The Unskillful Thaumaturge

I

"You're late, Red."

The aforementioned criticism had proceeded from the mouth of one Amandi Liu, a tall, demanding girl with her mouth half open in what could have been a sneer if she had practiced more diligently. Lillian stopped dumbly in the doorway and tried not to laugh or yell or cry at Amandi's consistent torments, or at the confused expressions of her new classmates, or at her utter nervousness at the entire prospect of taking this class. Only the first class of spring semester, and already Amandi was introducing her to her classmates as someone who would end up late regardless, someone who should not have been admitted to the school, someone who did not deserve to be in the classroom (which considering the subject material, Lillian judged to be true anyway), someone who instead deserved to be called "Red" and sneered at in front of twenty baffled college students. Amandi, at any rate, may have been an appropriate selection for this lab based on skill in subject matter, but definitely not based on her acceptance, kindness, or skill in replicating sneers.

Lillian swept a mental hand through whatever cobweb of ideas was forming in her mind. The stray strands stuck to her hand and she had to think about something else in order to get them off. Thinking about thinking about something else qualified as thinking about something else, didn't it? Wasn't that called metathinking? Whatever it was, now she was thinking about that. And about thinking about that. She freed her hand and prepared to sweep through a much denser cobweb.

Lillian looked down at her feet and realized that, lost in whatever thoughts or metathoughts Amandi's comment had prompted, she had just been subjected to five seconds of silence from the entire class, and Amandi to boot. She thought about taking a step forward, and then did so. That helped clear the cobwebs, but it also made her feel a little sillier than necessary. A song stuck in her head; given the situation, most children with a standard upbringing could guess which one. Not that Lillian had had a standard upbringing; she knew the song mainly from visits to the waiting room of the pediatric clinic. How many cobwebs was she going to have to sweep through?

For the first time since Amandi's comment, she glanced up. All of the students were giving her strange looks. One girl, several years older than herself and bound to be one of those who considers a two-year age difference deserving of an unintentionally condescending tone and a lesson in motherese, beckoned Lillian over with a wide smile plastered on her face in garish lipstick that meant sit here and I can help guide you through your life. Lillian was exceptional at distinguishing expressions, which, given that there were, according to Daria, an endless reservoir of facial expressions (many of which were nonsense expressions anyway), she had a right to be proud of. She attempted to convey a brief no, I don't want to ruin your grades and proceeded toward a table in the back, where she placed her backpack gently on a chair next to her and took out her pre-lab questions packet, handing it to the student in front of her, who passed it back to Amandi.

"Thank you, Red," Amandi continued. "For your information, I was just discussing the basics of what we'll be covering today. Very simple, just a book." She looked at the stack of prelabs and levitated it into the air a few inches, scooting it back and forth a couple times. "Then discuss the theory of it." She stonily stared at Lillian as the prelabs dropped onto the desk. "Please note that this is a team activity." Her tone was sappy with condescension. "That means that people should be working together, not alone."

Amandi blinked at the pile of lab instructions and it lifted into the air, floating down the aisle and passing out the papers. Now you're just showing off, Lillian thought as she zipped up her backpack and lifted it back onto her shoulder, grabbing one of the lab papers before it crashed full speed into her neck. Amandi certainly was making an effort. Lillian watched, amused, as the last lab paper hovered in the aisle. The staple slowly worked its way out of the papers as three sheets folded into elaborate flowers and the fourth into a fancy vase. The staple flew back towards the flowers and twined around their stems, binding them together as they dropped into the vase, which swooped toward a desk in the second row, landing in front of a mildly annoyed young man.