Recent Posts

“You’re welcome.” The response was automatic; Blake was only even half conscious that he said it. So was continuing to hold the door as someone else filtered out behind Miss Jackson, even if he did make a bit of an annoyed face at having to wait for them, and another when they didn’t say anything.

It still only took a few steps to catch up to Miss Jackson, though, which left Blake back in, possibly, even more awkwardness than he’d recently escaped. “…Um.” Hello, goodbye, thanks for giving me money I earned, I don’t honestly care if I see you again, but you’re more tolerable than most people, probably because I didn’t actually have to interact with you most of the time. That was a bit ruder than even Blake felt like being, particularly to someone who really had been fairly tolerable.

Blake rolled his eyes. He was getting extremely sick of this kid. “I’m sure you do, but I don’t care, and I’m not going to remember it. How about you waste someone else’s time now?” He didn’t respond to the brat accusation. He’d explained why the kid was a brat and he wasn’t already; if the kid wasn’t getting it, he still wasn’t going to waste his breath repeating it. Instead he turned away, stepping back onto the bench to return to drawing.

“You act like a brat, you look like a brat, you sound like a brat, it just might be that you’re a brat.” As satisfying as it was to deal with someone that was easy to deal with for once, and not citing strength and coordination and humanity against him (even if the last was normally unknowingly), there wasn’t a whole lot of satisfaction to be had in outarguing a child. Really, it was more relief that the nuisance was only a nuisance and not a problem this time than anything else. Even that relief was getting lost pretty quickly, though, as the nuisance refused to just go away.

“And I answered your question, and you’re still here. Superiority’s got nothing to do with it, I just know better than to go around pestering people who have better things to do. Which you still need to learn, apparently, if you can.” Blake smirked. “Also, insisting that you’re not a kid doesn’t work very well when you also complain about how people treat you because you’re a kid.”

Blake shrugged. “‘S okay. I don’t really need sketches of doors much, and I can always come back anyway.” Not that he would, if he could avoid it; one encounter with the priest was enough. Or any priest, really; Blake knew they were good, but they always made him feel bad. Besides, church doors weren’t exactly a rare thing; he could find plenty of church doors if he wanted one. Blake flipped through the sketchbook, stopping when he got to the first of the door sketches. “You can pick the ones you want.”

“So, um.” Blake shifted once she had all the sketches she chose. “Was there anything else you wanted?”

“…Sure.” Blake hadn’t actually considered that she might want to keep his sketches. He’d thought she’d look, and maybe borrow the book or something like that; really he hadn’t thought much about it at all. He had another version of that sketch, though; from a different angle, but it’d work for any interest he had in using it, so he tore the page out and handed it to Miss Jackson.

“Not the doors?” Not that he really wanted to give away more sketches, but the doors weren’t the most useful ones he had, and it was kind of annoying to have spent that much time on them for no point. Even if it had looked like she was almost done already….

Mr. Glass let the debate go on for several minutes before interrupting. “Okay, quiet, quiet--good! Good, all of you, that was a good discussion! Lots of points, and I noticed several of you using facts to back your points up, well done. I noticed several others quiet, though, you’re all supposed to share! Let’s see, now… Tori, what do you think?”

Victoria, as even Blake knew she emphatically preferred to be called, frowned before answering. “I dunno. It doesn’t affect me, much. I’m not a mutant, and neither is anyone I know, so it doesn’t really matter.”

“What if you did know a mutant?” Olivia asked. “If someone in this class was? Like… like, if Mr. Glass was a mutant!” Surprised laughter burst from half the class, including Mr. Glass the newly hypothetical mutant. “What would you think then?”

Victoria just shrugged again, even though she was among those still grinning at the suggestion. “He’s not, so I dunno. And she,” she waved at the screen still hiding the blackboard “isn’t anyone I know, either. So it’s just kinda… not my life.”

“Oh, very interesting,” Mr. Glass said. “I don’t think we heard that opinion earlier. Now, someone else… Blake, how about you?”

“Uh.” Blake’s stomach had been twisting until it felt about to snap already; now his shoulders joined it. “I guess… my priest says that mutants are sinners and need to be, um. Crucibled, or something. So they can be saved from hell.”

“Ooh, quite interesting. Someone remind me to talk about that when we get to the witch trials next quarter--Blake, do you think your priest would be willing to come into class to talk?”

“Yeah, probably.” Blake wasn’t sure whether his head felt fizzy and bruised from relief or guilt, but it did.

“But that’s not your opinion.” The relief disappeared immediately, but the fizzy bruised feeling remained. Guilt, then, Blake noted as he swallowed. “What do you think?”

Blake tried not to squirm, and shrugged instead. “I dunno. Crucibling seems to work for most sins, I guess.” Damn Mr. Glass. Blake wasn’t sure whether he was swearing or praying.

“And do you think being a mutant is a sin?”

Blake’s head hurt, and his throat felt stuck, and his heart and gut felt twisted and crushed and shaking. He wanted to close his eyes, or better yet start drawing so he could just forget the entire thing. But people were looking at him, so he hoped he wasn’t pale (or, not so much more than usual that it would be noticed, anyway), and was glad the twisted, ready to snap feeling muscles made it easier to stay still than to shake, and tried to come up with an answer that Mr. Glass would be satisfied with. “I guess. I’m not a priest.” Though sometimes he felt like one; he’d spent enough time looking, and still hadn’t found anything at all in the Bible about mutants.

“So you don’t know, but what do you think?” Mr. Glass insisted.

“I don’t know.” Blake felt entirely justified in sounding frustrated. It came out higher than he liked, though, so he swallowed and continued, pushing more anger into his tone so that it would be obvious he was annoyed. “I’m not a priest. I haven’t found anything in the Bible that talks about mutants. There weren’t any then and the only people God talks to now are priests, and I’m not one of them, but they all say He said mutants are evil, so I guess they have to be. I don’t like it, but God can’t be wrong.”

Mr. Glass sighed, still looking disappointed, but Blake wasn’t in the mood to care. “Very well, then, that’s something. I hope you have more to add Wednesday, though. Anyone--ah, yes, Linda?”

Blake only barely noticed Linda glaring at him. “Mutants aren’t a sin, and not all churches say they are! My church doesn’t.”

“Neither does mine,” another voice added.

Linda’s tone was triumphant now. “So, see, not all churches say that, so you can’t say it’s true because all churches say it. Even if they did, they used to all say the world was flat, too, and we know how smart that sounds now.”

Blake didn’t have the energy to argue, even if he wanted to. “Whatever.”

“Hmph.” Linda scowled, but didn’t say anything else.

Mr. Glass nodded, looking pleased, then moved on, selecting one of the class’s Alexes to answer next.

Blake slumped in his chair, propping himself up with an elbow on his desk. He still hadn’t decided whether he wanted to hear peoples’ comments or not, but it didn’t matter; his brain seemed filled with jello and hammers, and he couldn’t concentrate enough to listen, whether he wanted to or not.