Kaitlyn shrugged. “Ask the teachers if you don’t believe me.” To be fair, she didn’t believe it at first either. That was when she still had enough faith in humanity to believe that parents wouldn’t send their kids to a place that dangerous. But with the awful things she’s learned about some of these parents, maybe that was a selling point. “Or look old pictures of the place. They rebuilt.”

As for his comments about middle schoolers and history, “Most middle schoolers don’t read about the Cold War. Plus I should technically be in high school right now.”

She was taking geometry with sophomores and biology with the freshmen, but the rest of her classes were eighth-grade level for some dumb reason, so they counted her as an eighth grader. She hated it; she wanted to get out of this place as soon as possible.

Yeah, yeah, Clyde could tell Kaitlyn liked talking about the Mansion's supposed track record of getting destroyed. Looking up some of the place's history was already on his to-do list, not because she was pushing it, but because he himself was curious.

So he might have misjudged Kaitlyn's age by a year or two, but that wasn't what surprised him. “You like learning about the Cold Wah?” That was... unusual for someone her age, or so he thought. “Don't get me wrong; theah's a bunch of interesting stuff theah. It's just that most of my classmates eithah hated it oh were drawn to the real wahs with the high body counts.”

Kaitlyn was happy that they were no longer moving towards the Mansion. Head wound or no, she still wanted to avoid the DocProf.

“Those are kinda cool too, I guess, but the spy stuff is more fun to read.” Or, at least, it was more applicable to her life. Granted, she only got into this history stuff because of Mars. The other Sanctaury residents thought he must be some kind of miracle worker; the big red guy had successfully convinced a pre-teen girl to read nonfiction books for fun.

“By the way, when you get to seventh grade history, don’t listen to anything Ms. Brooks says about the pilgrims. The pilgrims were dicks.”

So Kaitlyn liked spy stuff. On the surface, it sounded like an interesting topic, but Clyde was pretty sure real spying wasn't like how it was depicted in the movies. But hey, if it kept her invested in history class, he wasn't going to complain.

Clyde crossed his arms when he heard her talk about the seventh grade history teacher. “I'm way past that,” he grumbled. Stupid kid appearance. “I heard about what happened between the settlahs and the natives. But wait until you heah what the explorahs and theah men did, if you haven't already. It was nasty enough-”

Clyde paused. Because of the conversation, he had forgotten what he was trying to do. “Ah you coming to the DocProf oh not?”

“He’s prolly kinda mad at me. So, nah.” She was giving Clyde an incredulous look, not entirely focused on what she was saying. ‘Way past’ seventh grade history?

“…How many grades did you skip?” Was she dealing with some kind of super-genius kid this whole time? He didn’t sound like a super-genius – but maybe it was just the accent that was throwing her off.

“What did you do to make the DocProf mad?” thought Clyde. “Maybe I don't want to-”

Train of thought broken. Kaitlyn just noticed something was off. Which meant he had to explain himself. $#!^. After all he'd been through that day, he'd hoped to avoid that.

Clyde crossed his arms and shot an annoyed glare at Kaitlyn. “I didn't skip any. I'm just a seventeen-yeah-old high school senyah who looks a lot youngah no thanks to his mutation,” he said, his tone defensive. He didn't want Kaitlyn saying anything more about the subject, but in his experience, people tended to ask anyway.

He was so deadpan, Kaitlyn wasn’t sure if he was being sarcastic, or if he was actually trying to make her believe that. Her face betrayed her disbelief before she even said anything. Was he really…?

Nah. This was a pretty common lie, too. She felt dumb for even considering it.

“Right,” she chuckled, playing along. “And I’m here visiting from NYU.” He almost had her going there, for a second. You didn’t normally run into seven-year-olds (eight? nine?) with such powerful snark-fu. Then again, Kaitlyn rarely ran into kids this young.

“Really, though.” She looked at him expectantly.

Clyde rolled his eye's at Kaitlyn's reaction. Her sarcasm was NOT APPRECIATED. People who refused to believe the truth were yet another one of the reasons Clyde hated explaining his mutation. Sure, he looked like a child, but he tried hard not to act like one!

“I'm not lying. I'm an age shiftah,” he tried to explain, annoyed. “As I said, I look like this most of the time because my powah hates me.” There. Plain and simple for Miss Oh So Cynical.

“Kid,” Kaitlyn was clearly amused, “That’s one of the oldest tricks in the book. You seem pretty smart for your age, but still. Not falling for it.”

He was a good actor, though. He sure sounded convincing. If Kaitlyn didn't know better, she might have bought it.

Hearing what Kaitlyn was saying made Clyde groan in frustration. She didn't believe him at all. “Just watch,” he told her.

If she wanted proof so bad, he was going to give her proof.

Clyde shifted backwards about two years, since he didn't want to have his clothes tear or fall off of him. He held it for a few seconds, then let it return to normal. The process was as painful as usual, but it seemed like a solid way of proving what he said.

“See? I'm an age shiftah.”

Blink.

“Well. Now I feel like a jerk.”

A part of her mind was still stuck on the fact that he looked seven years old. If he was actually sixteen, why would he be stuck in a seven year old body most of the time? Then again, with a mutation like that, he could have been 1600 years old and she wouldn’t have been able to tell. Might as well take his word for it.

“…Sorry about that.”

Seeing Kaitlyn's reaction, Clyde could tell the little demo fulfilled its purpose. Good, he didn't need to argue with her anymore. Kaitlyn actually seemed a bit apologetic for not believing him. He couldn't quite blame her for doubting him, though. It wasn't obvious if one went by his appearance.

“Don't worry about it,” Clyde sighed. “Practically everyone makes that mistake.”

When faced with a bunch of people who knew nothing about him, like that day with his classmates, things just felt worse than normal.

“Being a mutant is so great, right?” She nudged him with her elbow, voice dripping with sarcasm. Kaitlyn really could see how much it could suck to live with that.

Meanwhile, she had to reassess everything she thought she knew about this kid. For example, because he was actually older than she was, he definitely wouldn’t be open to the idea of becoming her honorary little brother. Dreams destroyed. Plus, being an older kid boarding at Xaviers’ was a much less tragic position to be in, on average, than a seven-year-old boarding there. He might have even had parents who cared about him!

He was starting to look a lot less like he needed sympathy, involuntary age shifting aside.

“I know,” Clyde agreed. “Unless it's something cool and completely undah control. Who wouldn't want to fly oh run a hundred miles an houh?” Seriously, most of the normal teens wouldn't mind having such powers. But his own was neither cool nor completely under control.

Though, he didn't know the circumstances with Kaitlyn and her mutation. The sarcasm in her tone made him wonder. “So you hate yo powah as well?” he asked casually. She looked normal, but there were a lot of other potential downsides.

“Uh… well…” That might not have come out right.

“I mean, it sucks when I lose control of it and blow stuff up on accident. And, uh…” She was about to mention the part where her power left her without parents. But she wasn’t sure if that was a bad thing, in her case. She also didn’t want to tell this guy about her biological parents. Kaitlyn opted to let the rest of that sentence drift away.

“But on the other hand, it’s prolly the only reason I survived being homeless.” Hating the power that saved her life so many times would seem… ungrateful, almost. “So I guess what I really hate is other people. I mean, the way they act because of it. You know?”