Euphoria Kids by Alison Evans

Author:Alison Evans
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fiction, genderqueer, Queer, #writeourown, Fairies, Non-binary, LGBT
ISBN: 9781760686499
Publisher: Bonnier Publishing Fiction
Published: 2020-01-14T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

The Art Project

‘This is the project you’ll complete as part of your final assessment for this term,’ Miranda says, and she seems pretty excited. I wonder what it’ll be, what we’ll have to use. She’s always either very particular or extremely open in her instructions, and I’m not sure what to expect from her tone. She walks around the room handing out photocopied pieces of paper, and on the first sheet there’s the assessment grid all the teachers have to give us. Scorings out of five for originality, dedication, things like that. My marks in art are never really that great for skill, but she always gives me a good enough mark for trying.

Babs walked into the room at the start of class, but she’s disappeared since then, so I’m just sitting next to the boy.

‘How did you choose your name?’ he asks me.

‘This is the one my mothers gave me.’ I unzip my pencil case and get out a greylead. ‘I think they knew, somehow. They said they wouldn’t mind if I changed it.’

‘That must be nice.’

I frown. ‘Is your dad not okay with you?’ I can’t believe a parent would act like that, though I know that they do.

‘No, no, he’s fine. I just mean, it’s so hard choosing a name. Some people seem to find it so easy, but I just can’t seem to find one that fits.’

‘You will,’ Babs says, appearing. ‘I chose this one because I feel like I always knew it was mine, and you’ll have that moment too. It’s okay. You’ll be okay.’

He smiles then exhales a tiny tornado. I wonder if his ribs are big enough for how he feels. His body is radiating something, but I can’t tell what. Maybe he is made of fire like Babs, but in a different way.

‘It’s just . . . it makes me feel a bit lost, I think.’ He gets out his brand-new packet of pencils, different from the coloured ones he had last time, and pierces the plastic. He pulls out the lightest greylead. ‘Sometimes I don’t feel real.’

Maybe he is made up of the space between the stars, of nothingness, the void. He could be yawning and wide, like the universe. ‘You’re real,’ I say. ‘You’re real and we’re here for you.’

Babs nods at him. ‘I might not always be around, like physically, but text me, okay? I can always access that.’

‘Unless your battery runs out.’ He grins at her.

She laughs, and takes out her bundle of pencils. ‘Unless that, yes.’

‘Come on, you three,’ Miranda says, without any malice.

Babs looks up in surprise, but then gets right to work, sketching out something so rough I can’t tell what it is. I pick up the handout and take a look at what we’re supposed to do. It’s one of her open assignments, worth fifty per cent of our mark, and not due until the end of term. We’re supposed to create a folio as well, showing our process and how we chose to do what we did.

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