*****
At school, Keelic entered the building on alert, and avoided seeing Thom before Mr. Drin’s class. Keelic wondered if Thom was even at school today. On his way to Galactin, he felt a foot hook his back leg. He fell hard, and his tablet went flying. Laughter burned into him as he rose.
Lounging against the wall was Thom. The big boy walked up to Keelic, who struggled to find the courage to hold his ground and not let his face betray how afraid he was. Anger helped, and Keelic also felt the alien’s own intense red dislike and swirling indignation.
Thom said quietly, "I’m going to space you hard, little pool of Dreep."
Pushing Keelic aside with his shoulder, Thom passed by.
For the rest of the morning and lunch, Keelic kept thinking of Thom’s threat. He believed that Thom intended to hurt him in a much worse way than anything so far. At lunch he didn’t eat, and walked out early to the Study Hall.
Mr. Hallod inquired about his health and state of mind, but Keelic was too ashamed to talk about it to Leesol’s father.
After school, he ran to his shuttle and stared out the window all the way home. In his room he turned his music up and cried into his pillow. After he stopped, Anny turned down the music enough to talk, and asked what was wrong.
"Is it something at school? Is someone bothering you?"
He nodded.
"Can I tell your parents?"
After a moment, he nodded.
A minute later his mother and father came hurrying up the stairs. They sat on the bed on either side of him and asked what was going on. Their presence made it hard for him to maintain control, and tears slipped down his face as he recounted the threats and attacks. His mother gathered him up.
Embarrassed, but needing her more than his ego needed to be independent, he hugged her tightly, and listened to his parents discuss what they could do. They decided to call Thom’s parents.
"No! That won’t do any good." He pulled away from his mother. "That will just make it worse."
"We have to try this first," said his mother.
Keelic stood up and walked over to his chess set and began knocking over the pieces one by one, leaving the king standing alone. His parents told him everything would work out and left. An hour later he was looking over the forest at the bluff and desiring more than anything to go back to the simulator, when his father came up the stairs.
"Kee? Turn around, Keelic. Come over here."
He walked over to where his father sat on the end of the bed.
"We talked to Don and Louise, the Chief Instructor and his wife, and he said he will make Thom behave. Now that’s all fine, except I remember being in your place when I was a boy. There are some things I never learned that you should know. Raise your hand, now make a fist. Good. You know that. Do you know how to hit, and where?"
His father showed him ways to hit in all the places people had always told him not to, and how to use his body to make it count. Keelic already knew most of it because of Tamarin, but it was grand to have his father tell it to him. What mattered most was that his father was giving him permission to defend himself and fight when necessary. His spirits rose for a while, but fell again when he understood that this meant they were going to send him back.