Too Small To Be Afraid

Chapter 16

It was only about a month ago that Dad and I packed our bags and moved half way across Koronia, and now it's already Rosan. At first, I wasn't expecting much from my dad's hometown, but I've been blown away with how much has happened since we arrived in Chancelor. I wasn't expecting to be forced into attending a deskmate school, and I certainly wasn't thinking I'd ever become friends with a perthean. I always worried about what would happen if a perthean found out about my fear, but never in a million years would I have ever predicted that one would actually want to help me overcome it!

Derrick and I have met up after school a few times now, and although these meetups have been helping me a little, I'm still not sure what my deskmate has in mind for us in the long run. Surely there's more to this than practicing eye contact and learning how to step onto a perthean's palm without falling over.

I think through what could possibly be next as Brittney and I make the trek from the cafeteria back to the pickup area.

"I really wish we could all just have our lunch together, you know?" Brittney says with a huff, interrupting my thoughts.

"What?! What makes you say that?" I ask, my heart skipping a beat at her suggestion as I desperately try to keep my mind from forming any pictures of sharing a lunch table with pertheans.

"It's just... we'd have so much more time to hang out as a group if we had our lunch together! Since this school is so focused on getting humans and pertheans to get along, you'd think they'd want us to have meals together, right?"

I hadn't thought about it before, but I guess what Brittney's saying makes sense. I was surprised when I first found out I wouldn't be sharing Physical Education or lunch periods with my deskmate, but in my relief, I decided not to question it. I suppose separating for P.E. makes sense since it's not a good idea to mix humans and pertheans for strenuous activities like exercise, but what about lunch period?

"Come to think of it," I start, a part of me curious to know and another part of me fearing the answer, "why do we separate for lunch period, anyway?"

Brittney's eyes narrow as she looks away, her lips pouting.

"It's all that Steven's fault!" she says.

I blink. "Steven? Who's Steven?"

"Soaring Steven, back in the twenties. Lunch period was shared here until he had his deskmate throw him across the cafeteria to see if one of their friends could catch him. Landed in a girl's soup and even broke some bones in the process," Brittney says.

I shudder at the realization that humans are light enough to pertheans to be thrown across a room by them. Not only that, but we're small enough to swim in their soup, too! I'm relieved that I don't have to suffer through a shared lunch period with my deskmate, but I can't stop myself from shaking at the idea.

I turn from side to side only to realize that I'm surrounded by mountains of colossal foods stacked much taller than I am with no way of escape. I spin around to face a wall of green fabric that I trace up, up, and up to my deskmate's enormous face. He ravenously gorges himself on nearly half of the sandwich in his hand—tearing off a hunk bigger than me—and thoughtfully chews his meal, his eyes locked with mine. My legs tremble beneath me as I stumble backwards, my eyes darting anywhere but the sight in front of me. This isn't happening.

As I continue to inch away from the perthean in front of me one of my feet makes contact with a thick metal prong, causing me to let out a yelp as I fall flat on my back. Lightheaded and out of breath, I sit up and discover the object was one of the tines on a huge fork.

A massive digit rests under my chin and leads my gaze back to the tall perthean boy in front of me. He gulps down the rest of his sandwich while his big blue eyes scrutinize my fallen form.