Wizard of Jatte by Rowan Erlking (librera reader txt) 📕

Someone poked him in the back again. This time it was meant to get his attention, with one sharp jab in the middle of his back.

“Thief. You smell like toe jam.”

Not bothering to look back, Theissen whispered, knowing who was poking him from his voice. “Do not. Lonse, you smell like rat droppings.”

Lonse poked him in the back again, harder this time. “You wet the bed.”

“You’re smelling yourself,” Theissen said back, writing on his paper a little harder.

He felt a sharp poke on the back of his neck.

“OW!” Theissen jumped up. Then he whipped around.

Several of the boys leaned back from him, gasping.

“What are you doing?” Yuld snapped.

Normally Theissen was not one to bring an adult into a private spat. However, he pointed straight at Lonse who was sitting right behind him. “He poked me!”

“He did more than that,” Milrina murmured.

“What?” Theissen twisted around as if trying to see the back of his neck.

“Look, look, look! Your shirt.” She pointed now.

Tugging at the back of his shirt to see what was wrong with it, Theissen could hear the girls start to giggle again. Some of the boys laughed but most retreated further from him. Lonse was grinning, his chin lifted.

Unable to see what was wrong, Theissen reached out and stretched the shirt fabric out of shape so that the front suddenly was in back, and he was wearing the back on his front. Staring down, he saw what his cousin had seen.

Writing.

He could read them even upside down.

Thief.

“Seems fitting,” Yuld said. “Sit back down and continue with your lesson.”

Theissen didn’t. Instead he reached over to the ink words soaked in his muslin top. Pulling on them like he had the water from his brother’s clothes, Theissen felt it puddle in his palm. Turning with a look at Lonse, he tossed the ink back at him. Lonse jumped backward with a shriek, trying to cover his face. However, when he felt nothing, no pain or anything anyway, he lowered his hands. Theissen reversed his shirt back to normal as his classmates broke into louder laughter, pointing straight at Lonse’s face.

“I said sit,” Yuld ordered, thinking the laughter still had to do with the words on Theissen’s shirt. However, when the carpenter’s son sat down Yuld saw the cause of the commotion. Jumping up, he shouted, “Carpenterson! What have you done to him?”

Theissen gave a shrug, putting on an innocent face. “I was returning his ink.”

It wasn’t a lie so Yuld could not punish him for that. However, the teacher rose once more and pointed to the far wall. “You! Go there now!”

Rising with a sigh, Theissen cast Lonse a small glance before doing as ordered.

“And you! Go wash your face!” Yuld pointed at Lonse.

Lonse rose, his eyes now wide, realizing that Theissen had not missed him at all. He dashed out of his seat to find the washroom.

“And walk!”

Assuming the position of a rule breaker, a position Theissen knew well in Yuld’s class, he knelt with his head against the wall and his arms folded above him. He remained there for the rest of the lesson.

“That was some stunt you pulled!” Lonse pushed Theissen down as soon as he had stepped out of the public building.

Milrina chased after her cousin, helping him up and dusting off his knees. Both she and Theissen glared up at the shoemaker’s son. However, Milrina burst into a laugh, throwing out her chin.

“Ha! It’s still there, ugly.”

Lonse’s face turned dark red. He clenched his fists, raising one. However, Yuld walked out of the doorway soon after the rest of the children, the clicking of his shoes heralding his coming so Lonse lowered his fist. Instead he got in close to Theissen and hissed through his teeth, “I’ll get you, thief. And you too, girly.”

“Ugly.” Milrina said again. “Ugly, ugly.”

The shoemaker’s son nearly jumped at her. Theissen reached out and held her back, blocking Lonse’s way.

“Ugly,” a older boy said to Lonse, walking by. He cackled as he went down the road with the others. They chanted the word that was still written somewhat on Lonse’s forehead, though now just red from the impact against his skin. The ink writing had been in clear neat penmanship, the kind Theissen wished he had.

“Ugly.”

“Shut up! It won’t come all off!” Lonse spun around and shouted at them.

Tolbetan parted from another classmate with a snort, waving Theissen over to join him homeward.

Dusting the dirt off his backside, Theissen reached out to his cousin to join them. Milrina took it gleefully, practically skipping to his side. They held hands as they walked home.

“Come here,” Yuld said, beckoning the shoemaker’s son over.

Lonse turned with a glare, his tears budding from the corners of his eyes. He did obey, though he looked less happy at joining his teacher than he did at being called ugly.

“I have something that will take it off,” Yuld said, reaching out to his forehead.

With a nod, Lonse followed him inside.

“Your son humiliated my son! And during school, no less!” The shoemaker’s wife’s face was near purple as she shouted at the carpenter’s wife.

Theissen’s mother looked somewhat ruffled, knowing her son was in the carpentry shop working on another stool. She didn’t want to disturb him when he was learning his trade, especially when he was doing so well. He was getting rather skilled at making stools, though his confidence in his work reflected his ambition for perfection in the art. His father said he would make a great carpenter one day if that really was what he was meant to do. With all the magic Theissen performed at whim, they started to wonder if he should not be trained in wizardry. Unfortunately the only person qualified to teach him in magic was the magician. Carpentry seemed the preferred substitute to learning a trade under someone who wanted Theissen dead. Unfortunately this still meant they had to field complaints about their son’s uncontrolled magical actions.

“He came home crying that your boy wrote nasty words on his face with his magic,” Shoemakerswife said.

“I will talk to him.”

“Don’t bother, Mom,” Alania came in from outside carrying a produce basket, passing the shoemaker’s wife with a disapproving look on her face. “Tolbetan told me that Lonse wrote  ‘Thief’ on Theissen’s shirt during class. Theissen was only giving the ink back.”

The carpenter’s wife stared at her eldest child.

“It’s a lie!” Shoemakerswife snapped.

Alania glared at her. “It isn’t. Milrina Weaversdaughter also told me about it when I stopped by.”

That silenced the woman for a minute. Then she said, “Well, your boy deserved it. He is a thief.”

The carpenter’s wife gently pushed Alania into the house, suddenly standing in the doorway like a tower of anger. “Get out! I will not have you in my house calling my son such names! Now out!”

Stumbling back, their neighbor practically tripped over herself to get away. She looked like she was about to utter a curse at the carpenter’s wife, but she muttered them instead as she crossed the yard. Only when she was out beyond the fence did she dare say anything, and it was in a screech of a shout. “If that’s the way you Carpenters behave, then we are no longer friends!”

She stomped off down the lane, the dust stirring around her skirts as she went.

Carpenterswife turned toward Alania and frowned as she closed the lower half of the door. “Did you come home to stir up trouble?”

Her eldest child made a face then turned in towards the kitchen with her things, setting down the basket she had been carrying. “No, but I’m glad I did. I don’t like the Shoemakers. Migdrin was always mean to Kinnerlin and the rest, and Lonse is a little monster. Milrina says he throws rocks into Auntie Weaverswife’s chicken yard to scare them. They won’t lay eggs now. He’s been teasing her too whenever Theissen is not around.”

“Whenever Theissen is not around,” her mother murmured aloud, her thoughts turning over in her head. “Yes. I’ve noticed Milrina comes over to be with him a lot. Do you think it is because he can protect her, or does Milrina like him?”

Alania rolled her eyes at the ceiling. “Oh, Mom…. Not that again. Theissen is only eight. It isn’t like things won’t change when he is older. Give it a rest.”

Her mother frowned at her. “Alania, I am a mother. I cannot let this one thing rest. And since you have failed to find a suitor, I have to send you off to find one, and that gets costly. I am also looking out for Milrina. It would be better that she had a match arranged. Theissen would be perfect for her.”

The carpenter’s wife tromped irritably back to the bread dough she had set to rise before the shoemaker’s wife had come over, then started to punch it down, perhaps taking her frustrations out on it. Her eldest kept her mouth shut. It was better to avoid the topic altogether if she wanted any peace. However, even she could see the two plotting mothers plan out their children’s lives, feeling sorry for her special little brother. Though her bond with Theissen was not like Dalance’s was with him, she felt she had to watch out for him in her own way. Befriending Milrina helped.

Milrina was Theissen’s one good friend, the one friend that did not look at his scarred palms and call him a thief behind his back. Despite their odd quirks, their cousins had become their best allies in the village since the golden ball incident. The public betrayal of all the village boys stung Theissen more each day, though he pretended that their distance did not hurt him. In a way, she knew Theissen had always been lonely, set apart by his magic.

She finished up her kitchen tasks, silently watching her mother take up the bread dough and knead it into shape. Dinner would be served in a few hours and there were still a million things to do around the house. Half of them consisted of keeping her little sister Doreen busy with her lessons. The other half was busy with packing for her long trip to Pepersin Town. Her aunt from there had found a family with a suitable bachelor seeking a wife. It would begin a series of embarrassing matches if she didn’t find a suitable husband soon. Already eighteen, almost nineteen, her mother was starting to believe that her daughter would never get married. Alania just didn’t see the point to marrying simply because she had reached a certain age. Thinking of this, the idea of her mother setting up her brother for marriage drew up several issues. She knew it was a sign that they were worried about his future as much as they were worried about hers.

Alania brought out the feed for the chickens, watching the hens hurry out into the yard. The roosters strutted over, making their way as kings among the cluster of fat hens. She noticed Doreen sitting on the bench outside the house weaving daisies together. Doreen often skipped out on housework when she could, though there were times Alania saw her peeking into the carpentry shop as if jealous of the boys learning their trade. It bothered Alania some, but she also had her moments when she wished she didn’t have to marry to have money to pay for things like cloth and pearls. But her mother often said jealously was ugly, and a lazy woman was even uglier. Then she usually added, ‘And for goodness sake get back to cleaning. Someone has got to do it.’

She had only wished that someone didn’t have to be her.

“He’s in there,” Doreen said, motioning to the carpenter shop.

“Who?” Alania asked, setting down her basket of feed.

“Theissen,” Doreen said. She