Page 6 of The Artist
Jerking my head back, I pulled my hand from the door frame. “Of course.”
“They built the door opening short so that any intruders would have to bow their heads to get in. It gave the people inside the opportunity to knock them on their heads, and it also helped to keep the heat in during winter.” Freya’s words rambled before she lowered her voice: “Keep an eye on Victor, he’s their champion.”
“What do you mean by champion?”
“I’m not sure yet, but Belle told me he’s won all sorts of competitions back home.”
“What kind of competitions are we talking about?” I craned my head to see Victor, who was standing with two others from his group, petting sheep.
“I’m going to find out, but Belle isn’t close to the others. It sounds like they don’t like her and didn’t want her to come.”
“Can you blame them? Why is she even here? She’s just a kid.”
Freya wrinkled her forehead. “Hmm, yes, it does seem strange, but Aubri and I like her. Maybe she’ll tell us more. You better keep your ears and eyes open too.”
My solemn nod was all Freya needed before she took off again, running back to her group where Belle smiled at her as if Freya’s return was a relief. I took a second to watch the young girl with a sense of curiosity. Why was Belle here? And why was she willing to provide information about the members of her group? Had she no understanding of how knowledge was power?
As if she felt my questions across the open field, Belle looked up and for a long second her innocent doe eyes met mine. How could her group not like her? I saw nothing but kindness in her eyes before shyness crept in and made her turn away.
Curious to understand more, I walked over to Simon, one of the French in my group. “Hey, Simon.”
He was more than a head shorter than me and leaned his head back. “Hi?”
“What’s the deal with Belle? She seems very quiet and shy. Is she the daughter of your ruler or something?”
“You mean our Prime Minister?” Wrinkling his nose up, he shot a single glare in her direction. “No, she’s nobody.”
“Then why is she here? This is a summit for future leaders.”
“None of us understand it either. We were all chosen for our rank and supérieur intellect, but she hasn’t even advanced to level A yet.”
“What’s level A?”
Like the other French participants, Simon spoke with a strong accent and had a weird fashion sense. His pants were multi-colored with one leg in green and the other in blue. The pockets were yellow. He wasn’t dressed in as feminine a fashion as the boys from the Motherlands. But with his colorful pants and a yellow shirt with random black paint stains that were most likely high fashion in Old Europe, he resembled an abstract painting in my eyes.
“A is short for Academic. Our school system sépare us into two groups, academic and practical. Any society needs both of course, but no champion has ever been chosen from the practical group. The four of us excel academically and were classified as A level early on. But from what I know, Belle hasn’t shown any supérieur academic skills. Her last try will be at the age of fourteen.”
“Hmm.” I bit the inside of my cheek. “Why would your primal minister send her then? That makes no sense.”
“It’sprimeminister, not primal, and as I said, I cannot explain it either. Sophie thinks it’s because Belle is supposed to be artistique.”
“She’s what?”
“You know artistique.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“Ehm…” Simon looked up as if trying to remember the word he was trying to so say. “You know someone who paints and create art.”
“Ah, you mean an artist.”
“Oui. Anyway, that’s Sophie’s theory, and it might be true, but Victor thinks it’s because Belle is pretty and our leaders want to emphasize that we have both brains and beauté. We’re aware of the rumors that our small number of citizens means we’re inbred, but we have strict systems to prevent that from happening.”
“How many are you in total now?”
“Almost one point two million.”
“That’s more than I thought.”
