Chapter Six (aka that of terrible references o.0)

“Catch”
Thala’s reflexes were the only thing that saved her from a rather nasty bruise as a piece of (what the humans denoted as) brain coral flew into her work area. What? Who would be chucking messages at her? Uncle Sistern had taught them all how to read and “write” on the corals, getting the little polyps to arrange themselves so they spelled out letters that were actually quite legible, if you know what you were looking for.
The message was part of the script someone had been practicing with for practice, copying out a passage from one of the scrolls the council had saved from the library of Alexandria’s fire, so long ago. This did not make a whole lot of sense until she turned it over and saw the script of someone she knew.
Thala blushed. She knew it hadn’t been a good idea to go out with Ahab that night. Knew it knew it knew it. And yet, her brain kept working over the event, analyzing each of her responses, his responses, wondering if there was something wrong with her that she couldn’t stop thinking about this boy that she didn’t even like! Much.
It was his handwriting – she had seen it while Sistern had asked her to help him look over the student’s assignments, she had thought it was interesting that he wasn’t in a higher class, as he was doing much better than everyone else – but he hadn’t been interested, Sistern had said. Hm. Maybe he had gotten interested, at some point?
Interested in me? That little uncontrollable part of her brain queried, before she shut it down for at least the bazillionth time that day. What did it matter if he was? Evidently he was only interested in one thing, and that one thing was not going to happen (the treacherous part of her brain added: well, not unless he gets to know me a little bit first). She didn’t know why the idea of playing around with him bothered her; partly his manly, tougher-than-thou air, partly his arrogance, perhaps his overwhelming pride.
No. Nonononononono. She refused to think of him in terms of that beautiful book. (Sistern had a wonderful library, and someone had to live in Roosevelt house every so often, or the locals got really confused. Swimming to one of the neighboring islands and then flying over was always interesting, though.
But still. Ahab was not Mr. Darcy. Overpresumption and pride did not a romantic hero make. She was not meant to be Lizzy Bennett. True love was not going to spring on her via someone she didn’t like (much). The treacherous little bit of her brain piped up again – but you know, Lizzy and Darcy exchanged letters. And what are you holding there? “Shut up!” Thala cried, confusing the two girls who had come down to help her out – and to see what sort of juicy gossip they could get about her and Ahab.
“Are we going to be in your way?”
“No, that’s fine, I was done for the day anyway.” Their rather amused glances flew right over Thala’s head as she put the chunk of coral into one of her pockets and looked at the mess she had made. There was fabric everywhere, four different projects sketched, nothing laid out, no patterns created – in short, nothing that anyone could help her with.
She threw things back into their separate corners, made sure that the photosynthetic algae had enough light, and dove into the water. Coming out near one of the “restricted” entrances, she warily checked for scuba divers – snorklers – and sharks, before hiding in a miniature forest of faux fire coral. In general, the real thing made any skin it touched ache for days, but Sistern had messed around with this batch, and it didn’t cause any types of side effects. He wasn’t sure if the elders would approve, but let Thala use it as a secret spot whenever she wanted to do so.
Without further ado, she dove into the “fire coral” and read her note:
If you’d like to see me and my hunters -
My hunters and I! Thala thought fiercely.
If you’d like to see me and my hunters behaving ourselves, we’re going after a rather nasty shark this afternoon. Leaving from the boathouse at about midday. You’re welcome to join the party.
She was welcome to join the party, was she? Well, what if she didn’t want to join his party! He was – ach, no! – he had completely disregarded Sistern’s warning! Why was this stupid boy trying to wreck all their lives?

Having calculated for her anger bringing her to tell him off, Ahab waited for Thala at the dock. It was intriguing, having someone who so obviously was interested in him trying to deny it to herself. Of course she was interested in him – who wasn’t? But -
“Catch!” A missile flew out of the sunlight into the boathouse, catching Ahab on his (human) shin. “Ow! And a catch would be by my hand, you dimwit!”
“A dimwit, am I? And who was classes behind in letters?”
Thala took the choice to end on the last word, and skedaddled. It was the first time she had ever been able to do so. Was it the right thing to do? Probably not. She probably should have delivered her response in person… (yes, and then he might have kissed you again, to get you to shut up – that bit of her brain was really starting to annoy her – were lobotomies dangerous? And how easy was it to track down the annoying part of a brain?) Probably pretty difficult… but it might be the only option.

Ahab looked at her missile and smiled. She had rearranged his grammar on the first half – a grammar nazi? Or just a typical schoolmarm? – and changed the message that had been some kid’s assignment.
You idiot. Sistern asked me to tell you, and so I did. Last night seemed the only way to talk to you without some sort of posse listening in. there was no ulterior motive. Stop assuming everyone loves you. Do you know the Shakespeare? Probably not. Go look it up. Do you really want to have the council breathing down our necks because of you? If you answer yes to that, I would like you to remember that I work with needles. Sharp needles. Otherwise, you may ignore it. Yours, Panthalassa.
He found this sincerely amusing. This one had spark. She would make an entertaining addition to his collection of pretty young things. And despite all that animosity… she had signed it “yours”. True, it was a typical ending, but still. It would make turning her hate into love so much easier – though both being passion, of a sort, it was pretty easy to metamorph.
Ahab whistled while he wandered up to the Roosevelt house, knowing his posse would still be waiting for him there, awaiting his every command. Whatever that nonsense about Shakespeare was, the guy was dead. Thus he had nothing left of importance to say.

&

“Why could he possibly have chosen to go off with someone like her?”
“I honestly have no idea. Shh. Here she comes.”
Rheic and Khanty were not the most subtle of gossipers. In fact, they possibly would have made the world’s top ten, except for unprecedented exuberance. Khanty kept Rheic in the know about the younger groups’ affairs; every so often Rheic would deem to slip some interesting piece of gossip for Khanty to munch on.
“Thal, honey – any idea why Ahab chose you last night?” Wow. Could Rheic be subtle or what. But the upside to her unfeeling, completely self-centered view was that it was relatively easy to maneuver around: “No, I really have no idea”
“Hm. I wonder why he would have chose you. You’re kind of – not his usual type.”
Khanty was more blunt: “Usually, he likes a girl with a bit of meat on her bones. Not fat, certainly, but – face it, Thal, you’re skin and bones.” Thala knew her “lack of a chest” would come into this conversation sooner or later. Merely because Khanty was well-endowed, she thought that anyone who was skinnier or less well endowed than she was automatically trying to compete (while anyone more well-endowed – not that that seemed likely – or heavier than Khanty automatically was classified as fat). The warped sort of compliment would have made Thala smile, if she wasn’t hoping to get away as soon as possible.
Thala attempted to disappear into the wall behind her and sneak back towards the boathouse, but the gossips, for all their interest in the subject at hand, weren’t about to let the object of it sneak away.
“So Thala, honey, tell us all the juicy details. Don’t leave anything out.” Rheic wrapped an arm around Thala’s arms, attempting to buddy up to a friend she had never made – and Thala felt her entire body flush. Irritating how that always seemed to happen whenever she desperately needed to remain calm and look like she was in control. Her blush made the gossips even more interested. “ooh, this is going to be good, isn’t it!”
Thala broke free of Rheic restraint, and sprinted towards the boathouse. Khanty called after her “you realize that now you’re giving us free license to think whatever we’d like to! And if you’re not going to say anything…” and then Thala was, thankfully, out of earshot.

Throwing on a batiked island top and a pair of the boys’ shorts she had made (the short shorts nowadays were so uncomfortable, and tended to do bad things when bike riding), Thala biked down the hill to the majority of the island, and over to the hospital. She figured that Sistern and Pet wouldn’t mind if she came as their daughter (though… had Sistern said they were married? Perhaps it didn’t matter anymore) to try to get some information out of the doctors. Pet and Sistern had probably already started to pester their doctors to let them go – it had been a couple of days, after all – and so she might even get to take them home with her. The water would do them good.
“And who are you, my dear?” The elderly nurse looked over the top of her glasses, and Thala was so tempted to tell her that Sistern could cure those, if they gave him back to her in one piece.
“I’m the daughter of the” think, Thala, think “the Smith’s. They were brought in day before yesterday?” Oh, drat. A feasible excuse for not being here earlier. “My boyfriend took me out on the water, and I didn’t have my phone with me, I didn’t want us to get… distracted.”
The nurse gave her a look that signaled “too much information”. But it was mostly true, Thala thought to herself. Except that… Ahab was in no way her boyfriend. And phones tended to fry underwater. And… she would take any distraction from Ahab that she could. (Would you really? Her brain whispered)
Thala seriously considered banging her head on the wall to get the stupid little voice to leave her alone for once! But the nurse had said something – “if you’d just head down the hall here, and turn left, your father’s in the first room and your – stepmother? She certainly doesn’t look old enough to be your mother – is in the room two down from that, on the other side of the hall.”
Thala thanked the nurse, and followed her directions. She stopped outside Sistern’s room, and heard the low-voiced conversations of two doctors. One big and balding, the other short, with brown hair, and a decent amount of it still.
“… something I’ve never seen before”
“A total anomaly”
“and you say it’s in both of their blood?”
“is there something we can give them for it?”
“seems like it’s chronic. For it to have gotten this bad, they’ve been coping with it for most of their lives. And did you see the reports on their telomeres?”
“obviously the lab messed up. There is no way that that man is over a hundred years old. He looks better than I do now! Despite the inability to sleep, he’s in better shape than I’ve been in for three or four decades” The solid doctor tried to laugh, but couldn’t, quite.
“can we recommend further observation?”
“We can try to keep them here, but she’s fine, and he’s just running a fever now.”
“a fever we wouldn’t know was a fever if his body temperature hadn’t been 87 Fahrenheit when we brought him in”
“absurd, isn’t it? And the rate of her healing.”
The other nodded. “Astounding.”
Drat. The big one was coming out, and would see her standing here, eveasdropping. She took on the bored spoiled rich-kid persona Sistern had drilled into her head years ago. Yawning and limpidly knocking on the door, the big doctor opened it for her, letting her in.
“What did Dad manage to do now? I mean, like, he was like fine when I left with” quick – normal human name – “John. What, like, happened?”
The doctors relaxed. If this valley girl had heard any of their conversation, it had gone right over her head. “He managed to get himself dehydrated. Do you know what dehydrated means, little missy?”
Obviously Sistern’s dogma worked the way it was supposed to. How completely idiotic did she sound? Resisting the urge to ask if he had developed hypovelemic shock, or any change of blood pressure, she shook her head. “No, like, we learned in school that it’s got something to do with water. Did he drink too much?”
“Does your father often drink?”
“No. I’ve only see him do it, like, once. But it would have been, like, totally awesome, if he and mom got like totally smashed while I was, like, gone.” The skinny doctor finally moved out of the way, and Thala could see Sistern – his color wasn’t too good, but it was a lot better than it had been the last time she saw him. “Like, I’m not going to like get whatever he’s got if I touch him, right?”
The doctors glanced at each other. They had no idea if whatever this man had was contagious. They were more than willing to catch it themselves, though, if it played around with telomeres the way it seemed to. Reversing age was something no one would resist. “Probably not, honey.”
Thala gritted her teeth in a smile. If one more person she didn’t know called her honey, she would use some of the doctor’s guts for garters. Despite the fact that she didn’t wear garters, and that guts would make some pretty nasty ones. Walking over to Sistern, she wished that she could take his pain, his fever, upon herself. She smoothed his long, hippy-style hair off of his face “Can he, like, hear me?” She saw the twitch of Sistern’s face that precluded a smile, and this reassured her that he could still hear.
She sat on the edge of his bed, twirling her hair and whispering stupid little phrases, and wishing she had some gum to crack, just to hurry the doctors off on their way faster, away from this stupid valley girl – hopefully, as much as her father’s disease was catching, hers would not be. If stupidity was catching, in a hospital – the horror! The horror!
“Sistern?”
He rolled over and looked at her, face flushed from embarrassment, and possibly – “You young idiot, what did you do?”
“What?”
And she didn’t even know she could. Fah.
“I’m going to have to apprentice you now, you know.”
“what? Why?”
“that was some sort of brush-fire fever, the were attempting to keep my temp up. And you just – stole it! And seemed to ameleorize it at the same time. That shouldn’t work – it should get more difficult to control once it’s your own.”
“Does that mean we should go see Pet?”
“Lead the way, o wise one”

Pet was also much improved, could move mostly without difficulty, but also had that fever. Less bad than Sistern’s had been, and much easier to steal. Pet raised her eyebrows as she saw Thala’s color mount, but didn’t comment when she noticed how much easier she could move.
“Honey, you’re amazing.” This was someone, finally, who was allowed to call Thala honey. Though not her actual birth mother (Thala wasn’t sure who was), Pet had helped to raise her, always checking in to see what she could do, never being offensive about it – she was nice to the other children whose parents couldn’t be bothered to look after them as well – but anything she could do for Pet, she would.

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