The Search for Ulyssa by Heidi J. Leavitt

Author:Heidi J. Leavitt [Leavitt, Heidi J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781070144900
Published: 2019-08-05T06:00:00+00:00

10. Spring Fever

To Kendra’s surprise, Mikal and his friends were not expelled from the university. She thought that attacking someone with a knife—even if no one was injured—would be grounds for immediate dismissal. Zara had an explanation for it though. She shared that her mentor confided to her that there was a “suggestion” from Mikal’s father to the dean that it was just a prank—thoughtless perhaps, and past the line of appropriate campus behavior, but just a result of “high youthful spirits.” Since Mikal’s father donated very generously to the university every year, his opinion was given a great deal of weight.

“So they’re not kicking him out because they still want his father’s yearly donation,” Kendra summed up.

“That is the crass and direct way to describe the traditional system of influence, but yes,” Zara agreed. Instead, Mikal was placed on probation. He was warned to steer clear of anything even approaching violence toward anyone in the complex in the future or he would be expelled.

“Really truly expelled?” asked Kendra skeptically. “Or only technically expelled until his father decides to fund a new building wing?”

Zara pursed her lips. She thought Kendra’s open observations were too forward. One should only hint at such things, never speak of them openly. One of the ethics rules, Kendra was sure, though she wasn’t sure how ethics came into it at all.

The crazy incident with Mikal aside, the gloomy atmosphere on campus finally started to lift. The spring days grew long and beautiful, and it was warming up quickly. Kendra’s second term finished in a flurry of exams that were nearly impossible to study for—the weather outside beckoned temptingly. The complex had several large multipurpose sports fields as well as the biodiversity gardens, and there was enough novelty that Kendra wasn’t yet tempted to break her promise to her aunt and venture out of the complex.

When she received her schedule for her third term, she was delighted to learn that she would be starting dancing lessons. She had loved to dance by herself—or with Dina providing a partner built of fallen leaves—when she was a child, but she had never had the opportunity to dance with a real partner. The Denicorizens preferred very formal, stylized dances with complicated steps, and when the university hosted its quarterly ball, it rotated between music and styles prevalent on each of the nine Union council planets as well as Corizen. This term was supposed to be the Denicorizen-themed ball (if they didn’t end up canceling it again), and so all the first-year students were assigned a dancing class so they could learn the steps.

The first day of dance class, Kendra joined the girls huddling together on one side of the large assembly room. They looked around in anticipation, many shooting glances at the young men who were slowly filling the chairs that lined the far side of the room. Some of the Terran boys slunk in, as if they were afraid that someone might see them and accuse them of something shocking, like wanting to learn dance steps.

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