VETTA MINDAL knew the new world she was entering would present challenges to her understanding. She accepted people would behave in ways beyond her comprehension, that her perceptions of motives and behaviour left many questions unanswered.

Being startled and seeking safety was a reaction fairly universal in the scheme of things but when the dust settled, the confusion of panic lifted, then the ability to reason again was hers.

Except for the simple fact that she had absolutely no idea what was happening. What she had witnessed simply made no sense. The only solution to this dilemma was to seek others who might have an explanation of sorts to reassure her she was still in the land of the living. Thus she retraced her steps with terror just beneath the surface amid shadowy corridors that might present additional alarms to plague her gentle soul.

When Vetta returned to where her companions were gathered closely together in a now brightly lit corner of the school she was just in time to hear an outraged Pirouette deny all knowledge of thievery.

"Miss Plazenby will be the judge of that in the morning," the mistress said sternly, her candle looking dim in the light.

"What's going on?" Vetta asked the chuckling Meresinth nervously.

"Our posh friend wished distinction and now has it, being accused of stealing something."

"Oh," Vetta said and despite her nervousness, stood forward into the ring of girls.

"Please miss, this appears to be wrong," she said and the woman turned to her questioningly. "The person who may have taken something was not one of the girls in the procession. Pirouette Wrongly-"

"Rangelly," the accused girl huffed.

"Wrong jelly," Vetta stuttered and halted as the other girls laughed.

"Silence!" the mistress ordered. "Pray continue. This pupil here?"

"Yes," and Vetta nodded. "She only looks like the thief on the outside as her costume was a similar shade to the real thief."

"A matter which I shall also bring up," and she looked at Pirouette meaningly, "in the morning. Please, continue. The real thief?"

Vetta described what she saw in simple terms, elaborating only on her fear, and panic flight when someone shouted.

"And miss, to find the real thief, all we need do is find a girl with blue hair," she added helpfully.

"The Blue Hair Clan," the mistress sighed. "I heard a rumour some of them might be in the area, a rumour no doubt started by themselves. They're not thieves usually, so I'm not sure what that girl was up to. Right then girls, alarm over. The matter can be investigated thoroughly in the morning. There's no danger, so we'll continue the procession. Pirouette Wrangly, here's a replacement robe. You don't want to be mistaken for a thief again, do you?"

"No miss," came a response through gritted teeth and with that the strange interruption to the solemn procession was forgotten although the final flourish when all robes were discarded and everyone cheered had a slightly distracted tone to it.

***

VETTA WAS FIRST up the next morning, in spite of all the excitement of the preceding night and having donned her thinnest coat, the autumn season of Frangea being so much more mild than her homeland, she wandered out and around the grounds of the school, following signs that led to the amble walks among the pine forest. They were clearly marked so she could not lose her way. Thus she enjoyed the refreshing air and marvelled at the great mounds of earth and sloping valleys she could see all around her. Birds chirped in melodies unfamiliar to her and little creatures scurried among the pine needles in slightly unnerving ways, but it was all so splendid she forgot her fears for the moment and drank it all in.

Then having had enough of high places, she walked leisurely down towards Cherryball Flats in search of a place to eat for the morning had flown by and lunchtime was upon her. When she got back she found the other girls discussing what to eat and where to go.

"I have found a pleasant food outlet," Vetta declared helpfully. "It is called the Squeaky Tomato."

"Sounds divine," Pirouette said, arranging a cuff of her blouse with the air of a dissatified fashion model obliged to wear tacky off the rack designs.

"Oh it is! They do a wonderful cheese and ketchup ensemble."

"Where is this Squeaky Tomato?" Meresinth asked supportively, knowing the girl was just trying to be helpful. To this question Vetta launched herself into an enthused description of her morning's amble walk and all the discoveries she made, right up to the cheese and ketchup ensemble. She might have gone on a while longer but a prefect poked her head round the door to call Pirouette away. Eveyone looked suitably concerned for they knew it was about what had happened.

"I hope they don't punish her," Vetta said kindly after she was gone.

Meresinth was going to make an acid rejoinder but there was such an earnest sense of concern on Vetta's face for the fate of the Perfectine that she thought better of it.

"When do we actually begin lessons?" the bespectacled girl asked, clearly eager to get stuck into the curriculum.

"As soon as they've printed enough books to feed our hungry brains," Dolly languidly said. "I vote we decamp to the Squeaky Tomato for a messy fun lunch and not be here when Miss Wrong Jelly returns all fuming and indignant at her treatment." This was generally agreed upon, with only one exception.

"I have already eaten," Vetta said with a smile.

"Your company would be welcome though," Meresinth encouraged.

"Thank you. Friendship is one of the five wellsprings of joy," Vetta felt obliged to say. "However it would be nicer for Pirouette to not be alone when she returns from her interview, so I shall wait here for her."

"Suit yourself," Dolly said, grabbing her bag and departing. Meresinth paused at the door and looked back.

"You are too kind for your own good, you know that?" she said with a smiling shake of the head.

"Kindness is a form of generosity, which is also one of the-" but she never finished the formula for the girl had left. Thus Vetta quietly composed herself to await the coming of Pirouette. She did not have to wait long for the girl stormed into the room fuming exactly as Dolly had predicted.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

"It's disgraceful," she declared, glaring around the room in search of sympathy and finding Vetta sitting quietly on her bed, hands in lap, smiling back at her in welcome. "Where is everyone?" she frowned.

"They have gone to the Squeaky Tomato for lunch," Vetta said. "You must be hungry. If you hurry, you may still catch them. It is an amazing walk down this long, deep valley with wonderful trees either side full of melodious birds."

"I'll skip it. I'm on a diet," the girl said and Vetta looked a little concerned. "Plus there are trams available, a bit better than walking all that way."

"It is important to eat well to stay healthy," Vetta admonished the restless girl gently. "Good health is one of the five wellsprings of joy."

"I don't care about wellsprings or any other kinds of springs frankly," Pirouette said. Then she made a face, standing in the middle of the room, hands on hips staring frowningly at the Poldorama girl for so long she became nervous. On impulse she stalked forward and thrust out a hand. Vetta looked up, surprised.

"Shake," the girl insisted. "You saved me last night from expulsion, and a beating from my father if it ever got to his ears. Grateful is what I am."

Briefly Vetta squeezed the proferred hand, horrified at the thought of the girl being beaten by her own father. She desperately wanted to suggest something to change the subject. An idea came to her.

"Perhaps you would like me to show you some of the walks I went along this morning, among the giant trees?" she asked hopefully.

"Giant trees," the girl scoffed and Vetta thought she was going to refuse. Yet she grabbed her hat and a surge of joy went through Vetta's frame at seeming to make friends with this difficult girl.

They wandered in silence in and out of the woods, keeping to the marked paths for a while until Pirouette strayed over a rise in search of the sounds of falling water. Vetta wanted to protest but her eye caught the glint of metal at the edge of the path among the pine needles. When she took a closer look she recognised it immediately. It was the figurine the blue-haired girl had stolen. What was it doing there? Before she could retrieve it though Pirouette shouted her name and reappeared over the rise. Vetta returned guiltily to the path and waited for the other. As they resumed their amble walk she felt sure she glimpsed someone with blue hair watching her from among the trees.

"Bored with all this ragged stuff," Pirouette said, drawing Vetta from her perplexed thoughts. "Let me show you nature tamed and contained in the way it should be."

"What way is that?" Vetta said and gulped.

"That way, to Orangey Park. By tram."

***

THIEVERY.

It was a burdensome word when the conscience decided to take it up and hold it before a guilty soul like a mirror reflecting shame.

Soopsie the maid had several sleepless nights thinking upon what she had done. She had a need, she kept telling herself, to quiet the restlessness. It was a worthy need. A need for money.

Ever since she had heard about her father's accident that need had crystallised into desperation. Had not the man suffered enough?

Yet it was all in vain. He had lain like a broken thing on the verge of death and she was powerless to save him. Not all the money in Frangea could have helped. Now it did not matter. She had money but she no longer had that desperate need which assuaged her conscience. Once the grieving had subsided a little the demon of guilt could flourish unhindered in her troubled soul, shaping itself into the likeness of a thief.

Her actions had not been that of a selfish being she told the mirror of guilt repeatedly. She did not do it for herself. She had done it for another. To save a life. A life that could not be saved.

"Why are you feeding that stupid dog your snack?" a young voice cut sharply through the maid's dark thoughts as she sat upon a bench in Orangey Park.

"He seemed to enjoy the bit I dropped accidentally," another voice said, a calm voice, pleased with itself or so it seemed to Soopsie. She looked around and caught sight of a couple of the Elites sauntering in idle comfort on a sunny afternoon in a public park.

Two young girls, dressed in recognisable colours. Two privileged pupils from that exclusive seminary high up in the fresh air upon the slopes of Mount Syzywyg. From where Soopsie sat the mountain was visible as a huge blue foggy thing towering above the settlements of the Flats and the Heights that clustered at its shadowed feet.

One of the Elites, a small blonde thing, was squat before a mangy mongrel that had never seen the inside of a poodle parlour in all its unsavoury existence. She was feeding it bits of a sandwich. The other girl, tall, with long dark hair, stood in a kind of suppressed outrage, hands on hips, glowering at all around, embarrassed by association with the dog feeder, yet reluctant to abandon her companion. A curious friendship which made Soopsie get to her feet and wander a little closer. This comical pair might help take her mind off the gloom that was enshrouding her and blotting out both light and warmth all at the same time.

"That thing will trail you right to the gates of the school," the tall girl warned. "Then the gardener will have to shoot it. That's what it'll get from your act of foolhardiness."

"Generosity," the smaller girl replied, untouched by this harsh appraisal of her actions, "is one of the five wellsprings of joy." Her hands were now empty and she showed them to the dog, which licked its lips and whined. It looked at the other girl, who still had some food left.

"Oh no, I'm no friend of yours, you ravening beast," she said and turned her back on the mongrel.

"Friendship is one of the five wellsprings of joy," the blonde girl said oddly and Soopsie laughed. She was by this time so close to the girls as she walked past they turned at the sound of her laugh. The dog looked also, and it was as if there was something about the maid which made it droop a wiry tail, back off a little, and then race away to seek other generous folk elsewhere in the park, far away from its previous happy location.

"Oh," the smaller girl said, watching the dog race off, and then looking with big blue eyes at the maid, who stopped laughing and suddenly felt very serious.

There had been a shadow, half seen, more sensed than anything which had startled the dog. Yet to the maid it was as if she were the reason for the creature's alarm. For dogs loved her usually and she them. Was she tainted by the burden she carried? Did the mongrel sense this?

"Now that is an aroma I like," the taller girl said with a pleased snort. "A perfume guaranteed to chase away all mangey curs in an instant." She finished off her meal, one Vetta persuaded her to buy to end an unnecessary diet, scrunched up the wrapper and made a show of tossing it into the nearest bin, missing by around five yards. The paper ball bounced once or twice and then was retrieved with startling agility by the other girl. Having secured it, she placidly walked up to the bin and dropped it in, checking unnecessarily that indeed it nestled safely there.

"Well done Vetta. You're like a trained animal. All that running about must keep you fit," the other girl said.

"Pirouette, you know very well good health is one of the five wellsprings of joy," the girl said, returning to the side of her companion and showing no signs of exasperation at cleaning up after her.

"Only because you keep saying it over and over and over, like recycled cast offs from last year's fashion display."

"Repetition my father says, is a good way to learn things and education is one of the five wellsprings of joy."

The other snarled impatiently at this and began walking off as if their odd friendship had been sundered by this last sally.

The maid stood there, a little agog at the odd display.

What was it the child had said? Something about joy. A commodity rare in her world at present.

The girl called Vetta noticed her standing there.

"Hello," she said and smiled. "I am Vetta Mindal from the Blessed Hub of Poldorama."

"Ah, that explains something, I think," Soopsie replied with a cough on hearing this quaint pronouncement. Vetta stood there, still smiling. There was a kind of expectancy about her, a kind of sucking, absorbing pressure, like a gravity well. She just stood there, blinked a couple of times and smiled.

"Tell me, in truth," Soopsie was compelled to say, "is there joy in honesty?" Her voice trembled a bit as she said this.

A tiny frown formed on the young face. It was a lovely face in its way, so open and friendly, yet that frown appeared and Soopsie felt even more guilty, like she had corrupted a pure soul.

"Truth, papa says, is the foundation of all words," Vetta said carefully. Then she frowned again. "Are you-?" came a softly spoken and half-formed question before she was interrupted.

"Hey, why are you just standing there?" the taller girl, Pirouette, said, returning with hasty strides. "Come on, let's get back. You know you shouldn't be talking to strangers anyway," and she pulled the smaller girl away by the hand.

The last thing Soopsie heard before the girls disappeared around a curve in the walkway was a protest from the little blonde creature.

"There are no strangers," she insisted calmy, and then she was gone.

Soopsie took a few deep breaths and then returned to her bench, where a heavy gloom resumed its effective task of blotting out light and warmth from a troubled soul.