Page 151 of The Warrior
“We can’t all be tall as you Nmen,” Kya retorted and pointed to the boys. “It’s like with everything in nature. We all grow until we’re perfect. I just reached perfection a lot sooner than the rest of you.”
“That’s right, you have the perfect height for Archer to lean his arm on your head when he’s tired,” Plato joked.
“And you have the perfect height to keep quiet while I give my speech.” Kya lifted her finger to underline that she wanted him to listen. “Today we’re saying goodbye to our beloved Shelly, who is leaving to go to college. Shelly, step forward dear.”
The teenager took a small step forward, and pulled her sleeves over her hands, like she always did.
“Shelly, you’ve been an amazing help to all of us and we’re going to miss yousomuch. The children have made you a farewell present to remember us by.” Rochelle and Nicki both carried a box to Shelly. “You’ll find letters and drawings from the children in the box, and some artwork that they made for you.”
“Hey, I made one of the presents for you too,” Marco piped up. “It’s in the box.”
“What is it?” Solomon asked. “A poem?”
Marco scoffed. “As if. No. The children were painting on stones, so I decided to paint a portrait of you.”
“I wanna see it,” Raven said and grinned.
Shelly opened the box and took out a stone that fit inside her palm.
Raven frowned after studying the stone. “It doesn’t look like Shelly at all, it looks like you painted popcorn or something.”
“That’s because the stone was too small to paint all of Shelly. There was only room for her gigantic brain.”
“Ahh.” Raven nodded. “You painted a brain on the stone. Now I see it.”
“Thank you very much for your thoughtful gifts. I’ve loved being here at the school and I hope to get the chance to come back and visit some time,” Shelly announced.
I watched the quirky girl get hugged by the Motlander children as she moved around the room. From the first time I met Shelly, I’d always felt the need to give her a makeover. My hands were tingling to see what kind of swan hid inside the ugly duckling. I would love to help her get rid of her severe acne and trim those bushy eyebrows.
“I have a gift for you as well,” Shelly said to Marco when she reached him. “Yesterday, the children told me you had painted a stone for me, and I thought I’d give you something too.” She held out her hand. “I didn’t have time to wrap it, and it’s not as fancy as your fine portrait of me. But of course you set the bar impossibly high with that gift.”
Marco laughed. “I know.”
“It’s just a small reminder for you of the time we’ve had together.”
Marco looked down at Shelly’s palm as she opened it. “A seashell,” he said and picked it up. “Thank you.”
“I picked this up on the beach we went to, do you remember?”
“The one in the Motherlands, sure.”
“A seashell is symbolic in a way,” Shelly said and with the box from the children still in her hand, she crossed her free arm over her chest to scratch her neck, which had changed to a crimson color.
Marco brushed back his shoulder-length curly brown hair and looked closer at the seashell. “Symbolic of what?”
“Of you. The animal who lived inside that shell was soft and vulnerable on the inside and needed a hard shell too.”
Marco laughed in his untroubled charming way. “Very funny, but I’m as tough as they come, and you know it.”
Shelly shrugged. “If you say so.”
“I’ll treasure this shell. If people ask me I’ll tell them it’s a wonderful reminder of a genius girl who was wicked smart but needed to learn to shut up once in a while. You know, like a clam or an oyster.”
Shelly leaned her head to one side and furrowed her bushy eyebrows. “And I’ll show people your gift and say it’s a reminder of a young man who had stones for brains.”
“You do that.” Marco looked down at the seashell again. “I hope you’ll come back to visit us.”
I didn’t tell Marco at that moment that soon Pearl and I were going to offer him a position as a mentor at one of the new experimental schools. Even if Shelly came back to visit, Marco wouldn’t be here. The chance of the two of them ever meeting again was slim.
