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In this soup kitchen sits a nun in partial habit, sipping water and frowning at a desk. It is very irregular for adults who aren't volunteering to be at the soup kitchen. It is very irregular for expensive electronics to be in the soup kitchen. The volunteers do seem to know her; they call her "Carlotta".
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Oat curls up on the inflatable mattress, so tiny it's hard to tell he's even there unless you stare very hard at the folds of the scrunched-up puffy blanket. He has probably never had a puffy blanket to scrunch up before in his life.
It's adorable. Especially compared to the total blank of facial expression or the subsequent little lawn-gnome smile. ...Sister Carlotta reminds herself that he is one of God's children. She goes on the couch and sleeps.
In the morning, neither the blanket nor Oat is on the inflatable mattress.
"Lieke? Have you seen Oat?"
"Oat? The little child?"
"Yes, he was on the air mattress last night but now he's gone. He's small but not so small I wouldn't notice if he'd crawled into the pillowcase -"
A closet door opens, revealing Oat standing on a box to reach the doorknob. He gets down off the box.
"There you are! What were you doing in the closet?"
"I couldn't sleep. I like small spaces."
"...Oh. Well, I hope you slept well." She sets about deflating the mattress. Lieke goes down to the soup kitchen and Carlotta gets herself and Oat... oatmeal. (It's what Lieke has.)
Oat does not comment on the nominative determinism of the meal.
And then Carlotta opens up her desk and reads her messages!
"Oat, have you heard about Battle School?" she inquires.
"Oat, have you heard about Battle School?" she inquires.
"Yes."
"They'd like to put you through some different tests - mostly physical tests - and see if you might be a good fit for them. Does that sound good?"
"Yes."
So they depart the soup kitchen building and go to a much nicer part of the city and Carlotta gets a hotel and an extremely dubious I.F. proctor puts Oat through obstacle courses and similar.
Oat is tiny and malnourished, but ruthlessly determined to succeed at all costs. He passes the obstacle courses, some creatively, and the various physical fitness assessments, some barely. And there are rules about accommodating disabilities; they can't disqualify him just because he's really short. Maybe he'll grow out of it.
That is what usually happens with really short people, at least to some extent.
And then there's the genetic test! "They're going to see if you have the X-gene," Sister Carlotta says. "Do you know what that is?"
And then there's the genetic test! "They're going to see if you have the X-gene," Sister Carlotta says. "Do you know what that is?"
"Yes."
"Even if you do it probably won't manifest for a long time," she says. "For most people it doesn't until they're twelve or thirteen, sometimes even later. Do you know how old you are?"
"I am at least four and probably not more than six."
Nod. "The paperwork needs a birthday; do you want to pick one yourself?"
"I don't care."
"Well," she says, "you've passed all the tests and whether you have the X-gene or not it won't make a difference; you can go to Battle School. How about your birthday can be tomorrow and you can celebrate it properly the once before you go into space? November eighteenth."
"Okay."
And so on his "birthday" Oat "turns five" and receives cake and is encouraged to speak up if there is anything else he wanted to do on Earth and discovers that he is going to have a mutant power one day -
- then shortly after he is flown to another part of the world more amenable than Rotterdam for spaceship takeoff and put in a spaceship.
- then shortly after he is flown to another part of the world more amenable than Rotterdam for spaceship takeoff and put in a spaceship.
There is not anything else he wanted to do on Earth. Cake, however, is delicious (he says solemnly).
The safety restraints on the shuttle seats do not fit him, because he is too small.
The safety restraints on the shuttle seats do not fit him, because he is too small.