Tina pulled the chair all the way out from her desk and looked it over before sitting down. Sitting on tacks was an experience she did not intend to repeat. Since that incident, she had carefully checked the seat before sitting down. But she had vastly underestimated the cunning of experienced bullies. The next trick they pulled was to put chewing gum at the front edge of the seat. When she sat down, it got stuck to the back of her knees. It was literally impossible to get all of it out of her pants afterward.

In the end, she had to throw the piece of clothing into the garbage. Not exactly optimal, considering her non-existent income. Even less so since she actually had to go buy a new pair herself. Thirty-five years of living like a man didn’t give Tina a lot of experience in being in stores specialized for women’s clothing, apart from occasionally waiting for his girlfriend. Her nervousness was picked up on by a store clerk, who offered to help. Was it something about her body that signaled to every salesperson everywhere that she was always in need of help? The sample size was a bit small to conclude that yet.

She had accepted the offer, and gotten help finding her measurements. Fortunately, the saleswoman did not find it strange that she didn’t know her own size. Maybe because girls at Tina’s age were prone to experience growth spurts? Regardless, she had walked out of the store with a new pair of pants, relieved that her ordeal was done.

In a way, one of the advantages of having no friends among her peers was that no one dragged her along to go shopping. On the other hand, the disadvantage included the harassment. It was always easier to pick on someone who was already friendless. Tina was also reasonably sure that Haley had encouraged this behavior, if not directly ordered it. She wasn’t technically breaking the deal by doing so, and Haley was definitely petty enough to do something like that because she could.

Tina had to admit, girls could be maliciously creative when it came to bullying. Boys bullying others mainly consisted of physical harassment: getting thrashed or threatened to be, having items taken or ruined, that kind of stuff. Definitely unpleasant, but lacking in finesse.

So far, she had experienced nasty comments, strange stares, condescending expressions, accidental spillage of milk which happened to hit her, her clothes misplaced after P.E., her shoes suddenly filled with water, tacks, gum in her hair… All in all, unfortunate “accidents” as well as treatment that individually wasn’t so bad, but together could easily break someone.

Even knowing exactly what was going on, Tina still felt a bit down about all of it. Humans are social creatures, and having absolutely no one to talk to would break even her.

Fortunately, she had someone. Her roommate, Tabitha, treated her normally when it was just the two of them. She wasn't willing to stand up for Tina when others were nearby, but at least she didn't join in on the harassment. Tina didn't need a knight in shining armor, so she didn't mind Tabitha looking out for herself first.

In addition, there were several adults she could speak to. Speaking with someone closer to her mental age was definitely helpful. In particular, the librarian, Mrs. Sundale, was easy to grab hold of and have a discussion with. While she initially was a bit skeptic to have a discussion with someone forty years younger, she quickly welcomed it.

Her current lesson was blessedly free from harassment. Mainly because none of her peers were present: everyone else her age had already finished the Weapon Security class years ago. She was, by far, the oldest one in the room. By her estimation, the second oldest child was somewhere around ten years old. Not an age difference that friendship couldn’t gap, but Tina didn’t intend to bother with it. While she generally liked kids, she found their interests a little bit childish for her taste. In addition, she was planning to run away sooner rather than later. She had plenty of reasons to do so.

Take this class, for example. So far, they had been taught rules for gun security, first aid in case someone got shot, and the difference between different types of guns as well as their effective range. Why were they taught stuff like that? More importantly, who were the usual recipients of such lessons? She could think of two groups: gun enthusiasts, and soldiers.

The conclusion was pretty clear: the school, or His Lordship, was training the children to be soldiers. Not necessarily while they were still children — maybe they were only supposed to serve that role after they had grown up. On the other hand… if something did happen that would require fighting, she wouldn’t be surprised if his Lordship decided to enlist the younger students as well.

She silently observed the younger children play around with each other, mostly by showing each other stuff from their cell phones with some teasing mixed in for good measure. They were at an age where some of the girls had started taking an interest in the opposite sex, while the boys mostly acted their age. In other words, immature.

When she was first introduced to the class, the kids had paid some interest to her. Now, they mostly ignored her, which was fine as far as Tina was concerned. They had some respect for her words, though, just by virtue of their age difference. Just when she considered if she ought to stop the “teasing gone too far” situation, the door opened and their teacher walked in. The cell phone was immediately returned, and everyone found their seats.

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“Good morning, class,” the teacher boomed as he put down a relatively large box on the teacher's desk.

“Good morning, Mr. Brown,” the class did in unison.

“Sit down,” Mr. Brown ordered like an old sergeant. He was the type of person that had his volume permanently stuck on ‘slightly too loud’, as a result of his bad hearing. Tina wondered if there was a connection between his hearing and his gun enthusiasm: maybe he had dropped hearing protection one time too many.

“Today we will be reviewing the Glock 26, how to disassemble, clean, and assemble it again.”

He produced a pistol from the box he had carried into the room.

“ As we have discussed earlier, the Glock 26 is a subcompact, or smaller version of the standard Glock 17. These are completely real Glocks, so be careful with them. The only part that is not real are the bullets. They weigh exactly the same, but contains no propellant. For the purpose of this exercise, treat the guns as real, with all the accompanying safety regulations.”

Tina raised her eyebrow. Children below ten-year old were taught about multiple versions of a series of pistols, not to mention what propellant was?

Mr. Brown got two of the students to hand out one pistol to each student. Following what she was taught in an earlier lesson, Tina immediately checked that the safety was on.

The teacher demonstrated how to disassemble the gun, mixing in facts about it such as its polymer frame and other stuff Tina really couldn't care about. She was quite far from being a gun nut herself. In fact, this was the very first time in her life -- both lives -- she held a real gun. The closest was playing around with an air gun at a friend’s house when Martin was young.

Tina took apart the gun as per the teacher's instruction. The design was surprisingly simple, and it took her only a minute or two to pull all the pieces apart. As soon as they were all done, Mr. Brown instructed them on how to clean the barrel and maintain the pistol, adding both trivia and useful information in his best outdoor voice.

After the cleaning was done, the teacher announced that they would all be competing for quickest assembly. Before Tina was halfway done, the first place we claimed by a nine-year-old boy. Tina didn't know his name -- she hadn't really bothered to learn any more than strictly necessary.

“Hands up, everyone,” the boy joked and pointed the gun at the kids closest to him.

In no time at all, the teacher was upon him. Surprisingly, he grabbed the boy from behind in a very serious chokehold, while grabbing the boy’s gun hand with the other. With practiced movements, he clicked the button that released the magazine. It fell to the ground with a loud crash. Even so, Mr. Brown kept his hold on the gun, pointing out at the ceiling.

“Sinclair!” Mr. Brown thundered, his volume increased from outdoor to hurricane warning levels. “What is the first gun safety rule?”

The boy quickly released the gun. The teacher took it and swiftly removed the bullet that was already in the chamber. Only then did he release the boy, Sinclair.

“Never point a gun at someone unless you intend to shoot them,” Sinclair cited while running his throat, now free from the pressure induced by Mr. Brown’s arm. He sounded slightly annoyed. Something told Tina this was not a completely uncommon situation.

“Correct,” Mr. Brown boomed out. “If you pull something like this when you start shooting range classes, you'll suffer more than just a sore throat.”

While Tina, in general, didn't subscribe to the notion of physical punishment, she was pleased to see that the school took gun safety extremely seriously. In fact, she believed the school demonstrated better gun safety than many counter-terrorist teams she had seen on TV. There were plenty of times they pointed their gun at people that obviously weren't any threat to anyone.

Tina just managed to assemble her pistol before the bell rang. Everyone rose from their seats and recited in unison: “His Lordship will lead us.”

This cult-like behavior was another very good reason why Tina desired to leave sooner rather than later. Not the phrase itself, but the near-religious worship of His Lordship.

It was time for lunch. Tina grabbed her bag and walked towards the cantina, where she and Tabitha would meet up and eat together.

From her thoughts, she knew her roommate was asked by the principal to keep an eye on Tina. But from what she could tell, Tabitha went well beyond what was asked of her, and genuinely cared for her roommate. They clicked well together. Both were way more mature than their age dictated, but for different reasons. Tina wasn’t entirely sure exactly what Tabitha’s ability was, but at least it allowed her to read extremely fast, consuming books almost as fast as she could turn the pages. She seemed to enjoy the company of someone her age to discuss with, and the feeling was mutual.

While walking to the cantina, Tina considered a hypothesis she had come up with a few days earlier. During this class, she had picked up a few stay signals now and then, but nothing very interesting. That fit her hypothesis: she picked up much more signals when she was genuinely curious what the other party thought of. There might also be other factors that affected the result.

Her problem was, she couldn’t really control exactly what she was genuinely curious about. She had tried to be as curious as she could about what other students in her class thought of, but she just couldn’t fake it.

There was also another possible hypothesis: Maybe it was easier for her to detect thoughts that concerned herself in some way? Then again, she was quite certain she didn’t catch all thoughts that were related to her, so it couldn’t be the only working factor.

What she really needed was someone she could completely trust, in order to experiment and test out all her hypothesis. But even her roommate didn’t qualify for that purpose. She suddenly missed Caroline. It was weird, but despite not spending a lot of time together, she felt somewhat close to her old classmate, much closer than when they were actually in school together.