When Karr opened his eyes again, he saw Maize standing before him with her mouth open. Unconsciously so, he imagined, because no one would choose to look so taken aback. But what really distracted him from her gaping expression was her eyes. He had noticed them earlier, of course, but they were different now. And for the better. There was a hint of what might actually be admiration in them.
“That was…impressive,” she said. “Or else a really good guess.”
It was enough. Karr would take victories with Maize where he could find them.
The next day at school, things got bad and strange.
Or badder and stranger than usual, considering that school was Karr’s least favorite place in the universe. He’d grudgingly finished two of the day’s six classes when he heard his name called over the building’s intercom, summoning him to the headmaster’s office.
“Perfect,” he griped. His classmates giggled.
His teacher, a Givin who was leading the class in calculus, shrugged and waved at the door. “Go on, then.”
He picked up his datapad, stuffed it into his bag, and slipped out of his desk. “What did I even do this time,” he muttered to himself—leaving off the question mark that should’ve gone at the end.
The teacher muttered something vague in reply, but the door shut behind Karr before he could catch it. He didn’t care, and it didn’t matter. He had three minutes and counting to answer the call before it came again.
If it came again, it came with detention.
With the looming threat of spending even more time in the headmaster’s office, he hustled down the empty hall, zipping his bag and tucking in his shirt as he went—his shoes squeaking on the polished floors with every rushed step.
He palmed open the door that separated the school’s public corridors from the administrative offices and once again sat down on the bench and stared at the door to the headmaster’s office. He was alone, right where he’d been around the same time the previous day. Making a habit of it.
He wouldn’t mind making a habit of seeing Maize, but this time she failed to appear. She was either behaving herself in some other classroom or doing such a good job of being bad that no one had caught her yet.
Karr figured the odds were about fifty-fifty either way.
He felt around on the bench until he located the first letter of his name, etched there the day before. Since he didn’t know how long he could expect to wait for whatever scolding or punishment was coming, he considered finishing the job, but before he could fish out his little knife for another go at graffiti, the headmaster’s door slid open.
The Ovissian headmaster…was not alone. He was joined by Tomar and Looway Nuq Sin. Karr’s parents.
All three of them wore somber expressions.
Karr’s stomach sank. The last time his mom and dad had shown up at school, it was to tell him that his aunt had died. He didn’t know any other old people now that his grandmother was gone, so anybody else’s death would be a real shock. His brother? His uncle, on the other side of the planet?
“Is…is everybody okay?” he asked.
Looway caught on quickly, but she was careful when she replied. “No one is hurt or anything like that, but we need to talk.”
The headmaster gestured into his office. “Please, come inside.”
Karr looked over his shoulder but saw no one to rescue him from whatever dire news he was about to get. No sign of any other teacher, no hint of Maize, no comforting beeps from RZ-7. He stood up straight, slung his bag over his shoulder, and sighed. “Let’s get this over with.”
They all retreated into the office, and the headmaster closed the door before taking his seat behind a big desk. When everyone was settled, he folded his hands and let them rest on the gleaming surface in front of him. “Karr, your parents and I have been having a conversation.”
“About me?”
“About you,” his mother confirmed. “We’ve been so…”
“Worried,” his father offered.
She continued, “Yes, we’ve been worried about you, dear. Ever since your grandmother left us, you simply haven’t been yourself. Your headaches have gotten worse, and we all know they’re happening more frequently. Yesterday alone, it happened twice!”
“I know, but I’m learning…” He stopped. What could he tell them? He’d tried the truth before, but it’d never worked. His grandmother had believed in the Jedi, but no one else in the family did. “I’m learning to live with them.”
His mother smiled warmly and patted his knee. “You’ve been very brave, Son. But we’ve finally heard back from the specialist you saw last month—the one who came in from Chandrila. It took a long time to go through all the test results, but now we have some…” She looked up at her husband, but he didn’t finish the thought for her, so she kept going—even though she didn’t sound terribly confident. “We have some answers, and we have a plan.”
Tomar confessed, “You’ll probably like part of it, but you might hate the rest of it.”
Karr sighed. “So…give me the good news first, I guess.”
“The good news,” his mother repeated. “Well, you hate school, don’t you?”
“This one,” he admitted, avoiding eye contact with the headmaster.
The headmaster sighed. “I realize you’ve had your difficulties, especially with a death in the family.”
“My mother,” Tomar said. “His grandmother. She lived with us. She and Karr were very close.”
The headmaster bobbed his horned head with sympathy. “It must have been a hard time for everyone, to be sure. And now this.”
Karr sulked. “Now what? I believe I was promised some good news.”
His mother pressed onward. “Yes, and the good news is—after the end of this term, you won’t have to go to school anymore! Not this one, at any rate. You want to leave it so badly, and you’ve had so many fainting spells, we’ve realized that it’s just not safe for you to attend here any longer.”
“Wait. What?”
His father hastily chimed in, “You’ll be joining my brother at the trade school in Taeltor Province, where you’ll learn to take things a little easier.”
He was stunned and not at all happy. Neither one of those pieces of news sounded particularly good. He felt like he’d been lied to. “What? You can’t…you can’t do that. You can’t just send me away because I have headaches.”
The headmaster unfolded his hands and leaned forward, the upper and lower horns on his face coming closer. It was probably meant to be a reassuring pose, but it mostly felt threatening. “That’s not what’s happening here, young man. Your constitution is not suitable for all the…excitement. That’s what your doctor said.”
Karr turned to his parents. “I get picked on a lot, but that’s not what causes the headaches. Or the fainting.”
Looway looked at him with wide, damp eyes that were sure to spill over with tears any second. “But dearest, that’s exactly it. The stress of it all. That’s what the doctor concluded—and he’s the foremost expert in the sector.”
“I don’t care who he is. He’s wrong. Grandma said I have the Force, and I believe her!”
“Even if we believed that—and we don’t,” his father was quick to add, “there are no more tests they can give you. You’ve been checked over by every capable physician and droid we can afford, and this is your diagnosis.”
“My diagnosis is that I’m weak?”
His mother shook her head. “Your diagnosis is that you’re sensitive. You’ve been complaining about this school since your first day. I thought you’d be happier to hear that you don’t have to finish your term.”
“I am happy about that part!” he insisted, even though he was thinking of Maize. “But how is this better? Taking me out of one school and putting me in another one? What makes you think that’ll be any better, or make me any happier?”
Tomar shrugged. “At the new school you won’t be so alone. Your uncle will be there to look after
you, and you won’t be surrounded by a bunch of other immature children. Most of the people at the trade school are older than you.”
“Yeah, because it’s supposed to be a school for adults, not for kids!”
The headmaster replied, “Between us, we’ve pulled some strings. I know that your family business is, perhaps”—he hunted for the right words—“not your truest passion. But we all believe that it will do you good to focus on doing substantial work. Something with your hands, something that you can concentrate on without distraction.”
His father said, “You’re nearly a man now. It’s time you learned how to do more than sew a straight seam or judge the quality of fabric. You’ve learned everything you’re going to learn at home, and you hate this school. You’re miserable here, your health is in jeopardy, and it’s time to try something else—so why not bring you up to speed on the finer points of the tailoring business? It might not be your favorite thing, but you have a knack for it. With more focused training, you could be truly great. Imagine it—creating your own clothes, to your own preferences, for your own clients! You could be the youngest shop manager on the planet!”
“Sounds thrilling.”
“I know you’re only being rude, but I’ll be happy if it bores you. You need to be a little bored. I honestly think it will do you good. It’ll help settle your mind,” he said with finality. “I’ve talked it over with Cornell and he’s made all the arrangements. You’re very fortunate that he’s such a good teacher and the school holds him in such high regard.”
“Fortunate,” Karr grumbled bitterly.
The Ovissian settled back into his chair. “Yes, fortunate. The doctors feel that your headaches will subside and your fainting will diminish—if you can only find a quiet routine to occupy your time. And I agree with them.”
“I’m being punished for being different. That’s what this is.”
“No,” he insisted. “You’re being given an opportunity to find happiness and stability elsewhere. Let’s not mince words, Karr: you don’t make much trouble, but you certainly receive plenty. This school isn’t always the gentlest place, and I’m aware that we have students who are hard on the younger, smaller—”
Karr sighed. “Weaker. You can just say weaker.”
“We don’t think you’re weak,” Looway assured him.
“You think I’m useless.”
At last, she started to cry. “Please don’t be like this. We only want what’s best for you, and you haven’t been happy here.”
She wasn’t wrong, but he wasn’t happy with the idea of leaving, either. He only had another three semesters before he completed all his terms. He would have options in other careers, if he went looking for some. Jobs that could get him off Merokia in search of his true calling: being a Jedi. Surely he could suck it up that long, couldn’t he? Especially if he could convince Maize to hang around.
Maybe it wasn’t rational, and maybe it wasn’t fair—but now that he was being given an escape pod, he didn’t want to leave at all. He knew his way around, and he had even managed to make a friend. A pretty friend. A friend who thought he was a little weird but didn’t treat him like he was stupid.
Someone he could really connect with.
Eventually. He was fairly sure.
The headmaster and his parents tried in vain to convince him that he was looking at this all wrong, but it didn’t work. In the end, when he was sick to death of hearing them talk about him, and around him, and over him, Karr grabbed his bag and hopped to his feet.
“You said I have until the end of the term, right? Then I still have classes here, at least for another couple weeks—so let me go. I need to get back to calculus.”
His dad called his name, but Karr didn’t look back. He let the office door slide shut behind him. Back in the lobby, he opened the door to the hallway with his bag and his shoulder, and he darted into the hall before anyone could stop him.
It was very quiet out there.
He’d been in the office long enough that classes had changed, and the students were mostly seated at their desks, pretending to listen to whoever was talking and wishing they were somewhere else. The corridors were silent except for the echoes of his own squeaky footsteps and a dull throb in his ears that turned out to be his own heart beating too hard because he was too angry.
He automatically started toward his correct classroom, but he didn’t want to go in there. He wanted to run and scream, and possibly break things while he was at it. There had to be another way.
His steps slowed.
They said he didn’t make much trouble, but what if he did? What if he made real trouble? If he got arrested, would they kick him out of the trade school in Taeltor Province? It would embarrass his uncle, but Karr barely knew the guy. He was a lot older than Karr’s dad, and mostly they only saw each other at holidays or funerals.
He wondered what kind of minor crime he could commit. It couldn’t be too big or too destructive; he didn’t actually want to hurt anyone. Perhaps if he broke some school property, or vandalized something bigger than a bench in the administrative lobby. Yes, maybe vandalism was a good place to start.
His mind was wandering in the direction of “light arson, maybe” when he heard something shatter nearby. He backtracked, listened hard, and heard something else break. Something was going down in the science lab.
He crept up to the door and looked in through its window.
Inside, he saw Maize. She was mad. Mad enough to break things.
Another glass beaker went spinning, and Karr ducked away, even though there was zero chance it was going to hit him. It smashed against the wall, and when the last pieces had tinkled to the floor, he knocked on the door—carefully and loudly enough that even an angry girl with a room full of breakables might hear it and recognize a friendly gesture. Then he palmed the door control.
“Hey. Um…” A long, clear test tube hit the floor near his feet, and he cringed. The glass missed him but not by much. “Hey, Maize, could you…could you not do that?”
She froze. “Karr?”
“Yeah, hi.” He stood up straighter and let himself inside.
“Get out.” Maize sniffed and wiped her nose on her sleeve. She’d obviously been crying, and she was obviously trying to pretend otherwise. She stood in the middle of a war zone, surrounded by broken glass—and behind her there was a table with two lit burners blazing away. So Karr wasn’t the only one contemplating arson. It was just one more thing they had in common.
“Are you all right?”
“I said, get out.”
“I know, but I don’t want to. What’s going on?”
Her hand flexed around a measuring glass. Karr thought maybe she was thinking about throwing it at him, but she put it down instead—hard enough to crack it on the counter. “My dad got reassigned this morning. One of the big First Order ships sent a shuttle for him and took him away, and now we’re stuck here without him! I don’t even know when he’ll be back.”
“Didn’t you just move here?”
“Yes!” she shouted. With a sweep of her arm, she knocked the thick glass cup off the table. It hit the floor with a tinkling pop and split into three pieces. “We could’ve just stayed where we were!”
“Did you even get to say goodbye?”
“No! He was gone when I got up. It’s almost like my mom doesn’t even care—she just sent me off to school as usual like nothing happened, but it happens all the time. I’m so tired of trying to hold on to him. Why can’t we just find a place to live?”
“You can…you can live here, though. Even if he’s gone.”
“Here? This is nowhere! You know it better than I do. Now I’m stuck here, probably for at least another term of school, and it’s all stupid, it’s just stupid.” She was crying again, her bright blue eyes sparkling. “Nothing personal.”
“It’s fine.” He laughed awkwardly, quietly. “It’s almost funny. I just found out a minute ago that I’m getting sent away, too.”<
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She paused and frowned. “Oh, that’s right. I heard your name on the intercom. I wondered what that was about. Now you’re leaving me, too? Great. Just great.”
“Well, now you know. My parents are sending me off to a trade school. It’s a long way away.”
She wiped her nose again, this time on her other sleeve. “Do you want to go there?”
“No.”
She thought for a moment. Karr could practically see the wheels in her brain suddenly working at twice the normal speed. “What if I went with you? It can’t be any worse than here.”
He sucked in his breath. Was that even an option? He didn’t think so. “You’re supposed to finish your terms at a school like this before they let you in. But I have this uncle who’s getting me in there. It’s a long story.”
A chime at the door distracted them both. They watched as the door slid open and Namala Moffat peered inside. She took one look at the mess and the two kids who’d apparently caused it, rolled her eyes like she was exhausted, and said, “Stay here. I’m getting the headmaster.”
Feverishly, Karr began working on his story. There’d been a groundquake, that’s what he’d say. A very small, localized quake. No, there’d been an explosion! Someone left an experiment unattended; that’s what did it. He had to think of something. Even if he’d actually been planning to wreak some havoc, and even if he couldn’t stay there with Maize, he didn’t want her to get in trouble. What if she got expelled before he transferred to his uncle’s school?
He’d never see her again.
The wrinkles on Maize’s forehead said that she was still thinking hard, too. Her eyes were clearing up. She was looking at him in a way that was partly thoughtful and partly scary. “I’ve got another idea. You don’t want to go to the other school. I don’t want to be at this one. Maybe we should just…go somewhere else.”
Journey to Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Page 4
