Chapter 5

I almost didn't want to get out of bed on Monday I entertained ideas of pretending to be ill and staying home. With the state my parents were in worrying about me, I suspect they would have let me get away with it too. Only the fact that Tara would see my staying away as a victory kept me from doing it. I mentally braced myself for the day ahead and was soon sitting in my classroom awaiting the inevitable attacks.

I noticed there was a new girl in the class today. She was small like me, with a nice body, short dirty blond hair,, and glittering blue eyes. She was a little odd in that she was wearing clothes that completely covered her arms and legs. Every inch of her skin was covered, with small gloves on her hands that tucked into a long sleeved top. She wore trousers that tucked into socks, with a pair of boots laced tightly on her feet. When someone asked about the gloves, she shyly mentioned a skin condition then carefully adjusted her clothing to ensure she was covered up. She made a few overtures of friendship to me, but I was wary, remembering Anne, so I said nothing. From listening in I learned her name was Vicky Miller, and her family had just moved to the area. She seemed like a nice enough person, but I had learnt the hard way, appearances could be deceptive.

When Tara arrived, the presence of a new girl, who was a little odd, distracted her briefly from her usual activities. But as soon as the novelty had worn off she resumed teasing me. Some way into this something terrible happened. Using her powers she grabbed Kittybot off me.

"Haha, got your little toy, perv! Here, fetch!" She tossed Kittybot across the room, smashing her into a wall. I howled in anguish and ran sobbing to where my only friend lay twitching.

I quickly surveyed the damage. The blow had caused a little denting to her casing, but the shock of the impact had shaken her power cells loose and broken the connections to Kittybot's main control circuitry. She was losing power rapidly, and since her program or mind was all kept in volatile storage, if she lost power, I would lose her. She was dying! I worked frantically, trying to reconnect things, but she was losing power too fast. In a last desperate move to save her mind I used my magnetics power to induce a current in the wires leading to her main processing unit just to keep her brain alive. It worked just well enough to buy me the time to do makeshift repairs to the power connections. She would be all right, but it had been very close. I carried my gravely wounded metal companion back to my bag and left her in sleep mode till I could make more permanent repairs.

I was in a rage. Tara had tried to kill my Kittybot, my only friend. I wasn't going to take that anymore. She had crossed a line that I wasn't going to accept. I spun and glared at the laughing Tara and bared my teeth, making a strange high pitched shriek that caused most of the room to cover their ears in pain.

I leapt at Tara like a wild thing. A look of surprise graced her face as my tiny form hit her at speed and toppled her to the ground. I pummelled her face and chest with my fists. She raised her arms defensively, deflecting almost all of my strikes, so, I was not really doing a lot of damage but the surprise of it caused her to cry out in fear. Two of her friends grabbed me and pulled me off her. I fought in their grips like a wild animal and kicked at Tara on the ground with my legs.

She got to her feet, and I redoubled my efforts, managing to breaking free and charging at her, making another screeching noise that distracted the two who tried to stop me. I wrestled with the larger girl, my own ferocity making up for my small size and lack of muscles. Her fear also played its part, as until then she hadn't really seen my teeth properly. I had taken great pains to keep them hidden. Now my attitude, combined with my angry eyes and bared teeth made me look quite unlike the small girl she had tormented.

She pushed me off with her power, knocking me into some chairs. I got back up and ran at her again, knocking her over and grabbing her by the hair. I had been the victim of many bullying attacks as Alex, and had learnt the hard way how fight to hurt someone. I had also learnt about pain, and how to function under it, since sometimes you had to fight through it in order to escape to make the pain stop. Most bullies, at least in my experience, knew about inflicting pain, but not receiving it. It seemed in this regard Tara was typical. She was completely unable to focus with me pulling her hair, so her telekinetic attacks went out the window.

I grabbed onto her and didn't let go, so that was how Mr Roberts found us, Tara and I were rolling around on the floor, me with my legs wrapped around her, grasping her hair with two other girls trying to pull me off her.

"STOP THIS NOW!" Mr Roberts shouted. I almost immediately let go, causing Tara to flop forward onto to the floor with a crash.

The moment the fight had stopped, I began feeling awful about my loss of control, and about the anger and how I had given in to it. I began bawling my eyes out. I tried to stop, but I just couldn't. I sat there crying, sobbing like a little kid. Some of Tara's friends looked at me like I was trying to get out of trouble by pretending to the victim or something, but even they realised my anguish was genuine.

Everyone, Mr Roberts included, seemed quite confused as to what to do. We were made to stand outside as Mr Roberts got the scoop, and eventually we were dragged off to the Head Mistresses office for fighting. By now, Tara had recovered somewhat and was loudly claiming she had done nothing wrong, and that I had attacked her without provocation. Even then, she kept shooting me worried, almost fearful glances as I sobbed my eyes out, quite unable to stop crying. The emotional floodgates had opened and all the pent up feelings were rushing out.

We were sitting in the waiting area while Mr Roberts explained what had happened to Mrs Thomas. The secretary, Mrs Donnal, eyed the two of us with her beady eyes, her mouth set in a sneer. I had taken my bag with me, not wanting to leave a fragile Kittybot near Tara's allies for fear of losing her. I reached into my bag and stroked her chassis gently just for comfort.

The door to Mrs Thomas' office flew open and Mr Roberts motioned us in with a grim look on his face. We sat in two chairs, sitting far enough apart that we couldn't reach each other. Mrs Thomas sat behind her desk, her face serious, her eyes hard. I had never been in trouble like this before. It was making my already turbulent emotional state worse.

"Now girls, we take a very dim view of people fighting!" She began.

"She started it! I didn't do anything!" Tara said, trying to play the victim.

"I know full well you have been tormenting Miss Jones for days," Mrs Thomas said sternly, causing Tara to shut her mouth and scowl, "I also know that you took something of hers and tried to break it, which instigated the fight. You are far from blameless in this, Miss Patterson. Be that as it may, we don't tolerate that kind of behaviour, Miss Jones even if there is provocation. I will, however, be lenient as a result. In future you will inform a teacher of such incidents and they will select a suitable punishment. You two will be spending lunch time in detention and I don't want to hear of you two fighting again. And Miss Patterson, you are now on notice. If this bullying happens again, you will get a far more severe punishment."

I nodded my head, meekly accepting my punishment. I didn't really feel bad about attacking Tara. She had deserved it. I felt bad about losing control and acting like some sort of wild animal.

Tara, however, was outraged at her punishment. "WHAT! She attacks me and I get a detention too, just because someone lied about me starting the fight? This is an outrage! I'm going to tell my parents!" she huffed.

"By all means, tell them. Then when they contact me to complain, I can bring them in and talk to them about the rest of your behaviour. The choice is entirely yours." Mrs Thomas face had a sly grin.

Tara quieted down after that and took to scowling angrily at Mrs Thomas and me. Pretty soon we were dismissed, with instructions to report to the staff room at lunch time for our punishment. My tears were still flowing a bit, but the flood had begun to wane. We left with instructions to return to our lessons. Most of my anger seemed to have fizzled out.

Tara took my quiet sobbing as some sort of capitulation. She started to try and reassert her authority, "If you try something like that again, you filthy pervert, you'll regret it I'll..." she started.

That was all it took for the rage to come flowing back from behind the tears. My face became a mask of anger, eyes burning hate, my hands clawed, my teeth bared. A strange growling noise came from deep in my throat the tears were suddenly completely gone. I leapt at her, reaching for her with one hand.

She squeaked and fell over backwards. I stared murder at her lying there on the ground. My sudden shift from crying girl to maniac had completely terrorised her mind. So, even though I couldn't do anything to her, she was scared to death of me. I took one more step, watching her scrabble backwards out of reach.

"You ever speak to me again," I growled as best I could in my new voice, "and I'll make you wish you'd never been born!"

They were pretty bold words, since she probably weighed twice what I did and had telekinetic powers to boot. But given her current mental state it had a fairly strong impact on the whimpering Tara. I wasn't sure how long she would fear me, but it might give me a little peace for a short while till she realised it was all basically an angry bluff.

Just to underline my point, I took another step forward and spat on her, then turned and headed on to class. I had always hated people who spat, and I took very little pleasure in doing it, even to Tara but in my rage it had seemed like the thing to do. I carried on, with Tara following, wiping her face on her sleeve, staring at me with frightened eyes, keeping enough distance so I couldn't spring on her again. With each step I found it harder and harder to hold onto the rage, and by the time I reached the classroom I was again crying a little. We were ushered in by our teacher and quickly took our seats.

Throughout the lesson, Tara watched me fearfully when she thought I wasn't looking. Every now and again a jolt of anger shot through me, and almost without meaning to I bared my teeth at her, causing her to look away. Most of the rest of the class didn't seem to notice, though the new girl Vicky looked thoughtful. She was obviously trying to work out the dynamics of our group, and had arrived on a day where the standard order of things was upset.

This probably give her a twisted view of things, or at the very least mixed signals. By PE, Tara had been spreading rumours about me enough so that I was getting fearful glances from many of the girls. It seemed she had spread word that I was some sort of unstable raving psychopath. Now all the girls were giving me a wide berth. There were no more repeats of the clothes throwing incident. In fact, I had a nice area all to myself, and when showering I had no one either side. I noticed Vicky hadn't come in to PE and had presented some sort of note that let her off. Probably her skin condition again.

Lunch came and I presented myself for detention. The tears had dried up and the anger was seemingly extinguished. I felt almost numb now, as if I had completely used up my quota for emotions for the day. I spent a boring time sitting at a desk down the corridor from the staffroom. They didn't even give me anything to do, I just sat there feeling hungry. I could feel Tara's eyes on the back of my head for the entire time. At one point I saw my Dad as he made his way about. He spotted me sat there and looked surprised. He started to come over but was then called into the staffroom and I didn't see him after that.

Finally our time was up and we could make our way down to lunch. It was getting pretty late so there was no choice but at least we got something to eat. Tara and I sat as far away from each other as we could physically get, both facing the other so we could see if they came at us, but pretending to ignore each other. As if we could see everywhere in the room but the space directly across from us.

After lunch was over I headed to the library for what little time I had left. For the rest of the day I was avoided. It seemed during lunch, the rumours had spread further and got grander in the telling. Now when I walked down the corridors, whispers followed me, stopping if I turned to see who had said something. People got out of my way like there was some invisible force field around me, excluding everyone in a sphere around me. Despite my size people seemed to fear me which was a very strange feeling. I knew full well what it was like to walk these halls afraid of someone, but to be the one people feared was a new and unwelcome experience. The only person who sat near me in class was Vicky, and even then, only for one lesson till she was pulled aside by some of the other girls. I even seemed to have lost any attraction to boys who had been eyeing me up since the moment I returned to school. Now they stole glances and looked away fearfully when I looked back. I didn't know what rumours had gotten started about what I was capable of, but it seemed I was universally feared now. It seemed to put a stake through the heart of any hope I had of making a friend in my new life.

It was a very tiring and stressful day and I was glad when it was over. In some ways the new fearful glances were better than the barrage of insults, but then neither was what I would term ideal. I waited for Dad as usual, and when he came out he gave me a stern look and said nothing. The car ride home was quiet. I had nothing to say and it seemed Dad was saving what ever was on his mind for when we got home.

We went into the house and Mum called out, "Hello, Dears. Did you have a nice day at school?"

Dad turned to me and said, "Lexi, go wait in the kitchen! I want to have a talk with your mother."

I nodded and walked past Mum, who looked confused and looked at Dad questioningly. I wanted to get upstairs and start repairs on Kittybot, but I had been expecting something like this. Mum and Dad liked to present a unified front when I had done something wrong. Though not a regular occurrence, it had happened in the past.

I sat at the kitchen table, laying my head down on the cool surface, feeling my tears surfacing again. It was not enough to start crying but my eyes moistened. I could hear Dad's voice from the living room. I couldn't make out what he was saying but the low earnest tones were familiar. I could hear Mum interject things from time to time as they discussed what had happened.

Eventually they came into the kitchen and I raised my head to look at them. My wet eyes made Mum's eyes widen.

"Lexi," said Dad, "Mrs Thomas told me you had been fighting with a girl today. You know we don't approve of fighting and we want you to tell us what happened and why you did it."

"Well, Tara was shouting mean things at me again and I was ignoring her. Then she got hold of Kittybot and threw her against the wall, trying to kill her." At this point the tears that had been threatening, burst out again, and I began sobbing, "Kittybot was my only friend, and I just couldn't take it any more and lost control."

Mum looked ready to run over and comfort me as I sobbed. It was only my Dad's hand on her shoulder that stopped her. Even then, she looked like she was going to shrug it off and come over anyway.

"Did you apologise to the girl afterwards?" asked Dad.

I felt the glimmerings of anger again, "No, afterwards she threatened me, so I threatened her back and now she's afraid of me, so hopefully she'll leave me alone now."

"That's not the way we taught you to do things," Dad scowled.

"If I had apologized, she would have continued to tease and hurt me," I said, angry but still sobbing a little.

Dad looked set to say something more but Mum stopped him, "Enough Love, she's been punished at school and she's been through a lot. This girl has been badgering her for days. She won't let something like this happen again, will you Lexi?"

I nodded, and Dad seemed to capitulate. I was allowed to trudge up to my room with no further punishment. I gently extracted Kittybot from my bag and placed her on my work bench. Opening her up, I connected her circuitry to external power so I could safely repair her battery without cutting her off from the juice. I redid the mountings that held the battery in place, and reinforced them so the cells wouldn't come loose again. Then I rewired the power cells into Kittybot's circuits with proper wire and made sure the connections were sound. With that done, I thought about what else I could do to prevent this sort of thing happening in future. I thought about adding some EEPROM (electronically erasable programmable read only memory) shadow memory to store her fpga program in dynamically saving any changes, but I didn't really have the space on my custom pcb (printed circuit board) to wire it in. Also the slowdown associated would probably cripple her ability to function. Instead I wired in a backup battery cell directly to the main processor and memory systems and a couple of super capacitors to provide some tempory shutdown power, then added some additional code that stipulated that if she lost power for any reason she would switch to her backup power cell and go to sleep, running with minimal systems. I estimated that the charge in the backup would allow her to survive for almost a month, powering only her locator systems and reserve power to her memory. Pleased with my work, I closed her up and switched her back to internal power.