Rhistmaege

Orbillister Puck

Maybe they'll be swallowed up by a sinkhole. If you're going to dream, dream big.

Footsteps faded to the delight of a sour-faced boy, who worried a finger across a scratched pine writing desk. A faint breeze rustled dog-eared sheets of parchment, doing little to take the staleness out of the old teaching hall.

The boy squirmed upon his chair, sighed and mechanically ratcheted his head towards the doorway. Bobbing heads of red, brown, black and blond, flowed out into their welcoming sunlight.

A few classmates lingered at the doorway. They're laughing at you. You're worthless. You're nothing. It's never going to change. It will never get better.

Streams of sunlight swept through the school's double doors, obscuring his vision. It mattered not. He knew the laughter in their eyes. I hate them all.

Shoulders slumped as he ran a hand down his angular face. Stop worrying about what they think of you. He tried to drive the inner chatter away, but it never stopped. It was always there. Whispering voices mocked and ridiculed. They're laughing...about the time...you made such a fool...everyone here hates you. He shook his head weakly and rose from his chair.

The front steps of Wharton Wydenhall's School of Meritus Ministrations yawned out into a small grass courtyard. The air buzzed with activity. Sharpened elbows found their mark, propelling the most aggressive adolescents ahead of the swollen pack. Thick-bellied boys with fully shorn heads bounced their bulk against those standing in their way. Gangly, teenage girls with snaking, raven hair flared their nostrils and cast leveled eyes at the boorish behavior of their ignorant male counterparts.

"Quit pushing you freckle-faced speck of feces," scolded a beanpole blond. Her lips pressed into a thin line as she was harried down the final three steps.

"Fish me a care Illiantas of family Gigantas," retorted a thick-necked, pig-nosed boy.

Youth surged like a burst dam. Chides, menacing mocks, and off-color taunts mixed with shrieks of hilarity. 

In their raucous wake, standing idle, at the top of the stairs, was a skinny, ghost-faced boy. A solitary dead fish rotting belly up on the sand, stranded after the tide had rushed away. This dead fish was Dovinicus MaCabre.

"Dovi, wait just a minute. I'd like a word with you," came a call from deep within the school's main teaching hall.

The smallish boy with sooty, moppish hair stiffened at the call. Ash gray eyes matching his threadbare cloak shifted to the side. He turned towards the frenetic approach of Wydenhall's Master of Ministrations, Orbillister Puck.

What now?

Dovinicus slouched, let his eyes droop and sagged the corners of his lips.  He prided himself on being well schooled in the art of Piteous Personification.

Master Puck squinted through rectangular gold wired rims.

"S-Sir. Yes, did I do something wrong?" asked Dovi, picking at the inner folds of his right ear.

"Wrong? Heaven's no. Quite the contrary lad. I wanted to tell you how impressed I've been with your studies. You are, by far, the most impressive student to grace these halls in my thirty two and a half years here. That is, on paper. You've yet to make a single mistake on a written exam. But I must tell you- how do I say this? Well, it's your verbal aptitude, you know, class participation. Sorely lacking. Dead mimes buried six feet under with bags on their heads have more auditory expression than you. But I mean that in the kindest way. You see, I'm all twisted up about your potential. Don't know if I should hug you or give you a swift kick in the pants. See what I'm saying?"