“What are you doing Horatius, trying to read again?” Said Nean, shoving me into the wall as he walked past and sneering, “Go on, pick up your shovel, before I pick it up with your head.”

I regained my balance, staring upwards at the squiggles that had held my attention, focusing on what I knew to be letters. On what those at Empri would be learning, and I, as a six year old in Vertae, would not.

It was the second year of schooling, our first year spent learning about subjects such as roots, stems, leaves, and the other components of plants. We learned of the water reservoirs and how to use just the minimum amount of liquid in growth. And we learned of the sewer and compost troughs, which had to be included every few months or else the plants would not grow as well.

“Why do we have to switch out the dirt?” I remember asking after following Nean into class, as Skip, our adolescent instructor, showed us how to spread the compost, “Why don’t we just use the old dirt?”

“What do you mean why?” Skip had retorted, his expression accusing me of stupidity while Nean snorted behind him, “You just do.”

“I get that, but why?”

“It’s just what you do. You take the dirt, and you spread it. Plants grow, you pick them, you repeat. Why doesn’t matter. Stop wasting our time with these questions, there is food to grow, and work to do.”

And by the end of six years of age, Skip trusted us enough to start preparing our own patches of garden, practicing with the easiest of seeds, the ones that could suffer the most abuse yet still have some yield. By now he had grown accustomed to my questions, positioning me at the far end of the practice field near the wall, far away from the rest of the class where I could not interrupt him as he inspected their gardens.

“No, no, no, you’re doing it wrong again, Heratius,” Skip had said, watching me as I planted seeds in a neat line, “Use the blade of your shovel to open up the dirt, not the handle.”

“Seems faster to use the handle to poke a hole, see?” I said, showing him how I could indent the earth and place a seed inside, without actually scooping earth out.

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“It’s wrong, just do things the right way. If you don’t improve soon, I’m going to have to reduce your marks. Just do it right.”

“But it’s faster!” I complained, trying to show him again, though he had already moved on to the next student.

With time, I discovered that so long as Skip’s back was turned, it didn’t matterhow I planted the seeds. Mine grew just as well as anyone else’s, and I could plant that at about twice the pace, especially without him distracting me at the edge of the field. And more importantly, as my practice field moved farther away from the others, I discovered something that never would have occurred had I remained with the rest of the class.

That if I gardened quietly, and stuck towards the edge of my field, I could hear voices. Voices that carried over to me from the other side of the wall, and though muffled, were intelligible.

“Now Segni,” Said the voice, “We’re going to go over this again. In order to become chief one day, you’ll have to read. And to read, you’ll need to know your alphabet. Can you recite it for me?”

“Why do I have to read to be chief? I can just talk.” Replied the young boy’s voice.

“No, you must read. Let’s go over it again. Here, listen, this is how you recite the alphabet. Start with A.”

Each day I listened in, paying close attention to Segni’s lessons, reciting the letters in my head. Learning the difference between vowels and consonants, and how to spell without knowing how the letters actually looked. Even with the wall between, I absorbed the lessons, eagerly accepting what Segni resisted as I planted my seeds.

Within the next month, another instructed called Angie taught us at night when Skip’s morning classes ended, taking us to another learning patch and showing us how to plant slightly more difficult seeds. Skip had already warned her of my slowness to learn, so Angie had followed his example and placed me on the outskirts of the group, this time near the window that peered out into the starry expanse outside the ship.

And as I planted, the rules that Angie reiterated to the rest of the group time and time again had already rooted and improved upon in my brain, and I found myself practicing the lessons from the mornings in my thoughts. Finishing quicker than the others in planting, there were times my gaze flickered out through the window and to the other half of the ship, where figures moved in the distance.

But each time I let my stare wonder, I always came to rest on a window to my left, near the end of the other half. Where a face constantly filled the glass, a face of a girl around my age, with red hair and her palms on the glass.

A face whose eyes met mine, and who stared at me every day that I worked.