Freak

It was shortly after my fourth Naming Day.  I was playing by the river under the cliffs, with my best friend, Yunice.

She looked up from the rollybeetle we had been watching and said, "Why are you so strange, Quin?"

I sat cross-legged, opposite my friend whose bright red skirts looked even brighter splayed out across the wet dirt behind her.  We had built a small, circular wall out of the mud between us and placed the beetle inside of it, watching it climb partway up, lose its footing, and slide back down, rolling into a ball before coming to rest in the center of the circle.  The river was quiet here, but not far downstream the right bank squeezed in toward the left, forcing the water to flow more rapidly and loudly.

"I'm not strange," I replied, defensively, still staring down at the beetle, which was uncurling itself and preparing to make another escape attempt.

Sometimes Yunice got like this.  She didn't hear the whispering like I did.  The susurrus floating on the wind, as if carried a great distance, speaking a hundred different languages; sometimes so  quiet as to be nearly inaudible, other times so loud I felt I should plug my ears.  Only plugging my ears didn't help.  Nor did the shaman of the desert people's attempts to drown them out with wax or by plunging my head under water until I thought I myself would drown.

"Yes, you are!  You're downright queer." Yunice said in her matter-of-fact way, brushing a red-gold strand of stray hairs from her face, "maybe it has to do with what's in your pants.  Aunwyn says I'm strange because of what's in my pants."  Aunwyn was Yunice's older brother.  He was quite a bit older than us and often played cruel tricks on the two of us.

I felt anger flush into my cheeks and I had to remind myself that my parents had practically begged me to be friends with her.  "Yunice is a nice girl and she's only a year older than you.  She doesn't have any friends at school yet.  It's time for you to make a friend, Quinlan."

I took a deep breath, trying to keep the frustration out of my voice.  "There's nothing queer in my pants," I said, finally looking up from the rollybeetle as it struggled once again to reach the top of the barrier we had made.  I could see on Yunice's face that she didn't believe me as she sat across from me, expectantly.

My parents had warned me not to ever show anyone what was under my skirts.  Mother had said, "It's not ladylike."  Still, mother would never have to know.  It would be okay, I thought.  I had once overheard my parents arguing, late at night.  Father had said it's what's between your legs which determines whether you are boy or girl.  And Yunice is a girl, too, so what's between her legs must be what's between mine.

Nothing to fear, I heard the water in the distance whisper.

Okay, I silently replied.  I closed my eyes and lifted my skirts, then realised that with my eyes closed I couldn't see Yunice's reaction.  After a few long seconds of silence, I peeked out, opening my left eye slowly, afraid that perhaps my friend was right, maybe there was something queer under there.

"It's like my brother's but it's also like mine..." Yunice trailed off, a look of shock on her face.

"What do you mean?" I said, confused by her reaction.  Had I misunderstood what father had said during the argument?  Or, worse yet, was I not a girl after all?

"You've got both!" Yunice screeched, the pitch of her voice raising to the almost unnaturally high note that only the very young dare to hit.  "You're... you're a freak!"  She shouted, her face turning suddenly red, her expression changing from shock to anger.

I dropped the hems of my skirts as I felt the tears building behind my eyes.  Yunice looked like she was about to hit me, then.  Instead, she kicked the damp soil in front of her, spraying mud all over my dress and face.  Then she turned and ran, away from the river and back toward the village.  I stood there, crying silently, watching as my first and last childhood friend ran away from me like I was a monster.

I remained there, unmoving, for what seemed like hours.  "Freak!" Yunice's cracking voice echoed in my mind.

And each time the wind replied, calmly and without feeling, Freak...

Eventually, I looked down at my dress, at the mud splattered there.  The bits of mud looked like they had dripped up instead of down.  It made me feel like I was somehow hanging upside down in the rain.  It made me dizzy.  I looked at the ground to keep my balance.

The tiny rollybeetle lay smashed by Yunice's foot in our ruined ring of mud.

Freak, repeated the wind.

Freak, agreed the gurgling river.