Chapter 3 – Break and Telling-Off

The strike of the break bell came sharp and unmistakable, and with it the whole classroom dissolved into motion: chairs scraped, exercise books snapped shut, voices burst out of the laboriously held silence like water from an opened valve. Almost everyone was on their feet at once. Not Arlon. He was still sitting there, gaze slightly lowered, while in his head a few dates strolled about in friendly confusion. Had the first steam wagons come before or after the great market day? And the winter with the frozen brook – was that before or after? He shook his head almost imperceptibly, the way you shoo away a fly, and let the question drift on. When he finally stood up, he pushed his chair neatly up to the table – a small thing that had once earned him a brief, appreciative nod from the teacher and had been a habit ever since. His big feet nearly knocked against the table legs. He was used to it.

The corridor was already emptier than usual. The voices were receding towards the yard, a current that this time had not taken him along.

Nobody had waited.

A small tug settled inside him as he stepped onto the schoolyard. There – a group from his class. He raised his hand. But one of them glanced over briefly and walked on, the others followed. "Well, dreaming again?" The voice came from the side, more cheeky than mean. "We waited. A whole three minutes!" A few laughed. Arlon opened his mouth, closed it again. He wanted to say something clever, but the words stayed where they were. The group sauntered off. He stood for a moment among the other children and suddenly felt very tall and very alone at the same time.

Then something clapped against his shoulder. "Hey. Don't droop like that." Lirya. A Stalait from his class, short dark hair, a crooked grin that pretended she had long since seen everything and taken none of it seriously. "It wasn't that bad," she said, waving it off. "They talk faster than they think." And without giving him time to answer, she bubbled over: about two from the upper class who had supposedly quarrelled; about someone allegedly having seen "something" in the forest; about friendships made today and cancelled again tomorrow. Typical schoolyard chatter. Arlon listened, nodded, and his head slowly came back to him. Then Lirya broke off mid-sentence. "Oh," she said quietly. "Now it's getting awkward."

Arlon knew why without looking. The twins. Thalia in front, Torma half a step behind, same stride, same earnest look, two years older and this morning evidently appointed judges.

"Late again," said Thalia without preamble. "You know how that looks," added Torma. "The teachers talk." "And so do the others." "You don't reflect well on us."

A telling-off, calm, alternating, perfectly rehearsed and without any volume at all – and precisely for that reason almost unbearable. Arlon lowered his gaze and said nothing. Behind him, Lirya took a step back, crossed her arms and kept silent with an expression that clearly said: family matter, I'm staying out of it. When the twins finally turned away, the tension released like a knot pulled too tight.

"Come on," said Lirya suddenly, gave him a light kick in the backside – not hard, but unmistakable – and grinned. "Let's run." Arlon burst out laughing, panting, and took off as if he hadn't already run enough that morning. But right now, he needed exactly this little bit of wildness.

As they ran across the yard, Arlon caught a few scraps of words in passing. Torma had joined his friends – a Bamlait, loud and athletic, and a Stalait boy with ambitiously sprouting fuzz on his chin. The three were once again locked in that eternal dispute that the boys of Ura never quite settled. "Tusks are more honest," said the Bamlait, baring his with a grin. "You can see from afar where you stand." "A beard shows maturity," countered the Stalait, proudly stroking the few little hairs as if they were already three generations of family tree. "Tusks show strength." "A beard shows patience." Arlon grinned as he ran past. Both were wrong, he thought, and both were right – as always in Ura.

A few steps further on, he saw Thalia. She was standing with an older Stalait boy with a full, braided beard, laughing softly and blushing a little as she did. Arlon gave them a wide berth. That was one conversation he really didn't want to hear. Out of breath, he finally came to a stop beside Lirya. "Impressively coordinated telling-off," he panted. Lirya burst out laughing. "Perfectly rehearsed, as always." They laughed, in the middle of the yard.

Then the bell rang again, and lessons began – on time, for once. Applied mathematics: the teacher drew boilers, pistons and valves on the board and explained how heat became pressure and pressure became motion. Arlon listened, Lirya too. The rest of the day passed quietly.

After school, they walked part of the way together, Stalait and Bamlait in colourful mix. Lirya lived on the same street as Arlon. At the fork, she stopped. "See you tomorrow," she said. "See you tomorrow," Arlon replied.

Then he followed his siblings into the yard. The heavy yard door stood ajar. Thalia and Torma went ahead; Arlon entered last and pushed the door shut behind him. It fell into its lock with a dull thud.

He took a deep breath. Because he knew: the telling-off was far from over.