School started up shortly after. To accommodate the population growth a new bus stop was built that led directly into town. As Armin’s workload grew he could no longer afford to take Chloe to school, so now she had to take the bus instead. Chloe was not terribly happy about this, as it meant the loss of much of her time with Ana and Armin. Strangely there were not that many people there. As she approached she saw only a small handful of figures, one of which was smaller than the rest. Shouldering her backpack she drew closer and joined them to see the boy standing there with a backpack of his own.

They stood for a few minutes waiting for the bus to come. Chloe kept glancing at the boy while staring down the dusty road. She could see he was doing the same. A few of the adults grumbled about having to wait so long. Still the bus did not come. Finally she grew tired of waiting, and with nothing better to do she strode to his side.

“Hello.” She said, catching the boy off guard. He turned to face her. Chloe held out her hand to greet him, but he looked at her hand, and back down the road again. Disappointed, Chloe withdrew her hand and simply stood in silence until the bus arrived. As they boarded, Chloe found herself sitting next to him. Luckily Armin had taught her a few phrases she could use. She pointed to herself and said “Ya Chloe.” It was a simple enough phrase, but it was enough to catch his attention. Quizzically he looked at her, shocked to hear something in his own tongue. He looked ahead once more and responded “Yuri.” That must be his name, Chloe thought. Once more she held out her hand to him and to her surprise he shook it with a tentative grip.

Chloe smiled but couldn’t think of anything else to say to him. After a while she regained her courage and asked “So are you going to school?” It was a stupid question which she already knew the answer to.

The boy, Yuri, simply looked at her for a second then nodded his head.

The bus stopped a block away from the schoolhouse and the two of them walked from that point on. Yuri’s eyes widened as he took in his surroundings. Clearly he had never actually been to town before. To him the dusty and small town must have looked as fantastic to him as the Karagian magazines did to Chloe. For a moment he wandered off to look at something, but Chloe gently nudged him back. “Here,” she said. “This way.”

She ran out ahead of him and he followed her to the small stucco building. He stopped when she held the singular door open for him. His face fell and he stared inside. Then heaving a heavy sigh he trudged in.

Although there were not many classrooms and they weren’t far at all from each other, Chloe still felt a pang of disappointment as Yuri branched off and went slightly younger class. The rest of the time was a blur, and she forgot about him. Class was boring. Chloe mostly focused on solving math problems and trying not to fall asleep during history. By lunchtime she was bored out of her mind and dreading the amount of homework she had to do that night. She absentmindedly sat outside with the lunch Ana packed for her.

Each of the kids clumped together in groups. Chloe sat with her own group of friends as usual. Today she was not particularly talkative as she had nothing to say. So naturally she was in the position to see those around her. She noticed out of the corner of her eye as Yuri nervously worked his way into a group on the other side of the schoolyard. She saw as he sat down with them only for them to look at him and move away. When he started to say something to them, one of the other boys pointed to him and began mocking him. Yuri backed away and ran off into another corner, but one of the larger kids stopped him. “Are you gonna run away so soon?” the boy said, and pushed Yuri to the ground. Yuri stood up and started to say something, but the larger kid simply cut him off. “You can’t even talk right. Speak Artabanian you mongrel.”

At that moment something inside Chloe snapped. She could no longer just sit there and watch. Furious at such brazen treatment, she shot out of her seat and stomped over to the aggressor.

“Hey,” she snapped. “Leave him alone!”

One of the other girls nearby replied sarcastically. “Oh look. Ghost girl is gonna come to that retard’s rescue. Well I guess that just means weirdos attract each other.”

Chloe shot her a glance that could melt steel. If there was one thing she detested, it was being made fun of for her mild albinism. “Look here you…” She almost lost her temper when she suddenly remembered Yuri. She stopped mid-sentence, turned around and helped him back up. “Come with me.” she said, taking him by the hand and sitting down on an isolated bench. She saw the boy had a pitiful look on his face, and feeling sorry for him she opened up the rest of her lunch and gave him a piece of sweet bread. “Here,” she said, holding it out for him. “Try it. It’s good.” The boy took it and stuffed the whole piece in his mouth. His eyes widened as he chewed. “Mmmmm. Eta horosha.”

“Yeah.” said Chloe. “Ana’s a pretty good cook.” She smiled. Yuri stared at her blankly. “Chto?”

Chloe sighed. “You really don’t speak much Artabanian at all, do you?” The boy just gave her a puzzled look. Sighing once more Chloe said to herself, “I really don’t know why they sent you here if you can’t even speak the language.”

She spent the rest of the day puzzling over what to do. That night after dinner, Chloe told Ana and Armin about her situation. “I don’t know what to do.” she said. “Why did they even send him to a school where he doesn’t understand anything?”

Armin sat back in his seat and groaned. “Well, that’s the fault of the planning committee for this project. You have to understand that there are just so few people here with families that it doesn’t justify building a new school. We had one planned for later, but now we just don’t have the funds.” Then he squinted his eyes. “Aren’t they supposed to be teaching him that sort of thing?”

Chloe just shrugged.

“Huh, well they’re not doing a very good job of it.”

After sitting a while a while he began to read his newspaper. Then suddenly he jumped up from his seat and cried “Aha!” He ran to his study, and Chloe could hear murmurs of frustration. Cautiously she approached the doorway where she could see him rummaging through stacks of books. He told her to come and help him hold one particular stack. Finally he pulled out two books. One was a large dusty tome with a faded scarlet cover. It smelled funny to Chloe, as though it hadn’t seen the light for countless ages. On top of it was a smaller leather-bound booklet with pages bent over. He handed them both to her.

“This,” he said pointing to the larger book, “Was the book they used to teach me grammar when I was in school. That was back when they knew how to teach.” He snorted. “This other one was a manual I picked up in Karagia. It has all the phrases, so it’s pretty useful. I dunno. They might help. See what you can do with them.”

The following morning Chloe found Yuri at the same spot by the bus stop. As soon as she found the opportunity she sat by him and pulled out the larger book and a pencil from her backpack. “Medad.” she said, pointing to the pencil. The boy turned his head. He no longer seemed so tentative.

“Medad.” Chloe said again, this time opening up her book and showing him the word.

“Medad?” said the boy, taking out his own pencil and pointing to it.

“Yes!” Chloe said, excited. “Medad.”

“Ah, said Yuri, and he began repeating the word.

Chloe turned to another page, this time with the Artabanian alphabet. She pointed to the first letter of the page. “Ah.”

“Ah.” Yuri imitated.

“Yoo-wuh.”

“Y-yoo-wuh?”

Chloe nodded. “Luh.”

And so on it went until they arrived at school. Chloe let Yuri have the larger book while she kept the leather booklet for herself. During intermittent periods between classwork she would glance at it to learn something, starting with the Karagian alphabet. She had it confiscated by the teacher, though, so she couldn’t read it during lunchtime. She did however meet with Yuri, who had questions. And that night as she did her homework she read more of her book, which had been returned by the end of the day.

By next morning she met Yuri on the bus again. To her surprise he produced a crumpled sheet of paper from his pocket containing most of the Artabanian alphabet. He recited each letter softly to himself, but Chloe could not help but correct him when he made the inevitable mistake. And on the way back from school she would show him her book of Karagian letters, and he would help her pronounce them. This went on for about a week, and by that time Yuri had taken to learning whole words. However, he did not know how to teach her his own language.

The sessions on the bus grew to be too short, so Chloe and Yuri began to meet during lunch. Soon they even began to have short conversations in Artabanian. Although Yuri had grammar classes, it was with Chloe that he truly learned to speak and understand those around him. As for Chloe, this meant she too could learn his own language. At the end of the school day she would walk to his house to have him teach her as much as he could. While the boy was reluctant to teach her at first, he soon grew into his role as her teacher. Thus began the spark that would ignite a lasting friendship.