Life Before Legend: Stories of the Criminal and the Prodigy (4 page)

My confidence distracts me too much. When I’m not careful, the boy finally catches
me on my shoulder and sends me tumbling to the ground. I land hard on my back, and
all the air in my lungs rushes out in one
whoosh
. He’s going to hit me again. But before I can dodge my way out of this one, someone
comes rushing into our makeshift circle.

“What’s going on here?” a voice barks above me. Instantly the crowd scatters. “Cadets!
Back to business, all of you—have you all forgotten the reports against you for tardiness?
Get to your classes!
”

I wince as I get to my feet. My shoulder feels like it ran right into a brick wall.
I suppose it’s not that far off, actually. The person who broke up our fight looks
like a young officer, and now she folds her arms and regards both of us.

The boy holds up his hands in defense. “She provoked me. You’ve heard the warnings
about this girl before—”

“Yes,” the officer cuts him off, “and responding to a twelve-year-old child’s provocations
is truly a sign of a mature sophomore.” The boy flushes at her words. “Get to your
dean secretary’s office. You’ll be lucky if you’re not suspended for a week after
this.”

The boy does as she says, but not before casting an ugly look in my direction.
Good riddance.
I don’t even know his name.

I’m about to thank the officer when she cuts me off with a glare. “On your feet and
at attention, cadet,” she snaps. I hurry into the stance. The officer puts her hands
behind her and sneers at me. “Harion High warned us about you, you know. They said
that even though you could handle the coursework at Drake, you might not be mature
enough to survive the rest of the university. And it looks like they’re right.”

“But I didn’t even touch him,” I say.

“You were right in the middle of a fight with him,” the officer replies, gesturing
around her. “I saw it with my own eyes.”

“No, you didn’t. Did you ever see me strike him?”

A small hint of frustration appears in the officer’s eyes. “Do we really need to debate
this, Iparis? An entire crowd of students witnessed the two of you, and I should think
that’s plenty of evidence for your secretary to deal with.”

I shake my head. “With all due respect, ma’am, what the other students saw was a sophomore
boy who tried over and over again to hit me but failed. They also saw me spend the
entire time ducking and dodging. I never put a finger on him. And until that last
hit that you saw, he also didn’t lay a finger on
me
.”

To my pleasant surprise, the officer hesitates for a second. Everything I said does
match what she actually saw. I press on. “It can’t be a fight between the two of us
if I never even touched him, right?”

She searches my face, and behind her irritated expression lies some small, subtle
hint of admiration. Somehow, I’ve managed to impress her. “I’ll let your dean secretary
decide what to do with you,” she finally replies, although she doesn’t sound as harsh
as she did a second ago. “Her name is Ms. Whitaker, and she’s in Albott Hall. Say
what you will in defense of yourself, cadet, but if every day turns out to be like
this first day, then Drake just might have to send you right back to high school.
I have my eye on you. Understand?”

I mutter a response and head off toward my dean’s building. When I glance over my
shoulder, the officer is still standing there, watching me go. She places a call on
her earpiece and I wonder if she’s talking about me.

Despite all my pleading, I’m hit with a report for the whole thing. I stare miserably
at the gold slip of paper as I sit at the back of my last afternoon class (Republic
History 2080–2100), hoping that the students several seats down from me don’t notice.
Slapped with a report on my very first day at Drake. Based on my own research about
the university, if a student got more than five reports in one year, she would be
placed on leave—a nice way of saying that she’d been suspended for the following year
and required to attend a series of disciplinary classes at a boot camp. If a student
got more than five reports after that, then she’d be expelled. Apparently I’ve given
myself a head start on suspension. Metias won’t be happy to hear about this—although
I don’t think I can get into
that
much trouble with him. He’d been the one who wanted me to stand up for myself, right?
I’d done nothing wrong. I’d only defended myself. Still, the whole ordeal makes my
stomach churn . . . I thought I was being so clever, that doing what I did would leave
some sort of impression on my elders, that it would help my standing in the class
and put me on a better track to becoming an officer. What was I thinking? Why would
the Republic want such a rebellious soldier as one of their officers? At this rate,
I’ll be lucky to make it through my first year without getting suspended, and I’m
sure I’ll run into that boy again. What do I do next time?

“Hey,” somebody whispers from the row behind me. “Kid.” I turn around. It’s a girl
with two long braids tied back into a bun behind her head.

“Hi,” I whisper.

“I saw what you did out there in the quad today.” She smiles. “Nice job. I didn’t
think I’d ever see a twelve-year-old get the better of someone like Patrick Stanson.”

Her words lift my mood a little, and despite my report, I sit up straighter in my
chair and smile back. “Thanks,” I reply. “I don’t think Drake will want to see me
doing that again, though.”

“Are you kidding?” The girl laughs and nudges her friend. “You heard it was posted
in the classroom, right?” Her friend nods.

“What are you talking about?” I ask.

“Rumor has it that your name’s been added to the class Intermediate Defense 231. Some
people saw it on their updated attendance rosters in their course tablets.” She waits
for a second, as if to see my reaction, but when I just continue staring blankly at
her, she sighs and makes a circular gesture with one hand. “
Intermediate
Defense. You know that class is only for sophomores, right?”

I blink.
Only for sophomores.
Had the young officer who’d sent me off to my dean secretary put in a word for me?
Had she actually seen something in me, something I’d been trying to put on display?
I think back to that hint of admiration on her face, her hesitation at scolding me
in the end. Maybe what I did was a good idea after all. I smile in the darkness of
the classroom. “Thanks for the heads-up,” I tell the girl gratefully. “Otherwise I’m
pretty sure I would’ve gone to the wrong lecture hall tomorrow.”

The class ends—the professor dismisses us, and the girl’s friends all rise and start
making their way out of their aisle. The girl looks at me again and shrugs. “No problem,”
she says with a smile. Before I can reply, she utters a quick “Bye!” and scurries
off to join her group. I watch her go for a second.

My happiness fades. I’m grateful to her for the moment of friendship, but a moment
isn’t
friendship . . . and as I adjust my own bag across my shoulders and head into the
hall, I come to the slow realization that this might never change. I’m twelve years
old. Everyone else in my class is at least sixteen. No matter how nice some of them
are to me, who’s going to want a twelve-year-old tagging along with them? What could
I possibly talk with them about? What would I have in common with any of them?
I don’t have anything in common with them,
I admit to myself as I step back into the glare of the afternoon sun. And when all’s
said and done, I’m pretty sure I will be spending the next four years alone.

My coping instinct kicks in.
I have to skip a grade.
I’d skip all of them, if I could. The faster, the better, and then I can get out
of here. I can leave and then I can finally find my group of friends. Even though
I try to brush off this train of thinking, knowing it makes no sense, that it’s all
illogical, I can’t help feeling some sort of weird reassurance from it. If I start
over again . . . if I just have one more try at a new school or environment, with
new people . . .

I start to run. I run until my feet fly off the ground and my breath comes out in
ragged, desperate gasps. I run all the way across the campus until I reach the edge
where other students are being picked up and dropped off.

I just want to go home.

“So,” Metias says to me later that night as I lounge alone on our living room couch
and watch an old cartoon. He hands me a mug of hot chocolate. “Do you want to talk
about this report thing?”

I don’t answer right away, but I do take the mug in both hands and savor the rich
chocolate scent. My brother knows me. I can tell right away that this is a different
type of hot chocolate than he got last time—no powder, just real chocolate melted
into steaming-hot milk. Floating on top is a soft, handmade marshmallow. My favorite.
It’s as if he could sense my mood and stopped to buy this even before he came to pick
me up. Or perhaps he’s seen me have one too many rough first days of school.

We sip our drinks in silence for a while. “They said I got in a fight,” I finally
blurt out. “But I didn’t. I didn’t even touch the other guy.” Metias raises an eyebrow
at me, but he doesn’t argue, and I find myself rambling on. “And then Ms. Whitaker—that’s
my dean secretary—she said that I don’t respect authority enough, and that I talk
back too much. Then they assigned me into Intermediate Defense instead of Introductory
Defense. That’s a good thing, right? But they also gave me a report.”

Metias clicks his tongue in disapproval. “June. What have I told you about talking
back to your teachers?”

“She’s not my teacher. She’s my dean secretary.”

“Whatever. I know I said to stick up for yourself, but that doesn’t mean I want you
to go around picking fights or causing trouble on purpose. It sounds like you deserved
that report, kid.”

I glare at him, annoyed that he isn’t taking my side. “I don’t know whether they’re
trying to punish me or praise me.”

Metias leans on one arm propped up against the back of the couch, and unless I’m seeing
things, I swear there’s both a smile and a frown hidden along his mouth. He studies
me thoughtfully. “Maybe they’re trying to do both,” he replies. “It sounds like they
saw your talents as well as your attitude problems, and it’s a bit confusing for them
to deal with those at the same time. Maybe they’re just like your other schools. They
just don’t know what to do with you.”

“Nobody ever knows what to do with me.” Suddenly I’m unleashing all my frustration
onto my brother. “The school doesn’t fit me—nothing ever does. I can’t even carry
on a normal conversation with my classmates for longer than thirty seconds, because
what in the world do we have in common? They’re all sixteen and up, and they talk
about dating and careers. None of them are twelve-year-olds in a university. I’m not
interested in what they have to say, and half of them don’t even understand the things
I
want to talk about.”

“A little modesty, Junebug,” Metias chides me in a soft voice.

“Well, it’s true!” I exclaim. “
I’m not normal,
Metias—I see things that other people don’t see. I’m not in the same league. Why
should I try to deny that?” My voice softens for an instant. “There’s something wrong
with me.”

Metias sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “I know you’ll have a hard time making
friends,” he says after a brief pause. “I know that’s what this is all about, all
the grade skipping and showing off, and I won’t sugarcoat it for you. You
aren’t
normal. The things that make you special will give you all kinds of advantages in
life, but they will also hold you back and expose your weaknesses. That isn’t going
to change. And you’ll have to learn to adapt to that.”

I stare into my mug, my sweet tooth abruptly gone. “I don’t know how,” I mutter.

“You know everything.” Metias says this in a light, teasing way. “You’ll figure it
out. Your strengths might make you hard to approach, and might make your words sound
uglier than what you actually mean, but they also make people look up to you. They
admire you, whether you realize it or not. If you stop trying so hard to impress them,
maybe a few will start warming up to you.” My brother reaches out and taps my forehead
gently. “Behind that brain of yours is a good heart, Junebug. I see it every day.”

I don’t know why his words bring a lump up in my throat, but suddenly I’m fighting
it down and trying my best not to cry. When Metias sees my face, he shakes his head.
“Come here, kid.” I scoot over to him and snuggle underneath his arm. We sit quietly
with our mugs of hot chocolate, savoring the peace of the night.

Poor Metias. He’s not supposed to be a father. He’s supposed to be out on his own,
independent and free to concentrate on his job as a young captain. But
somebody
has to take care of me, and I make his life so much harder than it needs to be. I
wonder what things must have been like for him back when our parents were still alive,
when I was a toddler and Metias was a teenager and he could focus on growing up instead
of helping someone else grow up. Still, Metias hasn’t complained once. Not a single
time. And even though I wish our parents were here, sometimes I’m really happy that
this is our little family unit, just me and my brother, each watching out for no one
but the other. We do the best we can.