Why had Alora persisted her braincells to excruciating amounts whilst evading her parents' love and attention for the previous six months — ?
Why had Alora Hemming, the girl who could have anything she desired if she were only cold hearted enough to ask for it, worked so hard to get into the Worthfinder Academy — ?
And why, oh, why was she standing in front of the Worthfinder Academy's Dean, Elijah Thurstone, with an evil glint in the eye as their feet remain grounded in a flooding corridor — ?
The answer is very surface level, just like all of Alora's motives in the small seven years of her life.
Alora had been desperate to join Worthfinder so she could be studying with Quinn and Quenton, her two best friends. And though she had indeed not paid a whole lot of attention when Mr Hart had specified the whole Right brain, Right Wing and Left brain, Left Wing concept because she was too busy sticking rhinestones to her bald Barbie's head — but that was only because she did not realise the situation to be as grim as it was.
Worthfinder's student body was divided into two, the Right Wing students who were supposed to be Creative, Spontaneous, Free and Sensitive whilst the Left Wing students were supposed to be Methodical, Smart, Scientific, Reasonable and Decisive.
The Left Wing with all its dormitories, classes, cafeteria, library, sports fields and lesiure lounge was situated in the right side of the academy and the Right Wing with its dormitories, studios, cafeteria, theatre, arcade, cyber cafe and rest lounge was situated on the left side of the academy; entirely opposite in directions, ensuring the least amount of contact in any way possible.
Dead in the middle stood the combined Auditorium, Admin Block, a Stadium and a Storage Room.
This was discrimination. Segregation. Separation. Bias.
All the words Alora could only think of but not speak because she wasn't old enough to know them, (because she didn't read) but she did know how they felt.
They felt exactly like trampled dreams and force breaking of a friendship and Alora was not a consensual participant of this activity!
NO.
She wanted to study with Quinn and Quenton but they had separate dormitories, separate schedules, separate activities and even seprate badges than hers! What else was she supposed to do at Worthfinder if not stick with them?!
In the half day she had spent in the Academy, she had seen Quinn and Quenton a grand total of ZERO times because she wasn't allowed inside the Left Wing until she earnt herself something called the Worthstar!
They denied her entery because she wasn't "WoRthY EnoUgH." Alora could scoff about it all day.
So, the little strawberry head was quick to concoct a plan whilst using the best of her resources. Her fanbase and information was easily bought off, curtsy childhood greed for free candy and the unchained amounts of money she possessed. The crowd was ready to perform, the play was directed and kid actors were set to stage during recess.
And yes, Alora had successfully skipped four periods on her first day at school, just to brew nuisance.
The afternoon sun was high up in the sky and Dean Thurstone was basking under its glorious rays, lolling on a hamock strung in front of an oriel window of his office. The Admin Block was South facing and one of its many perks was the sun they enjoyed in the middle of November.
Violins played on his vinyl and Dean Thurstone was immersed in Mozart's Concertone, when a series of knocks caused him to open his eyes and answer, "Come in," as eloquently as a man-who-did-not-want-to-interact could.
The door hinges remained unmoved and his, "Who is it? You may come in!" remained unanswered. Consequently, with much bitterness and posh swearing, Dean Thurstone got up and strolled to the door.
Only for his Prada Sherling Slippers to not feel like walking on the clouds when he'd step on his furnished office floor, but splotch instead.
His azure eyes and neck took quite a considerable strain as the material went soggy and he pushed open the door to see two kids fighting in a hallway drenched and properly flooding. The door to the Toilet, precisely opposite to his office, was open and water made its way all over the long corridor.
"You are bad! We don't like you! Go away, Mama's girl!" Alora's hired part-time child actor and full time first grader at Worthfinder Academy, uttered miserably, pushing the girl into the water.
She fell and slipped, increasing Dean Thurstone's heartbeat in an instant.
"No! I came in first place! Why would I quit? I always dreamt of going to Worthfinder and I belong here! Just because I'm not in the Left Wing doesn't mean you can bully me!" Alora's counterattack was much well worded than her male counterpart.
"Excuse me?! I request you both to stop right away!" Dean Thurstone tired to shout, but his tone only allowed moderate and posh.
The duo gave Dean Thurstone a long, cold stare, before Alora pulled the boy's leg and he too splashed into the water.
"You made me fall! I will never let you live in peace! I will be mean to you all your school life!" The boy rambled off words from his memory.
"No, our just and sincere Dean would never let this happen!" Alora exclaimed dramatically, raising a hand in Dean Thurstone's direction and eyeing him with unbridled victim-eyes.
"Oh- the dean is looking at us!" The boy exclaimed with a straight face, instantly getting up and pulling Alora up. He looked at the very confused Dean in front, then behind him, before he took two steps to the right and continued, "I must tell my friends not to come."
And Dean Thurstone wasn't Dean just because that was his legitimate middle name, no, he had lived and breathed enough to know the robotic charade from a real scene of bullying. But he too, was intrigued by the spectacle and willed to give the young students a chance.
This was, indeed, the very first day of the semester and he couldn't show his true colours yet.
"Yes, you must run now. The Dean will give me justice!" Alora narrowed her eyes at the old man, hands closing into fists as she pressed them to her chest.
And before the boy could say anything more, a crowd of bumbling children rushed in and began pelting the duo with paper balls, foil balls, plastic balls, erasers and anything small and everything safe.
Alora shielded her face with her arms and the boy ran to stand behind Alora.
Dean Thurstone, quite shocked by the scale, decided to rush in and shoo away the students.
"Anyone who is recognised in the very next three seconds shall be immediately expelled, no questions asked!" He glared at the crowd which dispersed away in mere moments. He turned to face the protagonists of the charade and questioned, "Which one of you was the mastermind?"
Much was yet to come, but that day, Alora realised that candy bribes did not bring out loyalty within humans. No.
The boy left no breath in pointing all ten fingers and toes at Alora.
"Mastermind would be a stretch, I just don't like your rules," Alora confessed, folding her arms against her chest and glaring at the little boy. They stepped closer to each other while Alora kept glaring at him.
"You may wait for me inside my office," Dean Thurstone eyed the boy, then looked at Alora and continued, "You don't like my rules so you decided to flood my corridor?" He raised an offended eyebrow.
Alora pointed at the door on the opposite end of the corridor, behind which were running taps leaking water all over the place. "I flood the corridor so that he and I don't get hurt when we fall," Alora explained, face dropped in a sad pout. "I got bullied because of your rules," she said, now looking him in the eye.
She had audacious eyes, Dean Thurstone would give her that.
"Bullying is not something one should even pretend to propagate, young miss. Targeting any weaker demographic is wrong," the older man informed, his eyes roaming all over Alora to find any injuries. All he spotted was her bandaged wet hand.
"But they won't allow me to enter the Left Wing. I want to be with my friends." Alora insisted as Dean Thurstone kneeled in front of her and held out a hand, gesturing at hers with his eyes. He was tall and shadowed all of Alora in one gesture. It should have been intimidating if she wasn't so focused on the situation.
"People should cohabit and interact with like-minded people. It helps the brain develop faster and avoid conflict." Mr Dean explained. Alora placed her hand in his and he gently unknotted the wet bandage. "You should see the nurse," he pointed at the big gash which had water seeping inside.
"No! Like like people get boring with each other. They all do the same things like each other. If they are always same same, everyday, when will they learn of the different world and grow from it?" Alora countered, thick eyebrows in a serious frown. "You are wrong. I should study with my friends. I really really do not like studying but when I'm with them, it is fun. Quinn tells me science like stories and Quenton is really good at English and books. He always teaches me words. He was the one who corrected my lisp!" Her frown easily turned into a bright smile now.
Dean Thurstone pressed a laugh, pulling out his phone and sending a quick text to the Right Wing Matron.
"That is, indeed, true. You seem to have good friends. Why don't you make more friends in the Right Wing and earn stars so that you can enter the Left Wing and be with them?" Dean Thurstone suggested, wondering why her 'friends' weren't making as much effort as she was.
"Yes..." Alora thought about it, then shook her head. "But no, I want us to study together. What will you do to make this better?"
Dean Thurstone raised a curious eyebrow now, pulling out a clean handkerchief from his breastpocket and wiping her wound clean.
"You want to strike a deal?"
"Yes."
"What makes you think I would agree?"
"It's your resignation and my expulsion as wager."
Dean Thurstone all but stood up in shock. Where was all this vocabulary coming from? Was she a habitual better? Gambler? He eyed her up and down, her small form, her chubby cheeks, her strained eyes, her relaxed shoulders. It felt so weird to meet someone like her.
"Why do you think I would agree?"
"I will cause a scene everyday and every night until you agree."
"And what makes you think I wouldn't expel you before that?"
"That would be injustice. I'm standing up for my rights." Alora rested her hands on her heart and pressed her lips in a line.
Dean Thurstone laughed for real, this time. He bent down to her eye level and continued in an almost condescending tone, "My dear, you fight for your rights when you have proper grounds. You cannot say that when you haven't even tried earning a star and doing it the textbook way. I'll let you and your minions go today since it is the first day, and if you're good enough, I'll try not to let this be on your permanent record. Now off you go and study. I'm sure your friends don't really want you disturbing them."
He got up, threw the handkerchief in the water and walked away, only to stop a few steps later when he heard sobs. He turned to see Alora crying her big eyes out, kneeling on the ground.
He didn't expect her to be a fragile girl. Did he...hurt her feelings? Damn these Right Wing kids!
Dean Thurstone really detested crying children and he really did not hide the fact from his face. For it morphed into a scowl.
Just then, Alora picked up a wet paper ball and shoved it in her mouth, wailing, "I'M SORRY! PLEASE FORGIVE ME! I DON'T LIKE EATING THIS!" as she picked up another soggy paper ball and shoved it in her mouth.
Bewildered, horrified and mildly impressed, Dean Thurstone jerked the third wet ball from her hands and forced her to stand up.
"What do you think you're doing, Little Miss?!" His shout was still moderate and posh.
Alora looked up at him, tears in her evil glinting eyes and a smirk on her face.
"I'm building a ground for me to fight now." She subtly tilted her head to point at the camera placed above the bathroom door, recording the scene.
Mr Elijah Dean Thurstone backed away, realising she had been in a blind spot all along. His height, and his body, he had been covering her all along! And there's no way that camera records audio since it is placed over a TOILET.
All that it would have recorded would be the fight, the pelting, his ambiguous angles, Alora eating paper and crying with a diction clear enough to be read by lip readers.
Dean Thurstone almost backed away in fear of the little girl as she continued dropping tears from her eyes, wailing, and consequently terrifying the other boy who had been waiting in his office. The boy ran out, as if on cue, with quite genuine tears of misery. He too kneeled in front of the terrified form of Dean Thurstone and cowered his apology.
"What even- is this...you don't know the legal grounds to it! You will be caught deliberately flooding the corridors! If the camera was to be checked, you're not entirely innocent!" The old man finally shouted out.
"I have two bodyguards who can handle a bit of this and that," Alora's reply was almost a whisper, and Dean Thurstone could only agressively pointing a finger in exasperation, a word away from pulling at his hair.
And Alora took it as a cue to splat herself to the guard, the boy following her lead, both whimpering, "I'm sorry, please, I'm sorry," as the Matron rushed in, splashing her feet in the water and eyeing the spectacle before them.
Clearly and obviously misunderstanding it.
"Wow- I definitely do not like children, Miss Matron, take them away before I do something really terrible to them!" Dean Thurstone scoffed unstoppably, stamping his feet in the water as he cursed himself for not putting up two cameras in one corridor.
And Alora remained still on the ground, smiling inside and playing faint on the outside.