Thoughtful Thursday: Today I Became a Twelver

SU-2-M6 

Today I became a twelver. We had a party in the forest like last year. Mother was there, talking with other adults as if everything is normal between her and father. Uncle Geff and father surprised me by coming back early from their business trip to be here. The entire daqua team came home with me after school for the party. We had a game of daqua right behind our house. Our coaches who were there decided to change the rules a little bit, to make it funny, they said. What made it funny is that we all had to have a handicap, like being blindfolded or hopping on one leg or using our non-dominant hand. I laughed. It feels nice to have friends.

They all brought me a gift. Able gave me the prototype of a new daqua helmet he'd invented secretly! We were all impressed. It increases mobility while still protecting your head, and you can see better because of a built in side and upper screen that is double wired to prevent glitching if hit. My defense coach said that he would send it to a development team for inspection. I was proud of Able for his work. I want to wear the new helmet for next season's daqua. What made it a birth-day gift for me was that Able labeled it the “Fio-helm”. 

Father told me privately that if it does become produced that it will most likely sell very well, partly because it is a good helmet, and partly because I am becoming famous in the provinces now because of my work on the team. People like to have things that they think will make them better when they see others using them, is what father said. I practice and work hard. My success isn't because of a helmet. But if it makes Able happy and brings him money because he invented it, then that's good. He was always telling me that I was going to get knocked on the head one of these days hard enough to scatter my brains, and then he wouldn't have anyone to challenge him in school anymore.

The best gift was from Tern, though. He gave me a small silver medal with a torch engraved on it that said “Olympics” and some other words that you can't see very well. It was badly scratched all over. Father was amazed because it was a genuine artifact from the pre-Disaster Olympic games. He wanted to know where Tern got it, but Tern wouldn't say, and father knows that Tern is so sneaky that if he did anything illegal there wouldn't be anything to trace. Not many people know how much I enjoy antiques. It's a way for me to connect with my father and Uncle Geff. I will keep it in the display case with Uncle Geff's other small artifacts. He and I are going to do more research later to see if we can find out what era or game it is from.

I liked the medal so much that I almost forgave Tern for what he did earlier. He tried to kiss me when we were in the chemical closet at school getting what we needed for species genome classification. I didn't realize what he was doing until it was too late because I was thinking about RNA filters. He tasted like fizzy-rocks from the sweetery and it was a little slimy. I shoved him away hard, twisting his arm around and bringing him to the floor in a strangle-lock. He bit his lip until it was bleeding because I was making him hurt and he refused to yell. When I let him up, he just laughed like he always does. I was very angry and almost told him not to come to the party, then I realized that if I did everyone would ask why he wasn't there and he would tell them. So I let him come. I threatened his life if he ever told anybody about it. He swore he would not, probably so that I wouldn't be angry at him forever. Most girls brag about being kissed, but I think it is pointless. I don't have any interest in Tern or any other boy. If Tern ever tries that again, I will hit him in the face, and take the consequences from breaking school policy. 

~ Excerpt from The Naming of Fio Re, the novel I am writing for NaNoWriMo