by Elin Peer
“Yes, I know.” Kya pursed her lips downward. “But I'm just saying it would help your boys to be less curious.”
I raked my hands through my hair in frustration. “No. Just a big fucking no! And just for the record, Kya, I don't think your girls would like to shower with our boys either.”
“Why not? They've been showering with boys their whole lives.”
“That might be, but were they ever in love with any of those boys?” I challenged her.
She wrinkled her nose. “No, of course not, they’re just children.”
“True, but in case you haven't noticed, Willow has a crush on Solo.”
“No, she doesn't,” Kya protested.
“Then why is she flirting with him?” I asked with irritation.
“Willow is just being friendly. You men simply misinterpret female friendliness, that's all.”
“I don't think so,” I argued. “The two of them have been exchanging long glances since they met, and I hear her giggle whenever she’s near him.”
“You're out of your mind,” Kya objected.
Christina spoke up. “Kya, it's pretty evident that several of the boys like Willow. You and I talked about that, remember?”
“Yes, but she doesn’t like any of them like that.”
“Maybe you’re right, but I have to agree with the men on this one; from what I can see, Willow is giving Solo an awful lot of attention and she lights up around him.”
“Thank you,” I said to Christina, pleased that at least one of the women was honest enough to admit the obvious. “Kya, you may not like it, but it’s true. I even heard Solo and Hunter argue about Willow yesterday. Solo is definitely interested in her and Hunter doesn't like it.”
Khan had a satisfied smile on his face but didn't take part in our discussion.
“I’ll observe more closely,” Kya said and squirmed in her seat. “Are we almost done here? I would like to join the children outside.”
“No, we're not done yet,” I said firmly. “There’s still the question of your history lessons that we need to discuss. I refuse to let you fill our boys with lies about their forefathers.”
“It's not lies,” Kya shot back. “Men suppressed women for thousands of years; that's a fact.”
“It’s bullshit and so is your stupid rule about sharing.”
“What do you mean? We always teach children to share.”
“And I’m telling you to stop it!” I gave Kya a hard look. “We’re supposed to teach our children how to cope with real life and in this country, we don’t fucking share everything.” Pointing an accusing finger at her, I said: “Because of you, Storm had the audacity to ask if he could use my cabin, yesterday.”
“Your cabin?”
“Yeah, he said you insisted everyone should share and he offered me his bunk bed for the night if he could take my cabin.”
Kya frowned. “That’s not what I meant when I said the kids should share.”
“No? Then how about your idiotic rule about inclusiveness. Did or didn’t you tell the boys to include Nieall?”
“I did. No one should be left out.” Kya raised her chin.
“Really?” I looked at the others. “Hey, Boulder, you and Christina seem to be having a lot of fun together. You mind if I join you?”
Boulder snorted and flipped me a finger.
I shrugged and turned to Pearl, angling my head. “Pearl, you’re a kind Motlander; surely you would let me join you and Khan when you hang out together.”
Pearl looked uncomfortable and Khan lifted a warning eyebrow.
“That’s not how it works!” Kya said, irritated.
“Okay, then you explain to me where the inclusion rules apply in real life, because I can’t think of a single situation where I can expect people to include me just because I feel like hanging out with them. Didn’t you say that children needed to develop social competence?”
“Yes.”
“Why? What’s the point if they’re entitled to be included in any group they feel like being part of?”
“What are you saying?” she asked.
“I’m saying that being disappointed, feeling rejected, and having bad days is part of life. It’s not our job to shield the kids from that. We’re supposed to teach them how to cope with it and how to get through it.”
“Yes, but…”
“No buts, Kya. If we don’t teach them resilience and strength, the real world is going to chew them up and we’ll have failed them.”
Kya opened her mouth, but she didn’t get a chance to speak before a loud scream from outside brought us all scrambling to our feet. Marco and Shelly were keeping an eye on the kids and they were supposed to be enjoying a bonfire, but the scenario that met us when we rushed outside was complete chaos. Children were screaming, and the sound of a boy howling in pain cut me to the bone. Sprinting toward the sound, I found Marco rolling William on the ground.
“What happened?” I shouted.
“He fell into the flames.” Marco’s eyes were narrowed with determination as he picked up William and started running toward the school. “Water,” he called out as he passed me.
Sprinting ahead, I turned on a shower and helped Marco hold the crying boy under the cold spray.
“We need to take him to the hospital,” I shouted to Khan, who’d popped his head in.
“Just keep him under the water for now,” Khan ordered. “I'm calling the doctor.”
I returned my attention to William, anger pulsing through my veins. “How the hell did this happen?” My voice dripped with blame.
“It happened so fast. All I saw was William teasing one of the girls and then she pushed him.” Marco spoke loudly to override William’s screams.
“One of the girls did this to him?” I asked in disbelief. “Who?”
“It was Sky.” Marco’s brow narrowed.
“Sky?” I was stunned; Sky was so quiet you hardly noticed her at all. Out of the eight girls, Sky was the one I knew least about. She kept to herself, hardly ever smiled, and I couldn't remember ever hearing her say anything. “We’re going to punish her for this, trust me, William; she’ll regret it,” I promised the boy.
The minutes it took until help arrived seemed like an eternity. Finn, a physician and personal friend of Lord Khan and Magni, came rushing into the shower room.
“Okay, let's see what we have here,” he said and kneeled down beside William to carefully examine him. I had met Finn before and found him very likable with his easygoing personality and great sense of humor. Right now, however, it was a more serious side of him that took charge of the situation.
“Yeah, that hurts, champ, but luckily I can help you numb the pain a little.” Finn rummaged around in his bag and brought up a small bottle and a syringe.
“It's a second-degree burn,” he muttered to Marco and me.
“Do we need to get him to the hospital?” I asked.
“No, I can treat him here.” Finn gently peeled what was left of William’s shirt off him. “The pain should lessen in a few minutes,” he said in a calm voice and put the bottle away. “I'm going to cover the wound with tilapia patches. It’ll reduce the pain significantly and speed up the healing too.”
William was the youngest and smallest of our boys, and the part of him that was burned the worst was his ass, lower back, and left hand.
“How did this happen?” Finn asked the boy.
“I fell,” he cried and the rest was too hard to hear with the thickness of his words.
“A girl pushed him backward and he landed on his rear. It wasn’t directly in the flames but more on the embers around it; still his pants caught on fire and I put it out with dirt.” Marco explained.
Finn’s dark brown eyes were full of sympathy when he carefully took William’s left hand and cleaned it before applying an antibiotic cream. “And you used this hand to push up from the embers?” he asked.
The boy nodded and flinched with pain from Finn’s touching the burned hand.<
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“All right, here we go,” Finn said and applied fish skin on top of the burn wound.
“Why fish skin?” Marco asked and leaned closer to see better.
“This isn't just ordinary fish skin,” Finn explained. “This is sterilized skin from the tilapia fish. It has high quantities of collagen proteins. Much higher than in human skin. It provides a protective layer that blocks outside contamination and helps keep the moisture and protein in.” He kept working with precise movements. “Trust me, this stuff works miracles and will have William back to teasing the girls in no time.”
“I’ve never heard of this fish.”
“That’s because they can’t survive in our cold waters. We get these from a supplier that breeds them in aquariums.”
“Thank you,” I said to Finn, grateful to this man who had always been nice to me, and was now helping heal William.
“No problem,” Finn worked with concentration, first on William’s hand and next on his back and buttocks. When he covered the last part of the burn wound, his fingers traveled along the edges of the fish skin on William’s back. “How do you feel?” he asked the boy.
William dried his eyes with his right hand, raising his head up to look at Finn. “Better,” he said with a voice still shaking from all the crying.
“Good.” Finn got up to his full height and tousled William’s hair with a hand while smiling at the boy. “I'm going to leave some strong painkillers with Archer, but I think the best thing for you right now is to find a comfortable bed and get some sleep.” Finn turned to look at me. “Make sure he sleeps on his belly.”
I nodded solemnly. “Marco and I can take turns watching him tonight.”
Carefully, I had William hanging on my shoulder, making sure that I only touched his lower legs, when I carried him to the teacher's bedroom.
“I'll take the first shift,” Marco said and I patted his shoulder.
“I'll set my alarm for two thirty; that way we can at least get three hours of sleep each.”
When I got outside, the atmosphere was tense. Finn was speaking with Khan, Pearl, and Magni while all the children were quietly looking at me with visible concern on their faces. My eyes fell on Sky and anger welled up inside of me. The eleven-year-old girl stood under Kya's arm with eyes red-rimmed from crying.
“Is William going to be okay?” Raven asked and sniffled as if she too had been crying.
“Yes, William will be all right,” I muttered and kept staring at Sky, who quickly hid her face against Kya’s side as if she could hide from what she had done. “William has a bad burn but Finn treated him and gave him something for the pain. There’s nothing you can do tonight, so it's best if you all go to sleep now. We can talk about this tomorrow.” There were no objections from the kids. They just quietly did their nightly ritual and found their beds.
We adults stayed up a while longer, still shaken from what had happened.
“How long will it take to heal?” Kya asked Finn and folded her lower lip between her teeth.
“Normally about eleven days, maybe sooner since kids heal faster than adults.”
“Should we clean his wounds daily?” Her eyebrows were drawn in. “Will he have scars?”
“We’ll see about the scarring, but no, you won’t have to do anything. I applied tilapia pads and they will stay on until his skin has healed underneath.
“And how can we tell if his skin has healed?”
“The tilapia will dry out and fall off,” Finn explained. “Isn’t that how you treat burn wounds in the Motherlands?”
“No,” she said and cleared her throat. “It wouldn’t be legal for us to use the skin of a fish since that would involve killing the fish.”
“Ah, yes, Athena told me. What was it she called it?” He looked up as if to remember a conversation from long ago. “Speciesism, right?”
Pearl looked over. “That’s right, we don’t believe in killing anyone. Humans or animals.”
While Finn, Khan, and Magni engaged in a heated discussion about speciesism, I kept out of it.
“What are you thinking?” Kya asked me.
My chest heaved up in a big intake of air and I slowly released it. “I'm thinking about what punishment we're going to give Sky for this.”
“It wasn't Sky's fault,” Kya objected. “You can't punish her for it.”
My eyes shot daggers at her and my voice rose in volume. “She pushed him! Marco told me.”
“She didn't mean to.” Kya’s voice was a little frantic. “We spoke to Sky when you were gone and she's devastated about what happened.”
Christina joined in. “Did you know that William was dangling a huge spider in front of Sky’s face.”
I huffed. “That doesn't give her the right to push him into a fire.”
“It was an accident!” Kya almost shrieked. “Sky pushed William when he tried to put the huge, ugly spider down her jacket. She is traumatized by what happened to William. All the children are.”
“No shit?” I muttered and didn’t share that I was traumatized too. How the hell would I ever again be able to relax around a bonfire in the future? I shook my head to clear it. “I used to think of little girls as innocent, but now I'm not sure anymore. Pushing someone into the fire is goddamn evil.”
“Sky isn't evil,” Kya breathed. “It was a reflex – nothing more – and I'm not allowing you to punish her for it.”
“In that case, you and I have a problem because the girl deserves a big spanking.”
“That’s right,” Magni backed me up.
There was a collective gasp from the Motlander women but at least this time Boulder, Magni, Khan, and I took the same side.
“Would you have objected if it had been reversed?” Khan asked the women.
“Yes, hitting children is never okay,” Pearl said firmly.
Finn cleared his throat and stood up from the circle around the bonfire. “Look, I only just learned about this experimental school tonight, and I think it's the greatest thing ever. I get that you were all scared but now that we know the boy is going to survive, maybe you could all calm down and sleep on it before you do anything. Why not ask the kids tomorrow what happened and let them explain themselves? Don’t give a verdict until you know all the facts, is what I’m saying.”
Kya nodded eagerly. “Yes, that's an excellent suggestion. Tomorrow we’ll sit down with both children and ask them to explain themselves.”
“Glad I could help.” Finn smiled. “I wish I could've visited under more pleasant circumstances and that I had been included in your little circle of secrecy.” He smiled widely. “Seeing so many women and girls in one place is nothing short of extraordinary.”
Pearl leaned her head back to look up at him. “We couldn't tell you, Finn. Only adults who would be a good influence can be included in this project.”
“Hey, I'm an excellent role model. I don't fart at the table very often, and I always shower at least once a week.” Finn winked at Pearl.
Pearl laughed and the tension in my chest eased a bit. “You’re definitely trouble, Finn, we all know that.”
“Yeah, but you still love me,” he said charmingly.
Khan got up to stand next to his friend and swung his arm around Finn’s shoulder, pulling him close in what looked like a painful hold. “If it weren’t for your doing really good tonight I would've punched you for flirting with my wife.”
“I would never,” Finn said with a look of innocence. “And my energy would be wasted anyway. Pearl made her choice, and now she has to live with marrying you when she could have had a handsome devil like me.” He flashed a wide grin and hurried to take a few steps away from Khan as soon as he struggled out of his tight hold. “I'll be back in a few days to look in on William. If anything changes or more kids decide to roast each other, just call me, okay?”
I nodded my head and waved my hand when he said goodbye and left.
CHAPTER 10
Sky’s Punishment
Kya
I had slept poorly that night. What happened between Sky and William three nights ago at the bonfire was such a tragedy. For two days, I had managed to protect Sky from the spanking the men wanted her to have. It was ludicrous that they didn’t understand how old-fashioned their ideas of disciplining children were. Sky was already suffering from the delusion that William would kill her once he was well enough to do it.
Obviously, I had tried solving it the peaceful way by making the children reflect on their actions and apologize to each other for what they did wrong. Archer had scolded William for dangling the spider in front of Sky, but the Nmen considered it a harmless prank that in no way justified Sky’s violent reaction.
Pearl, Christina, and I had advocated for the poor girl until we were blue in our faces, but the men were determined. Their main argument was that a punishment was needed to avoid incidents like this from happening in the future; every child needed to see that behavior such as this resulted in serious consequences.
Sky was pale as a corpse when I fetched her and walked her to the office where Archer would administer her punishment.
“I’m so scared,” Sky whispered to me.
I stroked her hair and soothed her. “You’re going to be all right, Sky. I know you didn’t do it on purpose. You’re not a bad person; you just did something thoughtless, and unfortunately our actions have consequences that we don’t always like.”
“I know, but I already made William a get-better card and I baked him that cake to say I was sorry. And I really am sorry.” Her voice broke.
All I could do was give her a hug before I gently pushed her into the office and closed the door behind us. Archer looked up from his seat behind the desk and pointed to two chairs in front of it. Even for an eleven-year-old, Sky was a petite girl, but she looked even smaller as she sat down on the chair, her shoulders hunched over and her head hanging down. Her long hair covered most of her face, but not her freckled nose. The sight of her obvious misery pulled at every protective instinct I had as I took the seat right next to her, silently offering her my support and hoping she knew this was out of my control.
