Tales of Midbar: Religious Intolerance
Settling In - Part 4

We walked back across the bridge as Aleph was rising in the east.

“Why have you taken a scripture book?” asked a girl I’d just learnt was called Tenenit.

“Because Breeze knows everything and I’m important. I need to learn this!”

“You know she’s terrible at sports,” said Tenenit.

“So am I!”

“You could just learn about sports,” said Criadria, “you know, who won the flingball championship ten years ago. That sort of thing.”

“That’s boring!” I said.

“You know you really are a lot like Breeze,” said Criadria.

“Like we need another one!” said Tenenit.

“I’m not Haprihagfen!” I said.

“I’m not even a Winemaker,” said Tenenit.

“Breeze doesn’t know much about business or how a hotel is run or about ornamental plants,” said Criadria. “I can teach you that.”

“Business is very important,” said Dad. “It’s what makes the world go round, don’t let anybody fool you about it being love or angular momentum.”

I wondered about all the planets that didn’t have intelligent life, and therefore no business, on them. “What’s angular momentum?”

Do I really need to go over my first day at Minris Beginner School? It was pretty horrible.

All the other kids looked at me as if I was an ancient. Well, except for Breeze and Irvis, who smiled and waved. Great, I was now known as the friend of the two weird Winemaker kids. Breeze wanted Irvis to move so I could sit next to her.

“Where am I supposed to sit?” asked Irvis, looking around.

The only empty chair was at the back of the class beside a fat, stupid looking boy.

“I’m not sitting next to the homosexual, idlan Winemaker!” said the fat boy.

“I’m not homosexual and my mother’s faharni,” said Irvis, “not that it matters that my father’s idlan.”

“That’s racist and religionist,” said the teacher.

“I don’t want to sit next to the class idiot,” said Irvis, “it’s racist and religionist to associate me with him.”

The teacher waved her fingers around like she was thinking of putting me next to the fat boy. The desks were all in pairs and most children were seated with another of the same sex.

“I’m not sitting next to a girl either,” said the fat boy. “I’m not homosexual!”

“That’s orientationist,” said Irvis.

“Sitting next to a girl doesn’t make you homosexual!” said the teacher. “Narim, why don’t you sit next to Badrac?”

She was looking at a girl.

“He’s homosexual!” said the fat boy.

“No I’m not,” said the girl, well apparently a boy who looked like a girl. “You’re being pseudoorientationist!”

“What?” asked the fat boy.

“Discrimination based on a false belief about the victim’s sexual orientation,” said Breeze, “often a result of subconscious korbarism by hipsickim as people are often uncomfortable about the sexuality of other korbarim.”

“Are the Winemakers at the bottom of the class pecking order and you’re trying to pair one of us with somebody else at the bottom?” I asked.

After a considerable amount of discussion, the teacher ended up putting Irvis next to Narim, the girl Narim had been sitting next to, next to another boy and the boy who’d been sitting next to him, next to the fat boy.