Page 18 of Undone
Remy
That morning, as we were making our bunks at dawn, I’d whispered low enough for only Linette to hear.
“How is Jacob?”
“Don’t worry about him,” she snapped under her breath. “Focus on your own self. What have you learned at the big house?”
Her dismissiveness irritated me, but I went on. “Senator Navis is their leader. They call him Bahntan.”
She stilled for a moment, and then without looking at me, continued to tuck her blanket into the mattress. “Figures, the fucking serpent. What exactly are you doing up there?”
I nodded down at my heavy bag laden with materials. “Teaching their children.”
Her face screwed up into a snarl for a fraction of a second and then fell into smoothness again. “Keep your eyes open and your ears alert. Be like a fly on the wall. Then tell me every detail.”
I nodded, and when I turned to go she grabbed my wrist and looked at me with something feral in her eyes. “Every. Single. Detail.”
Nodding again, I yanked my arm away. Just in time too, because a female guard stuck her head into the room at that moment to hurry us along. I wished I could explain to Linette that I wasn’t exactly in the thick of things over at the palace. I was going to be hanging out with the freaking children all day. It’s not like I’d have run of the place. And my mind didn’t work like hers. I wasn’t sneaky and suspicious. Still, I’d do my best.
I met the guards at the gate and they drove me over to the palace. I still found it freakishly odd when I walked into the large children’s room, and every single one of them looked up from what they were doing, stopped without second thought, and came straight over to their desks. There were no hyper movements in their group like you’d have with a bunch of human kids. No swinging legs or fidgeting. They sat still and watched me, ready for instruction.
They were really cute, though, and I was desperate to have this gross feeling go away. I hated being freaked out by them.
“Good morning,” I said.
“Good morning, Ms. Haines,” they chanted in unison.
“While I work on reading with the preschoolers, I’ll have the elementaries working on memorizing the threes and fours on the multiplication charts—here are some flashcards to quiz one another—and the olders will read chapter three in your Earth science book.”
Bam. Books opened. Faces tilted down to read and study. I swallowed and turned my attention to the littles. On the first day when I asked them to sit on the carpet with me, they were confused by my desire for them to be comfortable in the learning setting. They each glanced at the desks, then the Bael overseers around the room, who were busy straightening up. They eventually settled, sitting cross legged like me, and focused as I went through the alphabet. Every one of them was able to recite the alphabet by the end of day one.
Today we were working on simple three and four letter words. When I paused, I heard one of the elementaries politely call my name from the other group, so I looked over.
“What should we do when we finish?”
All of them were sitting there, done. “You memorized the threes and fours already?”
“Yes, Ms. Haines.”
I gaped. Good gosh, they all had genius memories and learning capabilities.
“Well, I suppose you can continue through the chart, memorizing as much as you can until I finish here and get to you.”
They seemed relieved, diving back into their charts.
Meanwhile, the toddlers and preschoolers needed only minor help from me. Once I helped to pronounce something or explain something once, they grasped it and moved on.
When the child closest to me finished, I lowered my voice and asked her, “Milna, do you speak and read a Baelese language, too?”
“Yes, Ms. Haines,” she said in her soft, sweet voice with little variation in tone. “But we are not allowed to speak our language to humans.”
“Oh.” I forced a smile. “Of course not.”
I reached out and touched a piece of her chestnut hair. She went very still at the contact.
“I’m sorry,” I said, pulling away.
“I am not upset, Ms. Haines. If you want, you may touch my hair.”
