If we have to spend the next twenty-four hours like this, I’m going to hand myself over to Oren Crane.
I turn my chair back to the table and reach for another piece of paper. “Do you know your letters?” I say.
“What?”
“Your letters. The alphabet. A-B-C. Did you have any education at all?”
He stops with a slice of orange halfway to his mouth. He looks like he’s trying to figure out if this is the prelude to mockery, but I kept any rancor out of my voice because my question was genuine.
He eventually sets down the orange slice. “It was a long time ago, but I learned my letters. At the forge they used our initials to track our hours on the wall.”
I nod and write anLon the left side of the paper.
Then I raise my eyebrows at him, prompting.
He eats the orange slice and gives me a look. “What are you doing?”
I tap the paper like a patient teacher. “What’s that?”
“An L.” He narrows his eyes at me. “What are youdoing?”
I complete the rest of his name in capital letters.
LOCHLAN
Then I look back at him. “Do you know what it says?”
His eyes flick between the paper and me, but he hesitates. I wonder how often he’s seen his name written. I’m sure it’s not often enough for him to be certain, but he clearly wants to guess. He’s worried I’m trying to trick him, though. I can tell.
“I’m not trying to trap you, Lochlan. It’s your name.”
I have no idea what kind of response I expect, but I don’t get any at all. He’s just looking at the paper, eating the orange. I wonder if he thinks I’m mocking him, even though that wasn’t my intent. My cheeks suddenly feel warm, and I wonder if I should just crumple the paper up and leave him alone.
But then he says, “Do Karri.”
I write her name below his, and he stares at that for a moment.
Then, “Tessa?”
I nod and write. Before I’m even done, he says, “Do yours.”
I do, and then we have a list of names below his own.
LOCHLAN
KARRI
TESSA
CORRICK
He studies this for a little while, his eyes tracing over the letters, but then he takes a small biscuit from the basket and sits back. A little frown line has appeared between his eyebrows, and he looks away.
I can’t tell if he’s ashamed at his lack of knowledge or if he’s bored with this altogether.
He eventually scowls and says, “I know the letters, but they don’t mean anything.”
“Oh,” I say. “So each letter makes a different sound. Once you learn what the sounds are, you can read.”
