Gifted (Chapters 4-5)

Chapter 4: Acting Your Age

Lunchtime came, and did not, in the humble opinion of Andrew Wake, do very much for the school's image. To him, the food resembled nothing so much as grayish-brown sludge with lumps in it. Of course, this did not stop him from shoving in line with all the other students to get served. He was that kind of a person.

Having received his bowl of nondescript nutritional evil and miscellaneous piece of fruit, Andrew looked around for a place to sit. Not in the mood for human contact, he found an empty table—the dining room was built to accommodate far more than the fifteen or so students now present—and sat down. He began to eat, shelving his automatic disgust for anything connected to the school in order to allow for hunger. After a few minutes, a small boy sat down next to him. Andrew turned around very slowly, relishing the opportunity to be angry at someone.

'Ci-ti-zen,' he said carefully, 'Do I know you, citizen?'

'Max Messenger,' said the boy, sticking his hand out and grinning. 'May I have the pleasure of your acquaintance?'

Andrew ignored the hand, carefully reached up and pushed the boy back a few inches by the shoulder, and turned back to his food. Out of the corner of his ear he heard the boy pushing his chair back to its original position. He turned his head to look at him. 'Didn't I tell you to go away, Max?' he asked, stressing the name as if it were an insult.

'Well, actually, you more sort of implied—'

Andrew hit him. 'Shut up. Go away. Do both of these now.'

For an instance he looked quite shocked, and then he said, haughtily 'Certainly, citizen. I shall seek favorable company elsewhere.'

Max stood up to leave, and stopped when someone very deliberately put their tray down on Andrew's other side.

'Excuse me, citizen. Were you bothering my friend?'

Turning his head to the other side, Andrew saw a shortish boy standing there, his hands still flat on the table on either side of the tray. He had jaw-length black hair, which fell over his face, since he was still apparently engrossed in his school dinner. But he wasn't small in the same way that Max was small; he was the kind of person whose bones simply hadn't grown because there hadn't been any room. Andrew was in no doubt that if he took off the stupid black leather jacket, he would be able to pick out every muscle on the boy's back without any difficulty. Through his shirt.

Taking this into account, Andrew thought it would be best to employ logic as a first resort. 'He's not your friend. You've been here less than two days.'

'True.' Admitted the boy. 'But that doesn't really give you a license to bully him.'

'Who the hell are you?' Asked Andrew, getting annoyed despite himself. 'The Starman?'

'No.' Said the boy. He turned his head to reveal his eyes, which were an oddly pale green. 'But I would quite like to eat here, and I think that Citizen Messenger would ask the same favor, if he had any more guts than a sea slug.'

'I deny the possession of any guts whatsoever. I prefer to use alternative digestive processing.' Max contributed.

'What the hell does that mean?' asked Andrew.

'I have no idea,' Said the green-eyed boy. 'But I'm not getting any less hungry.'

He sat down, at which point Andrew, despite previous convictions, hit him.

The next five minutes were some of the most educational of his life. The other boy attacked him with absolutely every weapon in the vicinity: hands, elbows, feet, knees, head, cutlery, the lunch table; anything. Not to mention sorcery. Even Andrew, who had always taken advantage up to the hilt of the ability to strike when all his physical limbs were otherwise occupied, was deeply impressed when he was caught a solid blow across both knees at the same time as he was grabbed by both forearms and spun, causing him to totally lose his balance; and at the way various tabletop items leaped through empty space into the path of his own strikes, just as he thought he would be able to land a good one; and, in general, at the fact that he was being beaten in a fair fight for the first time in years.

Seeking to minimize this sort of long-range carnival tricks, Andrew leaped with every power he could bring to bear, dragging the other boy to the floor. Within ten breathless seconds he had him pinned, arms and legs. He shifted his head forward for the classic skull-to-skull blow that would end it, and something totally invisible struck him across both ears. He lost his balance, was picked up and thrown bodily onto the tabletop, and then saw the other boy lean down—

Grasp him firmly by the hand, pull him upright, and say in a breathless voice. 'My name is Richard. I hope we can be friends.'

***

I carefully settled myself in a chair, opened my laptop, and opened the NetSpeak™ program. I logged on to a secure channel, and found to my great surprise that the Governor was already logged in at the other end, working on whatever it is the head of a Government does with his time. 'Well?' he asked, without looking up. 'How did it go?'

I took a moment to organize my thoughts, during which the Governor remained focused on his work. 'Difficult, Sir.' I said frankly. 'And it's not going to get any easier.'

'Don't worry. I have full confidence in you.'

'Your confidence is not the problem, Sir.' Rudeness towards the country's highest official was really not a good idea, but for the second time that day my anger was getting the better of me.

'Any specific issues that you wish to ask me about?' he inquired politely, apparently not noticing that I had technically just committed low treason. Just as well for me, really.

'The information I've been given has clearly been carefully edited, Sir. I've had access to every detail of these children's past lives and that of their families, their teachers' and friends' impressions, their personal communications—but somehow none of that would let me know that one of them has been mute since the age of three? I think not.'

'Oh, yes. We thought it a good idea that you not know that.'

'And why was that, Sir?'

'Simple. It turns out that this particular child is remarkably adept at hiding his disability. Many of his teachers have been under the impression that Jonathan Miles was simply pathologically silent. We thought it would be a good idea to see how long it took you to figure it out.'

'You're pulling my leg, Sir.' Of course, the possibility of the Governor attempting to pull a practical joke was absurd, but still...

'What would make you think that?'

'For a start, Jonathan admitted it quickly enough yesterday morning.'

'In that case, I would apply your considerable skills to the question of what that change of attitude means. Is that all?'

I reminded myself that this was the Governor I was talking to, and the Governor—almost by definition—always has something else to be doing. A country doesn't stop.

I took a deep breath, and went on: 'I also feel, and I understand that it might be career suicide to say so, that this task may be beyond me.'

'Really?' For the first time, the Governor looked up, directly at the camera on his end of the connection. 'But you're the best, William Steel. The very best. If you can't do it, why, no-one can.' He went back to his paperwork.

I took a deep breath and plunged on. 'Then it is my professional opinion that no-one can do this job, Sir.'

'Do explain,' he said absently.

'I have been charged with teaching a group of children to use certain skills, which I myself cannot: Fine. Furthermore, this training must occur while maintaining a very particular set of restrictions, which, I will say once more, make no sense to me. Still, fine. Not dissimilar, ironically, to working with mentally inhibited students, which I have done. The problem, however, is that the result of these restrictions is a complete breakdown of most of the disciplinary systems I would ordinarily use for students such as these. And therefore, the only thing I have left is respect, which I can't get.'

'And why is that, Tutor?' asked the Governor softly.

'Because these children are, in some ways, superhuman, and your limitations are designed to enhance that feeling in their minds. They will not respect me, because I am inferior to them. And if they do not respect me, I cannot instil in them the respect for their Government that you want them to have.'

'But surely you have a plan of action?' he asked, and his voice was dangerously low. It suddenly struck me that if anybody could see to it that I lost more than just my career, it was this man. He owned the largest stick in the known world. The carrot was pretty good, too, but it was at that point that I realised with instant clarity that that really shouldn't be what I was focusing on. I backpedalled furiously.

'Pull out every other tool I have: always keep standard classroom behaviour at a premium, of course, but also things like media regulation, LT social mapping—'

'That would be the technique of your own invention?' asked the Governor.

'That's the one, Sir, yes.'

'I've always been rather impressed with that, you know. Take a fact that everybody knows, formalise it, and then apply it in a systematic fashion. Elegantly brilliant.'

'Thank you, Sir,' I said, and I'm sure he realised that I was talking more about his willingness to forget my previous comments than about the compliment.

'You're welcome, Tutor Steel. And goodnight.'

Click.

***

Jonathan leaned against the outside wall of one of the apparently useless buildings that lay around the campus, breathing very slowly. His eyes were closed, which should not be taken to mean that he wasn't keeping an eye out. Behind him and to the right, Adam stepped away from the lock he had been working on, breathing hard.

'We're in.'

Of course, physical contact wasn't strictly necessary for any form of sorcery, even a task as delicate as picking a lock. But while Jonathan always made a point of stretching his abilities to their limits, Adam had a tendency to keep physical habits even when they weren't really relevant, because “It just feels more right, okay?”

Of course, Jonathan himself could have broken the lock outright with little difficulty and probably taken less time about it, but Adam had warned that this would almost certainly alert security, something that would be best to avoid for the meantime. As always, he had heeded him without argument.

'Hey, you coming?' said Adam, already pushing the door open. It swung soundlessly inwards, and he stepped inside, Jonathan a step behind.

'Hear that?' asked Adam.

No. What? Jonathan signed.

'Exactly. The hinges don't squeak. Which means somebody must be bothering to maintain them.'

The squeakless door shut behind them, plunging them into total darkness. As one, the two boys removed their mobile phones from their pockets and shone them around. They had discovered shortly after arriving that wireless communication in and out of campus was blocked, but even a jammed phone has a number of uses, so they kept carrying them around.

The room that was revealed to them was enitrely unremarkable – just a bare sort of anteroom of the kind that graced the entrance to every block of flats they had ever been in, with a single flight of stairs leading downwards. This the two of them quickly followed, but to their disappointment it ended in another door, much more formidable than the external one; it was made of the same sort of metal as the gates to the school, and had no keyhole that they could make out.

It reflected the light oddly, Jonathan noticed. He reached out to touch it, and felt that it was not smooth, as most factory-made metal was, but rough, covered in tiny bumps.

'Feeling anything through those fingertips?'

Rough steel. Why?

'At a guess, I'd say it's to make it that much harder for anyone trying to just slide it out of place. You notice there are no hinges? This thing move straight in and out of the wall on either side.' He paused for a moment. 'You can't budge it, can you?'

Flattered, but no.

'Damn.' said Adam blandly. 'Okay, let's get out of here. We'll try a different building tomorrow night.'

They climbed the stairs back to the bare entrance room, when the light from their upraised phones fell on a line of ants trudging from one corner of the room to the edge of the doorway. Adam leaned down to inspect the nest.

'I like ants.' He said. 'They remind me of us.'

Us means ?, signed Jonathan.

'You know, people.'

Selfless, determined; band together, tackle objectives far too great for individual?

Adam snorted. 'No; stupidly timid. You see, when ants walk in a line they're not actually following each other; they're following a chemical line marked by whichever ant went there first. But they never deviate from that line unless they have to; they wait until a time of great need for some heroic ant to go and look for better prospects, after which they'll all happily follow in her footsteps and pretend that this was the path that had always been walked...' He trailed off, and then grinned and snapped his fingers. 'Okay, let's go!'

No more philosophy?

'Nah, I'm done. Actually – there's one more thing. Do you have a spare battery on you?'

Jonathan handed over his spare phone battery.

Adam took the battery, and then held it just above the ant nest and let go. It remained suspended in the air. As he frowned, a dent appeared in the middle, deepening until it snapped suddenly, spilling alkaline over the insects on the floor.

He kept his face very close for almost a minute, watching until he was sure the creatures had stopped moving. Then he stood up, smiling contentedly.

'Now let's go.'

***

Denna Shalm returned to her room that afternoon – evening, actually – and took a little time to redecorate. She couldn't do anything about the size of the room, which was approximately that of her wardrobe back home, and she didn't think she'd be allowed to paint the walls, but she was doing her best.

Shortly after she had begun, someone came in without knocking, and without bothering to lock the door behind them.

'Shut the door, Arra,' said Denna automatically, before she turned round. She recognised the footsteps. She recognised the breathing.

'Those delicate sensibilities aren't going to go down well over here,' said her sister, sitting down on the bed. 'I get the feeling some of our new friends are vicious. There was a fight during lunch.'

'Anyone hurt?' asked Denna, genuinely worried.

'Nothing serious,' said Arra, with supreme disdain. 'Just boys being boys, really. But in most schools people at least bother to get to know each other before the fights start.' she looked around the room. 'You brought your posters?'

'Of course,' said Denna.

'I should have known,' said Arra. 'You're never going to grow up, are you?'

'Mother still keeps her old posters up.'

'That's because Mother thinks it will make her look so cute and schoolgirlish that none of her boyfriends will notice how much expensive make-up she's wearing.'

Arra's low opinion of their mother had been a subject of many a heated debate between the twins. Denna couldn't recall ever having won. She decided a tactical retreat was her best option.

'Anyway, there's no room to put all of them up.'

'Yeah, the rooms are tiny, huh? Still, that's just from our perspective. This is probably an upgrade for some of the other kids.'

'We're very lucky,' said Denna, with complete sincerity.

'Except for, you know, this place,' said Arra.

'Oh yeah...' she turned back to her wall. 'Still, you do your best with what you've got. Give me a hand with this.'

Arra helped her stick the poster up, and after wrestling with it for a minute, they stood back to admire their handiwork.

'It's crooked,' said Denna.

'Fractionally. Would it come out less crooked if we tried again?'

She had a point. The poster was enormous, and completely unwieldy. Nevertheless, Denna liked having it around, as it represented an educational and heartwarming tale about the power of art, which was this:

About thirty years earlier, a group of psychiatrists had started a campaign to have homosexuality reclassified as a mental illness. A month later, after the entire debate had been the buzz of the news media for two weeks, a group of five university students put together a band called the Cigarettes. The men grew their hair long and wore pink leather; the girl cut hers short, and wore black. Their first music video went viral two days after it hit the Internet, and everyone in the country had heard of them by the time their second album was released.

Commentators called them “a fascinating social phenomenon”. Adolescents almost universally called them “awesome”, or generational equivalents thereof. Music critics mostly called them “unique and brilliant”. The gay community called them a bad joke, as did most members of Parliament.

They were right, of course. They had just hadn't realised on whom it was. In fact, most of the country only figured it out when a Charter Revision was submitted to the Parliament, consisting of a two-word addition to the Principle of Equality:

No Citizen shall be discriminated against on the basis of race, appearance, faith, age, sexual orientation or any other factor, provided...

It was absurd, but it was undoubtedly a valid Revision, and was accompanied by enough signatures to force a general referendum. Which, to the surprise of most of the country's politicians, passed. And that was that.

Of course, as Arra had once pointed out to her, it was a lot more complicated than that; the band had been just the flamboyant tip of the iceberg. For example, as was common knowledge by the time the twins were born, one of the few members of Parliament who had staked a certain amount of credibility on the Cigarettes was elected a decade later to the post of Governor, which he somehow managed to hold for twenty years. But that was a different story.

'Probably not,' admitted Denna.

'Cool,' said Arra, seating herself on the bed again. 'So... what do you think of our new place?'

Denna sat down next to her. 'It's... interesting.'

Arra laughed. 'Damned by faint praise. You hate it, don't you?'

She considered the question carefully. 'Not really. It's just so... strange. I mean, we left everything we own and everyone we know back home. Except each other, but...'

'Yeah, I don't much fancy hanging around with you the entire time we're here, either,' said Arra.

'Thanks.' She sighed. 'Still, the teacher seems nice.'

'Charismatic,' corrected Arra. 'That's why he's here; he's the best teacher in the country. Won awards and everything.'

'Why do you know this stuff?'

'Read a book, sister. Watch the news.'

Easy for her to say. Arra soaked up information like a sponge: she would see something on the news, read something in a book, hear something from a teacher, and remember it perfectly until the subject came up in casual conversation. Denna had never been able to manage the trick; she had to concentrate to learn information, and repeat it in order to remember it.

Still, sarcastic comments lead to arguments, which she didn't need now and would probably lose anyway. So instead she said, 'Here?'

'Oh, right.'

There was a moment of comfortable silence, and then Denna said, 'Still.' She focused, and very slowly picked up the pillow on the opposite side of her sister and hit her with it. 'We get to learn sorcery.'

Arra laughed again. 'Yeah. There's that.'

Chapter 5: Original Sin

That was the first day. It was followed, not surprisingly, by the second, and so on. Classes were given, to which the students for the most part turned up late or not at all. Children got into fights, got punished, and proceeded to do exactly the same thing again. Water dripped on stone; paint dried on walls.

And, lacing through it all, the art of sorcery.

It was the one class that was attended by everyone, without exception. Even on days when someone had managed to have a headache and stay in the dormitories, they would miraculously get better for the two double periods, morning and afternoon, in which they were trained to be something no one else could be.

Nothing particularly interesting happened for several days, until one evening when Arra was lazing around with her sister in the students' lounge – the joint entry room to both dormitories. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Adam stretch and swing his legs off the couch.

'Right.' He said, getting up suddenly. 'This bloody routine is starting to get on my nerves. Let's do something, shall we?'

Jonathan looked up from his cards at once, instantly attentive. Arra turned away from the television, curious.

'The games machines are dull beyond belief,' continued Adam, 'and I have a hunch that those gates are going to prove quite a challenge.' Arra noticed him exchange a meaningful glance with Jonathan. 'So our remaining option is to make our own entertainment.'

'Charades?' suggested Denna, wryly.

'I'm afraid I've suddenly matured past the age of eleven.' said Adam. 'I was thinking something a bit more adventurous.'

'Lion taming, then?'

'Theft,' said her Arra, who was in general quicker on the uptake. 'Or vandalism. Some illegal type of fun liable to get us hit with something a lot more serious than being confined to personal for an afternoon.' She focused her best ten-megawatt stare on Adam and said, 'Right?'

'Well, I wouldn't have put it quite like that...'

Jonathan signed something.

'Touché,' conceded Adam.

'What did he say?' asked Denna.

'That I wouldn't have mentioned the risks, which is probably true. So, what are we going to do?'

'Personally,' said Denna, 'I'd kill for a cup of coffee.'

The students at the school were not allowed coffee, partly because it was so expensive that only people who came from backgrounds like those of the Shalms could afford it except on special occasions, and partly because as far as the teaching staff—comprised mainly of William Steel, but also of the security men who occasionally had to lend a hand—were concerned, the last thing they needed was to have their charges running on caffeine as well as adolescent hormones and chronic behavioural disorders.

Adam whipped his head around to stare at Denna, and grinned like an alligator. 'You, madam, are a genius. Let's move.'

Five minutes later, the four of them were sitting on a bench next to the exercise field, with a hastily drawn map of the campus spread out in front of them, and clouds moving in swiftly over their heads.

'By the way,' commented Adam as Jonathan, eyes shut and drawing everything from a bird's-eye view as seen via the Sight, finished the last line of pencil lead. 'Has anyone noticed that this place is about ten times as big as it needs to be? There are twelve of us and one teacher, but there's enough space in the dorms for at least two hundred students and staff to match, plus a lot of buildings that we've never even set foot in. I'd like to check those out.'

Once again, Jonathan signed something.

'No,' said Adam sincerely. 'Our first priority is Denna's coffee. Then we can worry about suspicious Government conspiracies. Now,' he tapped on the map in front of them, drawing everybody's attention downwards, 'There are several places were there might be a stash: the storeroom, obviously; but probably Tutor Steel's own rooms as well; not to mention...'

Eventually they settled on the teachers' lounge. There probably wouldn't be any more than one tin at most, but they didn't need very much, and in any case all the other places had real security on them. One breathless minute later, they were standing under the wide, solidly barred window as the sun set behind them.

'Well, Smarty?' asked Arra. 'What now?'

'Most window bars are screwed into place, and then have something poured across the screws as glue,' explained Adam. 'In our case, some kind of concrete. It would therefore be difficult and far too messy to try to take the bars out ourselves.'

'And your point, Tutor, is what?' Asked Arra.

He flashed one of those lightning-like smiles, quick and bright, and then said, 'As I said, that's how most buildings are built. Unfortunately, whoever decided to use that design on this building forgot who it was they were going to be dealing with.'

'Or weren't told,' said Denna.

Adam turned his head slowly to look at her. 'That's actually a very good point. You should talk more; you make a surprising amount of sense.' He turned back to the window, apparently not noticing her blush slightly. 'As I was saying, we can't take the bars off. But we also don't have to.'

Jonathan made an exasperated face, and pointed at his eye.

'Oh, yeah.' said Arra. 'That. But I've never used anything except Force, and that only for playing around with.'

Why with them? Asked Jonathan. Easier by ourselves.

'Come now, don't be rude to the ladies. Not everyone here spent their childhood experimenting with the Powers.'

'Yeah, some of us had lives,' added Arra Shalm, wickedly.

' “Had” being the operative word here,' Adam parried, switching sides smoothly. 'In light of our current situation, our Jonny clearly made the better life decision, the reason being that he is currently the only one of us capable of getting coffee fast enough to avoid a patrol. So,' he turned to Jonathan, 'Would you do the honours?'

Jonathan closed his eyes, breathed in, and froze. A moment later, the window slid back, seemingly of its own accord. For a long minute they heard a clatter from inside the room, the sound of drawers and cupboards being opened and shut rapidly, and then a tin of coffee came out through the bars and into Adam's outstretched palm.

Jonathan opened his eyes very slowly, and exhaled.

'About a minute from the moment you closed your eyes.' Said Adam. 'You're getting faster.'

Sign language.

'You're welcome. And on that note, let's get the hell out of here, shall we?'

Back in the students' lounge, the four of them collapsed onto a couch and Adam grinned as a tin opener flew towards them from the counter top, which he caught neatly. He opened the coffee lazily, and the bitter smell filled the air. Arra herself had never cared much for coffee, but she knew that for most people in the Government it was considered a luxury.

'Would you put a kettle on, Denna?'

Obediently, she got up and did so, and then returned to the wide settee. For a while they sat there, enjoying the smell of coffee, their sense of success and the sound of rain starting up outside—there's nothing better than sitting in a warm room knowing that somewhere out there, someone is about to become thoroughly wet and miserable. Just as the kettle whistled and Denna got up to bring over some of the hot-drink cups, the door opened.

Jonathan and the Shalms whipped their heads around at once, but Adam remained perfectly still, staring calmly at the steadily darkening window opposite the door.

'Hi, Dick. What's up outside?'

Richard stopped in the doorway as Andrew slipped past him into the lounge silently. After a second, he stepped into the room and replied, 'Nothing much. Just exercising.'

'Yeah, right.' said Denna. 'Because we don't have a perfectly good running machine downstairs, and in any case everyone knows that concrete buildings look so lovely this time of year.'

Richard glared, and then smiled faintly and shook the water out of his hair. 'All right, I was out getting into trouble. Happy?'

'Trouble? Surely not. I was convinced we were going out for a sunlit afternoon stroll.' remarked Max, as he squeezed past Richard through the still-open door, soaked through; the rain outside was making a spirited attempt to wash the school into oblivion, a sentiment with which all those present were likely to agree.

'You?' asked Serenity as she came down the stairs, the single syllable saturated with irony.

'What? Just knowing how to take apart a car door with a toothpick means I'm not allowed to engage in a little innocent recreation every once in a while?'

'What's that smell?' asked Andrew as Serenity began to reply, in the same quiet voice he had been using since the afternoon of the first day of school.

As Max, Serenity, and Richard all froze, Adam grinned and waved at the room in general, lifting the borrowed tin in his other hand. 'Jonathan and the Shalms and I picked some stuff up from the teacher's lounge. Want some?'

While the general scurry around the kettle ensued, he walked over to Richard, who was standing with his back up against the wall, looking moody.

'Don't you want some?' He asked, giving a smile that was perhaps slightly more deliberate than his usual fleeting twinkle.

Richard frowned. 'No, thanks.' he said politely.

'You're just going to stand there and sulk?'

'Nope.' He said shortly, reached into his pocket, and pulled out a new but slightly damp packet of cigarettes. For the second time in five minutes, the room went completely dead.

'Anybody got a light?'

***

The next morning, Claire was held up in her room finishing a tricky piece of mathematics, so she was a couple of minutes late for breakfast. It was no tragedy; she'd been eating little since the beginning of the year, and usually finished her meals quicker than all of her classmates – except Adam, who ate like a stork. Nor did it bother her that she was probably the only member of the class who'd bothered to do the assignment. Just one more feather. One more reason for Tutor Steel to give her protection when she needed it.

Which, by this point, she was sure she would. The feeling she'd had when she first arrived, the impression of casual sadism from the rest of her class, had grown more concrete as the weeks past. Not that there'd been any bullying that she could see – one or two fights, yes, but those were to be expected among a group of twelve teenagers who had to see each other all day, every day – but she had noticed that her fellow students seemed bored. That boredom would have to be relieved somehow, and it hadn't taken Claire long to decide that she'd rather be somewhere a long, long way away when it did.

Unfortunately, that wasn't an option. She'd made no progress whatsoever on the sorcery front, but although the Tutor frowned he didn't seem particularly worried. Therefore, she had to stick around, regardless of how out of place she felt; therefore, she had to be on the Tutor's good side.

Of course, the problem with that philosophy was that being top of the class in every subject but one is a truly terrible way not to draw attention to oneself. Claire had briefly considered trying to maintain some kind of good-but-not-exceptional equilibrium, but quickly realised she couldn't manage it. Anyway, her new peers didn't seem like the type to pick on the nerdy girl. Lash out indiscriminately, yes; achieve power and standing at the expense of others, yes; but she didn't think they'd deliberately target the weak.

This was not because she attributed to them any kind of honour – with a few exceptions, including Richard, who sometimes seemed like a thug and sometimes like a knight errant. It was because she realised that the children around her, who had been uniquely powerful for their entire lives, were now desperately vying to be the most powerful and the most special, in ways that had nothing to do with academics. If she was right, then being a goody-two-shoes couldn't hurt, and might help.

Her plan hit its first snag when she walked into breakfast. The class were all eating already, clustered around two neighbouring tables, and it took her a moment to realise what was wrong: Richard, Serenity, Max, Andrew, and Peace were seated around one table, while Adam, Jonathan, the Shalms, Mike Shears and Opal were sitting at the other.

Claire collected a tray and took her omelette as slowly as possible, thinking desperately. Where should she sit? On the face of things, it seemed like a good idea to throw in with the more powerful group, which was probably Adam's – they had greater numbers and Jonathan besides – but on the other hand, Adam, Jonathan, and Mike all scared the life out of her – but then, so did Serenity...

Of course, the greater problem was that regardless of where she placed herself, she'd be committing to an involvement in class politics, which she needed like a hole in the head. Sitting on the fence, however, seemed like an equally bad idea, since she didn't think the concept of neutrality would come easily to these people.

Claire hadn't expected the class to form groups this quickly, and it put her in an uncomfortable situation. She decided she'd have to gamble. Very slowly and deliberately, aware that every eye in the room was on her and determined not to acknowledge it, she took her tray into a corner and sat down by herself. If her previous analysis had been correct, then the other students would be more interested in taking each other apart than in her.

That was a big “if”, but for now there was nothing for it but to keep her head down, stay out of the way, and run like hell if she saw anyone coming her way.

After she had counted nine mouthfuls, she looked up. The other kids had gone back to their food and conversations. Claire watched them like a hawk for the rest of the meal, and they didn't look at her once.

As they were nearing the end of the meal, Adam stood up suddenly. 'I'm done,' he announced loudly. 'Anyone want this?' He lifted his plate; it didn't look like he'd eaten much.

There was a moment of expectant silence – although what was expected, she wasn't exactly sure. Then Adam said, again slightly louder than was strictly necessary, 'No-one? Shame to waste it.'

Still holding his plate and cutlery, he walked round to the far end of the other table, and scraped off his plate onto Richard's.

The entire drama was so silly that, had she been among friends, Claire would have burst out laughing. Unfortunately, she wasn't, so she didn't, and silence descended once again. She found herself looking towards Richard; Adam was standing, perfectly still, behind him.

The look they exchanged was one that Claire would remember for a long time. Adam wore the expression that, when she saw it in a reflection, she associated with programming or calculation: focused, thoughtful, analytical. Richard looked entirely blank. Or, possibly, patient. As the grave, she thought.

Adam flashed him a glib smile. Richard nodded graciously. Everybody turned back to their food, except Claire, who abandoned her half-empty plate where it was and left as quickly as she could without actually running.