Too Small To Be Afraid

Chapter 7

"Y-you can set me down," I say, struggling to hide my eagerness to get out of the boy's hands.

The boy sets his finger in front of me as he did before. I stare down at it, once again in complete awe of how big it is compared to me.

"Are you going to grab on?" The boy asks when I don't move.

"S-sorry," I say, grabbing onto his finger, "I didn't sleep much last night."

"Me, neither," the boy says, lifting me up from my place in his hand.

My heart pounds in my chest as I once again dangle helplessly over a drop that might just kill me if I were to lose my grip on this boy's finger.

Relief washes over me once I'm set on the balcony. At last, solid ground! I look to the wall beside me and see an opening that leads back to the human part of the school. If I wanted to, I could run away. I could go home. I know that I can't, but it's a comfort to know that if I needed to, I could at least try to get away from this perthean.

"So, um..." the boy starts, rubbing the back of his head. "The weather is nice today!"

I look back up at him and blink. "I live underground, you know."

"Oh," he laughs nervously. "Right."

I pull up a chair, and we sit in silence for a moment. I stare down at my hands, which are resting on my lap. I can't keep eye contact with this guy, and I don't dare look at any of the other pertheans in the room, so I keep my head down.

"Um... can you tell me about yourself?" The boy asks.

I look up at him, unsure why he's so desperate to keep talking to me. "I like to draw," I say. For some reason, I can't think of anything interesting about myself at all.

"Cool," the boy says. "I like to study languages."

"That's nice," I say.

And again we sit in silence. The cycle goes on—my deskmate asks a question, I answer it, he answers it, and we sit in silence. I didn't think having a deskmate would be this awkward. After at least twenty minutes of this, I start to wonder if this is worse than what I imagined having a deskmate would be like.

"Attention, everyone! We will now begin our orientation," Ms. Clemmons exclaims.

As I turn my seat around, I see Mrs. Hudson clutching one ear, while Ms. Clemmons stands on her shoulder. I don't know if I've ever met a human that could shout that loudly. That must have hurt for Mrs. Hudson to hear.

Mrs. Hudson clears her throat. "Thank you again everyone for arriving on time, and for your patience during the deskmate pairing process. For those who haven't met me yet, I'm Mrs. Hudson, your perthean co-principal, and this is Ms. Clemmons, your human co-principal."

Mrs. Hudson and Ms. Clemmons cross their right arms over their chests and lean forward. Mrs. Hudson only leans forwards slightly, since Ms. Clemmons is on her shoulder. After they finish bowing, more pertheans with humans on their shoulders come stand to the left and to the right of Mrs. Hudson and Ms. Clemmons. Mr. Day, the human nurse, is accompanied by a perthean woman introduced as Mrs. Emaeya, who is wearing a black blouse with a white cardigan. Mrs. Wright, the human gym teacher, is accompanied by a perthean man introduced as her husband Mr. Wright, who is wearing a shirt and tie like Mr. Day.

"We look forward to assisting you this school year," they all say, bowing as Mrs. Hudson and Ms. Clemmons did before.

"Now," Mrs. Hudson says, "when our school first opened in 2500 RE, our founders had a goal in mind—that being to teach responsibility and foster friendships between pertheans and humans in an environment where both can flourish together academically."