Can you see what's going on in your classroom? (leggings)

Alberta Augusta Gore, a plain bespectacled child, of about nine, sat in a classroom with another
twenty two children in a primary school in Scarborough.  It was nineteen sixty-three.  She had her face in a book.  She was a studier.  Brilliantly.  

The family she lived with had only just moved into the area, she'd been to the school before, some years earlier, when the forces had shifted them sideways.  It was the same, she didn't fit in.
She didn't quite speak the same language, her accent denoted her as odd.  Books were easier, they transcended all of it, spoke to her in soft easy to read words, which remained the same, no  matter what.  

Miss Malhont, the teacher ushered in a very large girl, nearly six foot tall, long dark hair slid down her back, framing a large intelligent face, with bright shiny eyes.  "Sit there," she said pointing to an empty chair.  "This is Laulilette," she continued, "Who has come to join us."

There was a sharp pointed silence, deeper than a knife cut. 

"You're from the Whypsy camp?"  one of the boys challenged shifting his chair backwards. "Arn't you?"
Laulilette squirmed in her chair slightly lifting the desk about a foot high in the air.  She needed too, there wasn't enough room for the whole of her legs.  The rest of us watched, slightly surprised, as she lent over the top, and said, "Boo!"

Later as the girls challenged each other to stand upside down against the walls of the lavatories,
judged against time, and straightness, and general style.  She admitted calmly that she was a Whypsy.
"It's not easy to hide," she said straight as an arrow.  "And why should I?"
It was a good question.  The parents had been worried about them coming to school for ages.
It had happened.  The time of discrimination had passed  

"More of us are coming tomorrow." she said quietly, "So you'll just have to accept us.  You accept her, after all," and she pointed at Alberta.  "She's one of us, they stole her from us."
"Are you?" said one girl glaring at Alberta, "You're a Whypsy too?"
"No," said Alberta glaring back.  "I'm not.  It's just that they follow us everywhere.  Dad and I hate it.  Now we'll have to move again."

"She's looked after," sang out Laulilette from her upside position on the wall.  "She just don't know it.  The tribe want her back."
"I was never with you," Alberta sang back furiously, "I lived with my Grandfather before and he just worked with your tribe.  He paid you to look after me from time to time.  Not you personally..."

The walls were back up.  Lines had been drawn.  

Laulilette moved to sit one step away from behind Alberta.  She watched her with large sharp eyes.  English was Alberta's favorite subject.  It became Laulilette favorite subject.  Homework became competitive.  Alberta never again easily took top place.  Laulilette would produce work which was exactly the same as Alberta's homework. She couldn't write well.  
So she said smoothly to the teacher, "Please Miss, can I just tell you the story I thought of last night?"
Miss Malhont, delighted at the smooth entry and genuine need to excel from a Whypsy child, said,
"Yes, do Laulilette, tell us all the story."
Alberta watched her say out loud, Alberta's carefully written homework word for word, and she'd smile at Alberta when she did so.

At home, things were fraught, she knew without speaking to her carers, that they knew what was going on, and that the Whypsies were having a go at them too.  it brought all her troubles into perspective.  It was as if no one could do anything about anything they did, without being thought quite mad.

Alberta spent more time than usual putting her effort into her homework, writing each one out carefully, the teacher thought she was copying Laulilette, she had even called her a cheat.
Then one night when she'd spent another hour trying to draw the frost on the trees in the orchard, across the little stream in the garden and failing to get it right.  Tears dripped down her face.  It was agony.  This knowledge that this beauty was not within her reach.  

She put pen to paper again, and wrote another story.  She concealed it, and wrote another.  She began to write each night.  One story after another.  Not clever stories, just original ones.
In the classroom Laulilette sat up straight and smiled at her sweetly, "Can I please tell you the story I thought of last night, Miss Malhunt?  I even wrote some of it down."  She brandished the work in front of her and the desk moved upwards with her as she stood up.  

The rest of the class were enthusiastic.  They liked her stories.  Alberta found that quite flattering.  She'd never got to read one of hers.  Laulilette was given the go-ahead, and she read Alberta's careful homework piece out loud.  She was clapped.  Alberta smiled back twice as sweetly.
"Can I read mine now?" she said to Miss Malhunt.  There was a sudden cold silence.
"No," said Miss Malhunt, "Laulilette is much better than you, and so popular."
Alberta nearly bit her tongue.  "I'd still like too." she said.  
"Next time," said Miss Malhunt coldly, "Put your homework on my desk and I hope you haven't cheated again."

Alberta sat quite still, You're a Whypsy too? Aren't you? came to mind, and she knew if she said it, it would mean the Headmasters' office and the cane.  Five slaps across the hand.

She put her book on the teacher's desk, and she left.  She didn't look back.  The other children had gradually taken to Laulilette and her famous stories, and they were huddled around her.  Alberta felt forgotten, and she wished she could go home to the castle where the wolves hunted.
The next year, the two of them parted company.  Laulilette went into the top class, she was so obviously brighter than normal.  Alberta often wondered if any of the top class noticed.

.......................................................................................................................

At home the Mother said one day, "It's normal for them to do it!"
Alberta noted that she didn't say what it was that was normal for them to do.
The oldest daughter nodded, "Its from when they sold horses, isn't it?" she queried.
Her Mother laughed, "They use it in business deals, and they practice all the time."
"Alberta go away," she went on, noticing for the first time that Alberta was sitting quietly in the corner.  "This is not a conversation you need to listen too."

Alberta ran outside to the rabbit hutch.  She didn't shut the door.  O'Rafffity the rabbit was happy to see her and snuggled into her lap as she sat in the sunshine.  Just for a moment it didn't matter.  None of it.