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A few hours ago, Scarlett née Rogue cruellly abandoned Sam to deal with the American Indian he insulted, on the pretext of a meeting. Whatever transpired took long enough to span the length of at least lunch time, though the clock hasn't budged past two by the time one of the older students of Charles' Happy House of Horrors comes back into the fold. She's exchanged her usual sunhat for a book bag, and her sunglasses shielding her face in their vast, round circles reflect the sky. The grass is green, the sun shines in the sky, and presumably no one is aflame, sitting in a crater, or nursing anything worse than a few bruises or a paper cut. Her swaying braids swing like the metal-bundled ropes of her tunic, back and forth, a pendulum's arc measured to her steps.
Except those few steps she takes that skim over the irregular ground rather than above it, like the step she misses. Not that it matters; instinct kicks in and she floats along, resuming her course.
*
Not ending up in a crater counts as a good afternoon for Sam Guthrie, even if he did manage to make a fool of himself more than once earlier in the day. He has had a lunch and, Rogue will be happy to note, changed out of his whimsically nautical Harry's Hideaway uniform. Now decked out in his gym shorts, sleeveless T-shirt, and sneakers, the lanky teenager is just coming back from a hike in the forest behind the school.
He waves when he sees Rogue approach. The greeting lacks his usual over-the-top enthusiasm, showing instead his sheepish streak. She did see him make an idiot of himself in front of a new student earlier, after all. Changing his course slightly to intersect with hers, the Kentucky boy says, "Hey there, Miss Rogue. How did your appointment go?"
*
Someone is talking to her? Through the hundred mile vicinity, few people might expect to dent her pensive thoughts but nothing like a country boy twang playing on her psyche to shake the fruit from the tree. She casts a look in his direction, her green eyes coming out of eclipse over those black as night glasses. Lips part slightly and she lands upon her toes, rather than marching about an inch or so off the ground like some benighted ghost. He might not even realize she did it; not everyone does until the rattling crack of breaking the sound barrier gives it away.
A pause begets a response, and she murmurs, "Enlightening." One word from their loquacious bohemian might be out of sorts, but not fully. She rubs her upper arms, then gives an echo of a smile. "Did you patch things up with the lady? I don't believe I heard her name."
*
"Danielle," Sam answers with a gloomy sigh, falling into step with the step Rogue has fallen into. "Ah apologized, then Ah messed up again, then Ah apologized again. Ah think we left off okay. Showed her where the girls' rooms were, let her have a little mac 'n cheese Ah'd cooked up for lunch." He slides his thumbs into his waistband and hikes his shoulders up as far as they'll comfortably go. "Ah swear, there's no tellin' the number o' things ya gotta not say for fear you'll set someone off around here." He shakes his head, then glances upward into the broad arc of the sky. "Sure was easier back in Kentucky — ain't hardly met anyone Ah was liable to offend back in Cumberland County. How do y'all keep track of it?"
*
"Try doing something nice for Danielle, and she may appreciate that you got off on the wrong foot by accident." The dispensed wisdom comes at a distance still, as Rogue arbitrary stops then and there on the grass. She simply drops backwards from a kneeling position, landing like a star among the bruised blades giving off the telltale scent of greenery. Her arms stretched out to the sides curl among the sun-warmed foliage, and her eyes shut as she basks in the heat of the sun. "People are sensitive to the nuances of their culture. Or to put it a different way, being a young man from the southern part of America, you have more benefits than anyone of colour or ladies have, and so you're not used to thinking about concerns we take for granted all the time. A Chinese girl worries someone's going to call her a chink and rip her off. A black man expects the police never to listen to him, but believe the other side of the story. You expect to be told no, as a girl. It's a complicated world out there, but unfortunately you entered the fray because you have an ability that ninety nine percent of people don't have and they're scared of it. Half the kids here, Mr. Guthrie, have never realized they were different until all of a sudden, they were. And the look in the eyes of the people they knew turned fearful or hateful, disgusted or awed, and none of it was very comfortable. For some, all they ever knew was fear and loathing. Kurt? You think he's had it easy, looking as he does? In a Catholic country at that, ripped apart by the war? Or Miss Danielle, who right away gets treated different because she's got copper skin and black hair, and lots of people have notions about what she is. A savage, a squaw, a girl on the res, someone who never worked. Backwards girl, someone who isn't lettered, and all that means 'she's not like us, she's not good enough.' It's real easy to put people on the outside, draw a line separating you and them. But if we're to survive this world, and be part of it, we have to erase those lines and bring them in. It's not just about segregation in the south, though that's so important. It's about humanity suddenly seeing there are people who aren't just like them, and overcoming fear."
*
"Well now, Ah ain't said a thing about none of that!" Sam protests with a frown, kicking at a stone and missing. "Ah just figured … well, y'see, Ah ain't never met such folks as Ah have since Ah came up here. Ah met colored folks before, sure, but Asiatics, devil-lookin' fellas, communists — and whatever he says, Mr. Summers comes off as pretty pink, when he gets to talkin' — and now an honest-to-God Red Ind—" Sam cuts himself off with a wince. "Ah, mean, a 'Shy-enn.'"
Clearly, someone has been set straight on that matter. Of course, he still pronounces the word as something totally foreign to him, so it's unlikely he knows that the difference is, just that it's important to Danielle.
"Now, sometimes Ah'm just confused — ain't got the slightest idea how Ah'm supposed to tell the difference between a Chinese and a Japanese, to start with. Sometimes Ah don't know what to do, because Ah ain't some kinda political thinker." He shrugs, looking down at Rogue helplessly. "But when Ah saw Danielle, Ah figured, Ah've seen folk like her at the cinema and on TV. Ah thought Ah could be, y'know, welcomin'? Do as folks like her might do? Ah meant well by it, and it still went bad on me."
He sighs again. "Ah'm hopeless. Oughta just keep my mouth shut entirely."
*
"You're talking about change, and change is hard for most of us. It means altering how we think. One day it might be easy, but these first steps are tough. That's why I ask people to be patient and not judge immediately because they might not give someone a chance purely based on all the wrong things. People who see me as a mouthy redhead might not hear what I have to say. They could look at you and say, 'That kid is just a hick, he doesn't know squat.' Or listen to Alex, and get ideas that neglect to notice his good qualities. Through the storm, you see why it's such an uphill battle. I cannot accept we're going to have to wait for the next generation to get this right. We do it ourselves, and we are going to struggle to get it right. Struggle to fly, but once we get our wings, it's going to be worth it."
Her fingers spread wider and she almost nuzzles against the earth, though she happens to be on her back and not her stomach. It's a simple act of pleasure, and a rare one, something that will mark so profoundly *why* she is a hippie, a bohemian, and spectra in between. "If you don't know the difference, you can be blunt and ask, or you can treat them exactly the same as everyone else. If she had an eye out, you wouldn't go 'Hey Blinds' would you? She's a person. I'm a person. You're a person. Use that as a connection point. I think you can be forgiven if a robot walked up and said they were Sputnik, and could it get directions to the nearest Radio Shack because it had a burnt plate. Then you're free to punch that right back into the sky and ask questions later, I figure it. The Professor can explain that one later."
She tips her head towards him, and then huffs a sigh. "Television is a terrible gauge for how to treat people. It'd be like me going up to you and saying, 'Ah do declare! How ya going, ain't this absolutely fine weather, hyuck! How y'all do it, ah' m sweatin' like a pig.'" Yes, she can sound southern country. No, it's not normal for her. It's gawd awful, which is the point.
*
"Ah am a hick, and Ah don't know squat," Sam says resentfully, kicking the stone and connecting this time, sending it skittering up the hill. With a grunt and considerably less grace than Rogue displayed, he drops to the ground as well, seated with his arms draped across his upraised knees. He gives the woman a jaundiced look when she goes into her southern impression of a bad southern impression. "Ah just don't get how it's so easy for y'all and so hard for me. Ah ain't a mean person — Ah been raised right! Then every time Ah meet someone new, Ah end up feelin' like Tom chasin' Jerry around, all steppin' on rakes and pots fallin' on my head no matter where Ah turn. Even once Ah've been told the lay of the land, so to speak, Ah keep forgettin' all the little rules, 'cause there's just so many."
*
"What did you do for your ninth birthday?" It's a question out of the blue. Simple as that, and Rogue doesn't say a word until he has figure drawn out verbally on that. Her boots keep her from digging her toes into the grass. But how can she resist the sensation of sun beating on her fair skin or the way that life flows through her veins, the fascinating way that her breath pulls through her lungs and sends a surge on every heartbeat?
*
Sam's head rolls back a little on his shoulders as he tries to process the sudden change of topic. In fact, he waits several seconds, expecting Rogue to elaborate or explain the question's rhetorial purpose. When she holds out and it seems that the question was asked in earnest, he still has to mull over it for a few seconds.
"Well, Ah don't really remember," he finally answers. "Most birthdays, we'd have cake and friends from school over?" he ventures. "Ah got so many brothers 'n sisters, we didn't usually make a real big production out of birthdays. You were liable to have another one just the next month."
*
"I haven't got any memories of birthdays. Or being nine, in fact, even being a child," she says quietly from that spot on the grass. "That means, Mr. Guthrie, I had to learn what the heck to do at a birthday party, or what little kids do. People take for granted little things like that, and I guarantee you, Miss Danielle is going to have some opinions or experiences none of us do. She might look lost in front of a skyscraper and have no idea how to use the pedestrian crossing at a light. A boy from China doesn't even know all these words we're using as slang. It isn't easy for any of us, that's all I'm trying to say. Some things are easy and some things aren't. See now why we have to try to keep track of everything? There are some rules that never make any sense, and others that you've ingested since you were knee high to a grasshopper, and then the world went and changed the game board on us again. Except this time, we're all being asked to learn as we go along and we're going to, pardon my French, screw up more than a few times before we get it right."
*
That shuts Sam up again. He lowers his chin to his arms, still propped up on his knees, and rocks back and forth for what might be an uncomfortably long time. "Ah'm sorry, Miss Rogue. Ah didn't know that about you," he eventually says, blue eyes on the bohemian. "You've got … amnesia?" He knows some science words! He learned them from comic books and pulp novels, but still. Science. "Is it a powers thing or somethin' else?"
He holds on the question for a moment before looking away and continuing, "Ah guess you've got a point. Maybe Ah can only tell how hard it is for me 'cause Ah just don't notice when it's hard for someone else." He inhales, then exhales slowly. "Like your memories, sorta. Ah reckon there are a lot of things Ah don't know about people."
*
The idle chuckle from the young woman has an edge to it, though not a cruel one. She might well be keeping company with the invisible fates and having a joke at her own expense. "No idea, Mr. Guthrie, not the slightest. Even someone like the Professor can't get in my head very well, because walking in there is an awful lot like crossing a minefield in the dark with Soviets shooting at you, and running smack dab into the Berlin Wall or falling into the Grand Canyon out of nowhere. I'm not an expert by any means, but if there's an answer in there, I'm too busted up to have the easy way out. It could be amnesia. It could be that I'm secretly a robot." He knows science words; does he peer into issues of Scientific American and then run away crying into Hank's lab? Important questions, these.
"Don't feel bad for me, Sam. I don't feel that bad for myself. I came from somewhere, I'm headed somewhere, and what matters the most right now is doing what we can. Having friends, a purpose, directions, that big ol' fuzzy warm feeling inside when I lie here in the sun." Her eyes shut and she murmurs something in a prayer.
And it's a language dead for six hundred years, but who is counting? Not her.
*
Rogue can tell Sam not to feel bad for her, but feelings are feelings, and Guthrie has less control over his than most. Plus the image of a minefield full of commie bullets and bottomless chasms as a metaphor for her brain doesn't exactly discourage sympathy. Still, he lifts his chin from his peach-fuzzed forearms and nods at her. "Ah suppose you're right. Ain't lackin' for purpose around here," he says quietly.
After another pause, he adds, "Still, you ain't a robot. Take it from me — Ah know my Asimov."