Flight School by Julie Steimle (any book recommendations txt) 📖

Have no friends not equal to yourself—Confucius—

It was not enough that the small cadet was attending all her classes. It was not enough that she was brighter than any child her age. It was not even enough that she was brighter than children several years older than her. Cadet Zormna Clendar was just too shy.

The Kevin (the supreme head of the Surface Patrol of Arras) did not know what to do with the small Tarrn child that had been left with him a year ago. He watched Zormna play with her flight pad in the cadet flight-training hall below from the dark observation booth, her fiery blonde bobbed curls whipping about as she flew. The eight-year-old[1] girl was perfectly balanced on the pad, taking skilled risks at dives and turns—but always kept her balance as if it were merely an appendage to her. She had mastered the flight pad in a short space of time without any difficulty. In fact, he could not find any senior officer that knew the flight pad better than she did. She was a natural. Which was a pity since she was so withdrawn among the cadets.

Possibly she could grow up and be a taxi driver or a bus driver, the Kevin mused. But it would be a waste of her talents to do such menial flying. She was an extremely good pilot. If only she had people skills. If only dealing with people did not terrify her. The Kevin sighed. Great pilots were sorely needed in the Surface Patrol, especially now. And a Tarrn such as herself would be safest in the Patrol.

The Kevin then turned and stared out the glass at his youngest son, Salvar, musing on him. He was another conundrum. All of his other children had chosen different career paths. Only Salvar had remained with the Patrol. It had been a disappointment, as they were all talented in their way, but his elder sons were training to be machinists and his daughter was in school to be a chemist. His last son, Salvar, was the only one who chose to follow in his footsteps to be a soldier. Salvar had potential too—only he was so small for his age and he had grown a little pudgy in his freckled face. Kids teased him when they thought his father, the Kevin, wasn't looking. Yet like a good soldier Salvar never told on them. He wasn't whiny about it.

Currently, his son stood at the side, waiting for a free flight pad on the floor—as there were only so many—patiently watching Zormna do her tricks. They Kevin noticed that Salvar had been true to his word and had dutifully befriended Zormna, protecting her from bigger kids when he could, and when he couldn't—getting a teacher to handle it. The pair were good friends now, though it had taken a while for either child to warm up to the other.

Zormna, it turned out, had a quick temper. And though she did not throw tantrums or anything, she grew sullen and brutally ignored you as if slamming a door in your face. She used to hit, before her teachers had her facing the wall nearly every outburst. And Salvar still thought of her as a baby. He initially had yanked on her mourning strands[2] when he got mad at her, but now they tolerated each other like brother and sister. Well, a brother with a wickedly smart little sister. Salvar was older than her by more than a half a year. But he was the one keeping up with her. And though Salvar did not like that, the Kevin reminded his son frequently that Zormna was a special kind of brilliant. And if he was keeping up with her kind of genius in his studies, it only made the Kevin even more proud of his son.

The Surface Patrol leader sighed again.

After watching Salvar for a while, the Kevin noticed a thick, tall, red headed cadet named Korven Bently coming towards his son. The Kevin knew Korven’s reputation as a bully. And though his fatherly instinct urged him to go down out of the observation room to stop the confrontation, his duty as the leader of the Surface Patrol prevented him before he opened the door. It was policy that their cadets learned how to stand up for themselves without outside interference. The Patrol's philosophy was that bullying only stopped when the cadets learned to stand their ground. Of course this only applied to dealing with a singular bully and not with a crowd of bullies picking on one soldier. The standard for that was to privately inform their instructor or the head Alea, who would then privately observe their behavior to verify the complaint, and if proven guilty the crowd of bullies would be separated and individually given heavy cleaning duty as punishment. The Kevin stood, staring out the tinted window, watching. His son would have to handle this bully on his own.

“Hey weenie! Waiting for little Zippy’s flight pad?” Korven said to Salvar through the cacophony of the children’s voices echoing in the enormous flight hall. The space contained a circular track aroid the perimeter for racing and obstacle course flight while in the center was an open area with an even softer padded floor for basic flight training. They were along the track. “Don’t bother.” He swaggered with thick chin high. “Your flying stinks. Even your daddy can’t get you into the Patrol because you are so bad.”

Salvar's blue eyes glared at Korven with a fixed frown. “Shut up, Korven.”

Korven stood closer.

“You are only in with the cadets because ‘Daddy’ let you in here. You are such a baby, you play with a girl.” Korven sneered. The kid was built like a brick. His brain was just about as thick. Most girls his age were about as big as him if not taller. But he still swaggered around them as if he thought he was the better than everybody else. Mostly, he just like being bigger than the other boys.

“I am not, Korven! Leave me alone! We're going to get in trouble,” Salvar protested, backing away.

“Leave me alone!” Korven mocked, following him. “I bet you even wet the bed.”

“Shut up, Korven!” Salvar’s face was getting as red as his hair. “You’re just jealous because the Kevin is my dad.”

“What did you say?” Korven stood closer, looming over Salvar like a great hulking mass.

Salvar backed up.

Korven shoved him back farther. “What did you say, worm boy?”

He pushed Salvar again.

“Stop pushing me!” Salvar yelled, backing up towards the wall.

Korven shoved him again. “Stop pushing me!”

The bully pushed Salvar right into the wall. Salvar hit it with a dull thud, the back of his skull barely rapping against it. Salvar tried to squeeze past the large boy to get away, but Korven grabbed Salvar's uniform and batted him around with his fat hands.

“Leave me alone!” Salvar’s voice cracked into a whine, trying not to fight him.

The Kevin could hardly watch. He muttered under his breath, “Come on Salvar. Knee him in the groin or something. Use your training.”

But Salvar did neither, instead holding his hands up to bat away Korven without actually fighting him. The Kevin was about to give up and go help his son—but he hesitated, watching intently while hoping his son would show some bravery, some bit of courage that would prove his future in the Surface Patrol.

And as he watched, something out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. Tiny Zormna Clendar landed her flight pad on the edge of the flying zone, hopping to her feet with an intense stare at Salvar and Korven. It was as if she needed one second to think—and only a second. Immediately she handed her flight pad to another child who was waiting a turn, and she promptly marched over to where Korven was. She stepped right up to where Korven was punching Salvar on the shoulder, putting her hand in the way.

Korven stopped when Zormna’s tiny hand laid against his fist.

“Leave Salvar alone,” Zormna’s tiny girlish voice said.

He turned to look at the small shy blonde who had so regularly sat mute in the back corner of class. A terrible grin spread across his face.

“What did you say little flea?” Korven towered over her—so much more than he did Salvar. Next to him, she looked like a little flower under a shoe.

Zormna’s dark green-eyes stared soberly at him, her expression so serious. “I said leave him alone.”

It was clear Korven was not used to this type of resistance, especially from this tiny girl. He stuck out his chin and grabbed Salvar by his uniform as if to make demonstration. “Make me.”

Nodding her sharp chin, Zormna said, “Ok.”

And as sincerely as she had challenged him, Zormna grabbed Korven by the waist and attempted to take him down.

The Kevin stared in shock. And the boy down below laughed.

Korven wrapped his arms around Zormna to squeeze her into submission, which considering his size would incapacitate her—but just as he did so, Zormna swiped one of her feet under Korven’s legs, knocked him off balance and jerking him to the floor. She pounced on the large boy’s back, grabbing his arm with a twist behind his vertebrae, and put the other arm in a lock the Kevin recognized. Leaning on his arm and back with her knee, a sharp pain shot up his spine. Korven kicked and screamed—certainly enough to draw the attention of everyone in the room, but he could not move out from under her.

All the cadets stopped. And looked.

Standing back in disbelief like dominoes toppling, the others murmured and stared at tiny Zormna Clendar atop her larger captive. Those in flight landed their flight pads until the entire roomful had ceased.

Their flight instructor ran straight over to the three children in the middle of it all. He first gaped at the sight of tiny Zormna Clendar maintaining a proper capture-pin of the enormous Korven Bently. The absurdity of it. The perfection of it. He was awestruck for a full minute before he came to his senses that she was breaking class rules. He reached in with the intention to yank her off.

But the Kevin decided that it was time to stop watching.

“Attention!” the Kevin called as soon as he stepped into the room, atop the stairs. 

Their instructor and all the children lined up at attention immediately—all except for Zormna Clendar and Korven whom Zormna still held hostage on the floor. Korven was no longer writhing. He had begun to weep out of mortification in a high whining pitch. It echoed off the flight cavern’s walls…. Which was even more mortifying.

The commanding officer, Alea Sholda, anxiously glanced back at the disobedient cadet with worry at what the Kevin might think. He was already inching back towards the children to drag the girl off the class bully, though he knew they had already been seen.

The Kevin took his time marching down the long flight of stairs overlooking the hall. At a steady, even pace, he strode over to the Alea.

Halting a foot away from the troublemakers, Alea Sholda saluted the Kevin with a twitch. “Uh, sir… This, uh, incident…”

 The Kevin held up his hand.

Alea Sholda bowed stiffly in silence, his ears a little red. He followed the Kevin as he walked up to Cadet Zormna Clendar and the weepy cadet below her.

Looking down at them both, the Kevin asked, “What are you doing, Cadet?”

Zormna gazed up at the Kevin apprehensively. But still dutifully holding Korven down, she said, “Pinning Cadet Korven, sir.”

The Kevin hid a smile.

“Why are you pinning him, Cadet?”

Zormna glanced down at Korven and then at Salvar, who was standing at attention in the ranks but