lucy opened her eyes, she wanted them to be staring at the rainbow book. She’d already read it cover to cover, and had hung off every word. Not all of it was relevant to her, and she breezed past those parts - but the rest captivated her.

  The dormitories in the Manor were typically rooms of chaos. They were split by gender and age group, to the best of the system’s ability to facilitate that given the limited space. As a result, Lucy slept in a room with fifteen other girls, who had all been children at the time of the Fsh. Most notably, that included Brooke and the two other blonde bitches who followed her everywhere. Thankfully, it was easy to hide amongst such a crammed-in crowd.

  The gorgeously crafted walls of the Manor, and the majestic window that overlooked the grounds, were juxtaposed with the scattered clothes and rammed-together beds. Lucy slept on a lower bunk in the far corner of the room, which allowed her to distance herself from the louder-than-usual arguments that morning - the kind that would’ve distracted her from the text.

  She was midway through a sentence when the book was swiped out of her hands. Her eyes darted up in panic, shocked to see Brooke and her squad standing over her. The book was open and Brooke was scanning the words - a devious smile growing wider with each line read.

  "What’s this?" she asked, a chorus of giggling behind her.

  "Give it back," Lucy said calmly, remembering Penny’s words that morning.

  Brooke ignored her. "Why are you reading this? Is it for your little gay friend?"

  "Give it back," she repeated - this time seething the words through gritted teeth.

  They locked eyes, as Brooke held the book tightly. "Or is it for you? Are you a dyke, Luce?"

  Lucy’s face scrunched up and she rose to her feet, attaching both hands to the book and trying to force it out of Brooke’s hands. She didn’t want to damage the book, so she wasn’t as forceful as she wanted to be - making little progress.

  "Dyke! Dyke! Dyke!" some of the girls, who had been listening, started to chant.

  "I knew you were a freak," Brooke ughed, as she freed the book from Lucy’s grasp, holding it high over her head.

  The word freak rang in her ear, dulling out the sound of the other slurs that were being directed her way. She felt every girl watching her, and the chortling teeth of Brooke getting uncomfortably close. Penny had told her that all of this was normal. Penny had told her that she had nothing to be ashamed of.

  Penny had lied - she wasn’t normal, and she was ashamed.

  The world seemed to grow misty, as she covered her face and ran out of the dormitory, leaving the book in a smug-looking Brooke’s hands.

  She hated them all. She had to get out of there - the Manor wasn’t safe. She couldn’t stay another day.

  It was time to get Kiran and run.

  LilAgarwal