11. Back then
Back then
It wasn’t like the human movies, Helena thought.
In the human movies, high schools had cliques which gave everyone prescribed roles to fill and there were levels of popularity which everyone understood and respected.
If it were like the human movies, Bertram being on a sports team would mean that he was the Most Popular Guy Ever and Helena would be somewhat revered just because she spent time with Bertram’s mother and therefore Bertram knew her name.
Helena could tell she annoyed Bertram, at least a little, but she could tell she annoyed the other kids even more. Even in a program for science and tech, most kids eventually got bored of hearing about science and tech.
Not Helena.
And, luckily for her, not Bertram.
“What color is a polar bear’s skin?” Helena asked.
“Black,” said Bertram. “What do you call a reptilian social group?”
“A circulus,” Helena said. “From Latin, meaning ‘social gathering.’ What reptile species has been seen adopting non-genetically-related young into their circulus? I’ll give you a clue: It’s a lizard.”
Bertram narrowed his eyes. “Trick question. Social reptiles are very rare, but there are multiple species—”
“Not who are proven to adopt. I’ll give you a clue. It’s the only member of the genus Corucia—”
“That’s a dumb clue,” Bertram said, which usually meant he didn’t know.
“It’s the largest living skink,” Helena said.
“Oh. The Solomon Islands skink,” Bertram said at once, and they were back on. “What species of otherfolk is endemic exclusively to the Solomon Islands?”
“The fire-breathing bullfrog, also known as the Solomon Islands bullfrog. What dragon’s lesser-used name contains the word ‘bull’ in it?”
Bertram snorted and rolled his eyes. “The Antiochles drake, obviously, less commonly known as the bull-snouted drake.”
Even on days when they didn’t spend time together, if they just passed each other in the hallway between classes, one would call out a piece of trivia to the other, and that Person would shout back the answer.
Helena knew a little more than was necessary—the taxonomy and the Latin translations thereof—but Bertram’s knowledge of otherfolk and mundane animals certainly rivaled Helena’s own.
Helena began seeking him out, drawn like a moth to a flame.
She wasn’t sure exactly when the line was crossed, but somehow being excited to go to school each day became being excited to go to school each day and see Bertram.
There was even one horrible, sickening moment when she was going to have lunch with Dr. Jenevieve, Countess of Roussillon—the Dr. Jenevieve, Countess of Roussillon! Her lifelong hero! —and she wondered excitedly if Bertram would be there.
She wanted to kick herself for that.
But she couldn’t help liking Bertram. Everyone liked Bertram.
He was easy to like. He was good at everything, but not in the annoying over-the-top way Helena was.
He didn’t constantly need to prove himself by giving three times as much as what anyone was asking for.
He gave exactly the right amount—of information, of conversation, of smiles—at exactly the right time.
He had his own friend group, mostly the guys he played sports with. Two werewolves, a kappa, a horned umberfae, and someone Helena thought might also be human, but she was too scared to ask. Helena would never presume to insert herself into his friend group.
But she would grab a book and sit at the table next to theirs at lunch and watch Bertram out of the corner of her eye, or if she was feeling really brave, she’d take her book and sit at the same table as them.
Then Bertram’s umberfae friend Dumaine started calling Helena “Bertram’s little girlfriend,” and that was all over.
“You should hang with kids your own age,” Bertram said.
“There are no kids my age,” Helena answered.
“Well. You should at least hang out with girls.”
“I don’t know any girls.”
“I’ll introduce you to some. They’ll be your friends.”
At lunch, Bertram called Helena over, then walked with her to a table of giggling freshman girls. He shoved her toward them like an unwanted present he was regifting.
“This is Helena. She’s cool, so be nice to her. For me.” Bertram nodded curtly. “Helena, these are your new friends.”
And they were.
Marianne, a fellow human, Chelsea, a faun, and Bess, a werewolf, were all very nice to Helena.
Unlike the boys who sat with Bertram and ignored her, they actually talked to Helena, asking her tons of questions about herself and letting her in on their stories in turn.
They had a lot of questions about Bertram particularly, and she did her best to answer them.
They helped Helena carry her books and showed her how to do makeup and they taught her all the things that were wrong with her body by their constant complaints about their own. They were shocked that she never knew how ashamed she should be of her cellulite until they told her.
“Have you never read a magazine?” was the resounding ask.
Helena had just enough sense not to ask if peer-review journals counted.
Helena helped them in math—the three girls’ agreed upon worst subject—and in history, which they also hated. Marianne explained that she didn’t even like science or technology, but her father had gone to Titania Tech, and he wanted Marianne to go there too, so here she was.
When Marianne’s midterm history essay came back nearly identical to Helena’s, Marianne begged Helena to say that it was Marianne who had helped Helena with her essay, rather than the other way around.
“Everyone loves you,” Marianne insisted. “You’re so smart and also you’re younger. They would be soooo mad at me. But no one will be mad at you.”
So, when she was called to the principal’s office, Helena said that Marianne had helped her quite a bit.
“Do you understand the difference between ‘helping’ and ‘plagiarizing?’ ” the principal asked.
Helena could’ve given a word-for-word dictionary definition of plagiarism and cite some of the most infamous examples in the scientific community, but she thought doing so might make her story more suspicious, and a suspicious story might put her friendship with Marianne in jeopardy.
“I guess I’m a little confused,” Helena said instead.
The principal slowly and patiently explained the concept of plagiarism to Helena like she was an idiot, and Helena felt like an idiot for letting it happen.
“If this is more than you can handle, that’s okay,” the principal said. “We all know you’re very smart, Helena, but no one would blame you if you needed to go back to a more age-appropriate grade.”
“Maybe I’m just overwhelmed?” Helena suggested. “If you give me a little more time, I’m sure I’ll get it.”
Marianne was so grateful, telling Helena that she was her absolute best friend in the world and none of the other girls had ever been as good to Marianne as Helena had.
She also had more questions to ask about Bertram—she told Helena that she wanted to be a countess one day, but that that was a secret between the two of them, as best friends, and Helena absolutely could not tell Bertram that Marianne had said that, or Marianne would die of shame.
Helena had no intention of telling Bertram—not just because she would never betray Marianne, but also because the idea of Marianne being Countess of Roussillon made Helena’s stomach feel funny.
She didn’t like it. She didn’t know who should be the next Countess of Roussillon, but she knew it should be someone who didn’t particularly want the title but wanted Bertram instead.
It all came to a head before freshman year was even halfway through.
Gerard couldn’t miss work in the middle of the day, so Dr. J stepped in on his behalf when the school called.
“There’s been an issue of academic fraud raised?” Dr. J said as Helena sat in the corner of the principal’s office, wishing she could melt into the wall.
“Helena cheated on her math test,” the principal explained. “She’s unquestionably bright, but I’d rather she be studying at a lower level than aim so high that she compromises her integrity—”
“And who told you that Helena cheated on her math test?” Dr. J asked.
“Helena admitted cheating once she was caught,” said the principal. “She and her friend both scored very well on the test, but the few errors were identical in a way that could only make sense due to copying.”
“I’m very glad Helena has made friends,” said Dr. J, with a smile.
The principal frowned. “Oh, that’s, uh. Forgive me, Countess—”
“Doctor,” Dr. J corrected.
“Of course. Forgive me, Doctor. But the fact that Helena has made friends was not the important piece of information; it’s that she was cheating—”
“No,” Dr. J said.
The principal blinked. “I’m sorry, Doctor, but I do think it’s important—”
“Sorry, you misunderstand. I didn’t mean ‘no, that’s not important.’ I meant ‘no, Helena wasn’t cheating.’”
The principal opened and closed his mouth. “I—I imagine this would be a sensitive subject for you, if you feel you’ve staked your reputation on this girl—”
“Fuck my reputation,” Dr. J said, and Helena put her hands over her ears.
Dr. J demanded that a test of the same unit and level of mathematics be printed and brought to the room, where it was placed in front of Helena.
Helena stared at the test blankly. “I—I don’t know how to do these.”
“Let me tell you why only one part of that story interested me, Principal Florence,” Dr. J began, slowly.
“I know Helena’s capabilities as a scientist and as a mathematician.
We are both still learning Helena’s capacities to socialize with conspecifics, and I know this is sometimes difficult for her, because she describes trying to make friends as ‘time spent socializing with conspecifics.’ What I learned from your reportage is therefore that Helena needs to learn not only to make friends, but to understand which friends are worth keeping.
If someone is asking you to lie for them, if someone is trying to use you for their gain, especially if it’s to your detriment, then they’re not really your friend at all. ”
“Doctor Roussillon—”
“Doctor Countess of Roussillon.”
“Yes, that,” the principal said, “If you’re trying to imply that it was one of the other girls who were cheating off Helena, then I’m afraid—”
“Finished,” Helena said, quietly, and handed back the completed test.
She had gotten a perfect score.
Marianne was suspended from school for two weeks, and she suspended her friendship from Helena permanently.
Helena cried for a month.
“Those girls aren’t your friends,” said Dr. J. “The only thing they wanted from you was academic fraud and Bertram, and the only thing they want from Bertram is a title and wealth.”
“Thanks,” Bertram muttered. He and Urghk were throwing a ball back and forth in the yard as Helena sat beside Dr. J on the porch swing, feeling like her life was over.
“It’s not your fault, Bertram, or yours, Helena. People are going to want to use you sometimes. But there are People in life who will want you for you. When you make friends like those, you hold on to them.”
At lunch the next day, Bertram grabbed Helena by the hand and brought her over to his table, where he addressed his teammates.
“Helena’s not my girlfriend, okay? That’s gross. But she’s my mom’s friend and so she’s kind of my friend so keep your mouths shut about her and just let her read her stupid books with us. And if anyone makes fun of me—or her—then I will mess you up. Okay?”
Everyone agreed that this was, more or less, “okay,” mostly because Bertram was sort of terrifying when he wanted to be. No one really knew what Bertram meant by “mess them up” because Bertram had never actually messed anyone up for any reason. That made the threat all the more menacing.
And yes, it wasn’t a gallant declaration of love for Helena on his part; it was barely a declaration of tolerance.
But Bertram let Helena sit next to him at the table and read her books (which were not stupid), and if anyone even glanced at her funny, Bertram glowered powerfully enough that they all left Helena alone.
Perhaps it wasn’t the grand romantic gesture of her dreams, but for a girl with a book, anyone who gets People to leave her alone to read is a knight in shining armor.