"Turn your workbooks to page sixty-four," Ms. Adlewood declared, pacing before the chalkboard, her heeled boots playing a staccato rhythm on the floor.
A whisper of shuffling pages erupted as Silas and his classmates followed her order. Finding the correct page, Silas read the title printed in thick ink at the top:
Chapter Four:
The Established and Theorized Histories of the Human-Unspoken Conflict
Turning sharply on her heel, Ms. Adlewood stopped at the far right corner of the room, the door at her back. Slowly, she swept her evergreen eyes across the room, meeting each pupil's attentive gaze in turn, her stare lingering on Silas for a moment. "I believe you are all quite well-versed in the subject matter of this chapter by this point in your education, am I correct?" A subtle smile turned the corners of her lips.
A murmur of agreement responded.
"As I suspected," Ms. Adlewood continued, reaching into the breast pocket of her coat to reveal a stub of chalk. "Thus, I have decided to skip today's usual reading in favor of a debate."
Silas's mood darkened, a sharp contrast to the excited shouts around him.
"Ms. Adlewood, Ms. Adlewood," cried Trobuk's shrill voice directly into Silas's ear, the volume and proximity making him jump. "Surely, Silent Silas here must be exempt from such an activity. How do you figure he is to be a contributing member of his team with such a speechless disposition?"
Silas’s ears and cheeks burned with shame, but he otherwise didn't react, keeping his attention fixed forward. Ms. Adlewood ignored the question and scrawled in her neat, flowing hand on the board:
Team Human / Team Unspoken
Trobuk giggled and announced, "Clearly, Silas should be on the team in favor of the Unspoken. His presence there would elevate the immersion of this lesson, would you not agree, Charlotte?"
With his peripheral vision, Silas spied the girl seated at the leftmost corner of the room, her back flinching in response to the attention. Silas groaned inwardly as his shy friend was wrenched into Trobuk's joke. Before Charlotte could muster a response, Ms. Adlewood intervened.
"That is enough, Mister Dannel," she said, her words punctuated by the click of her heel.
"I was merely providing a suggestion," Trobuk replied evenly.
"A suggestion it may have been, Mister Dannel, yet a gratuitous one at that," Ms. Adlewood remarked with finality. A quiet giggle emanated from the class. She bent low to search behind her podium. Straightening, she revealed a small drawstring sack. "As for teams, a lottery will be the determining factor. I believe that luck will prove more immersive than arbitrary nomination."
Silas's eyes widened at this. He glanced at his fellow pupils to gauge their reaction. While nobody else seemed to notice, his heart lurched at the shrouded meaning behind her words.
Each pupil scribed their name on a strip of parchment and deposited the scrap into the bag now resting on Ms. Adlewood's podium. After all names were collected, Ms. Adlewood reached into the bag and read them off. Starting with the first name as number one, an odd number, and continuing with number two, an even number, she read each name while writing on the chalkboard. Odd-numbered names were listed beneath the Unspoken category, and even-numbered names under the Human category. Silas's name was pulled last. With twenty-one total pupils in the class, Silas was naturally sorted to the Unspoken team.
At least I will have Charlotte on my side, Silas thought bitterly. I will need the camaraderie to confront Trobuk on Team Human.
The classroom was then divided in half, with Team Unspoken on the right and Team Human on the left to reflect the position of the teams on the chalkboard. The desks were reorganized so pupils faced each other. Silas did everything in his power to pretend he couldn’t see Trobuk sneering at him.
"The structure of the debate will be as follows," Ms. Adlewood said from her perch in the center of the aisle created by the turned desks. "I will propose a topic, and you will have five minutes to formulate a response. Each team will offer an argument in response to the topic. You will respond in a manner realistic for your side of the equation." She paused and regarded both sides of the classroom evenly. "After each side has presented its argument, there will be a three-minute timeframe in which you will construct your counterargument against the other team. After this period, each team will again be allowed to speak, this time refuting the opposing team's stance. Are there questions?"
A girl in the front row shot her hand upward. After Ms. Adlewood nodded, she asked, "Does the grade we receive for this assignment depend on whether our side won or lost the debate?" A bubble of nervous whispers rose.
Ms. Adlewood clicked her heel to silence the class. "It does not, Miss Thorne. This is an intellectual debate, not a street brawl. Neither team will win nor lose. As long as members of both teams contribute equally, everyone will receive full marks for this assignment."
A relieved sigh settled among the pupils. After a pause, a fidgety boy with legs ever-bobbing reluctantly bent his arm halfway above his head. Ms. Adlewood directed him to speak after encouraging him to raise his arm fully.
"D-does every p-pupil n-need t-to s-speak in f-front of t-the c-class?" he stuttered.
Ms. Adlewood shook her head. "I will leave it to each team to decide. If you want a single representative to present your arguments, you can have that. If you want to alternate speakers, you may entertain that as well. As long as I see each pupil attentively contributing to the formulation of arguments, I am indifferent as to how the arguments are presented."
The boy relaxed back into his seat, his legs still bobbing. Silas relaxed as well. He always disliked presenting to the class with sign while Ms. Adlewood interpreted for him vocally.
With no hands remaining in the air, Ms. Adlewood cleared her throat. "For the first round, I want each team to propose an argument justifying why their species has the right to expand their territory into that of the other. Begin!"
Silas stiffened, unsure from which angle to approach this question. He glanced up at the Human team across the aisle, eagerly scrawling down responses and chatting amongst themselves. Meanwhile, those on Silas's team were scratching their heads and leafing through the pages of their workbooks, unsure of how to support their viewpoint. Being on the Unspoken team was, in Silas's opinion, unfairly harder. Their textbooks never justified the Unspoken's behavior, or their existence, for that matter. Silas had been taught that the Unspoken were an inferior, less-intelligent race cohabiting the same planet. Since primeval times, humans and the Unspoken had been at war, always striving over the right to cultivate the lands and expand their populations. Humans justified their stance by declaring that they were more intelligent and thus needed more territory to build and invent, while the Unspoken only needed land to forage and shelter in, requiring less of it. Nearly every human city on the planet was established after a Great War with the Unspoken yielded in favor of humanity.
A gentle nudge to his right shoulder broke Silas from his musings. He turned to face Charlotte's shy smile, and an idea coalesced. While the textbooks offered little in support of the Unspoken, they nevertheless acknowledged the poor choices humans had made throughout history. Turning to a blank page in his workbook, Silas put stylus to parchment, scratching out his thoughts. As he wrote, Charlotte read over his shoulder, occasionally murmuring when she concurred and writing down her own ideas when they disagreed. With nothing else to go on, the other pupils on his team crowded around Silas's desk, everyone silently agreeing that Silas's argument would be theirs to present.
"Time!" Ms. Adlewood called, a lustrous golden pocketwatch held before her. "Styluses down."
Quickly, Silas scrawled the last sentence before handing it to the pupil who volunteered to present their argument. The girl—one Isla Portwill—gave him a curt nod as Silas placed his stylus on the desk in finality.
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"Human team, you are up first," Ms. Adlewood decided before turning and walking to the podium in the front of the classroom, clearing the aisle.
Trobuk grinned and rose confidently from his seat, his arrogant smile daring Silas to meet his gaze. He cleared his throat dramatically before beginning his oration.
"From a young age, we have been drilled on the nature of the conflict between us humans and the others who inhabit this world with us." Trobuk placed great emphasis on the distinction. "As we well know, scholars have been debating the impetus of the Unspoken, asking, 'Why do they organize against us when we have so graciously gifted them land to call their own? What motivates them to perpetually trouble our society with their primordial struggles?'" He paused, his eyes glancing up from the notepad held before him. "Unspoken sympathizers assert that all intelligent life deserves to live on equal footing. But it is well established that the Unspoken are not intelligent beings."
Silas twitched involuntarily at an obnoxious, high-pitched hum gathering between his ears. No, he thought, not now! He shook his head, attempting to ward off the sound, and forced himself to focus on Trobuk as the boy's speech gained momentum.
"Ancient philosophers proposed the Verbal Ordinance—the notion that sentience and oral communication are concomitant." Trobuk's eyes locked with Silas's, flashing him a pompous grin. He stepped into the aisle and began pacing it up and down. "The Unspoken cannot communicate, thus they lack the cerebral capacity for intelligence. Unlike us humans" —Trobuk jabbed his thumb toward his chest— "who need vast resources and land to progress our innovative pursuits, the Unspoken require only rudimentary resources to sustain their vital functions."
"Make your closing remarks!" Ms. Adlewood called from behind her podium, glancing between Trobuk and her pocketwatch.
Trobuk nodded in acknowledgement. "Finally, we call upon logics to justify our exploits. In nature, the species whose evolution equips them with the characteristics most suitable for survival in a given habitat will proliferate, while the species possessing less desirable traits will fade into oblivion. Such is the natural order of this world. Humans have the characteristics necessary not only for survival, but for thriving on this planet. It may be unfortunate, but it is veracious to say that the Unspoken are simply underqualified to call this planet their home. Thus, we humans have the right to expand our territory and encroach upon the lands of the Unspoken. After all, we were the ones who gifted them the land they do have in the first place. It is our right to take it back if we so please." With a flourish, Trobuk closed his notepad, executed a low bow, and positioned himself back in his desk facing the opposing team.
The Human team clapped raucously after Trobuk concluded. He soaked up the applause, tilting his head in acceptance of his team's praise. The noise only worsened Silas's discomfort as the sound in his head crescendoed into a clamorous assault on his senses. He closed his eyes and rested his head on the desk, sighing when the cool surface pressed against his forehead. At the weight of a gentle hand on his shoulder, he turned his head to the right to address Charlotte's concerned expression. Are you okay? was the meaning conveyed in her face. As if in response, a steady trickle of blood began to flow from his nostrils, pooling on the desk beneath his face. Charlotte's eyes widened, and she made to stand. Pinching his nostrils closed with his left hand, Silas grabbed Charlotte's sleeve with his right. Unwillingly, she sat back down.
Determined not to make a scene, Silas dabbed at the blood puddle on the desk with his sleeve, succeeding only in smearing it across the hard surface. Still pinching his nostrils, Silas flashed Charlotte what he hoped was a reassuring smile. Unconvinced, she raised her eyebrows but, shrugging, returned her attention forward.
"Unspoken Team, send forth your representative," Ms. Adlewood said distractedly, scrawling notes behind her podium as she graded the previous team's performance.
Silas stifled a gasp, inhaling deeply to calm his heartbeat. The rapid whoosh whoosh of blood drumming against his eardrums was only exacerbating the jarringly loud hiss within his mind, growing in strength, threatening to erupt from his skull.
Isla, who had offered to be the Unspoken Team's representative, stood, gathering her loose notes into an orderly pile. Stepping into the aisle, she considered Team Human with an undaunted stare, observing their self-satisfied expressions with narrowed eyes.
"Humanity's cursory understanding of the plight of the Unspoken has drawn an arbitrary line between us," the girl began softly yet clearly, her voice gaining volume as she continued. "An eons-old misunderstanding defines our conflict, painting humans as the rightful heirs to the throne of this world and the Unspoken the filthy vermin infecting their kingdom. To understand the Unspoken, we need to dig deeper and look further behind us. How are we to weave our future if we do not learn from the snags of our mistakes that define history?"
By this point, Silas could barely hear Isla over the wailing in his head. His vision undulated and blurred with the rise and fall of the sound, disorienting him. He bit the inside of his cheek, focusing on the sharp pain to ground himself in reality.
"The Human Team correctly identified the Verbal Ordinance as the philosophical notion that sentience and verbal communication are linked," the girl continued, Trobuk's face contorting with annoyance. "However, they conveniently excluded the fact that this Ordinance was crafted after the Great Droswick War. This monumental win for humanity was won through war crimes, coercion, and betrayal. Before the final battle, General Vey of the human army declared that if the Unspoken won, their intelligence would be officially recognized. But he knew the Unspoken would lose before the fighting even began.
"The leader of the Unspoken army was working with an arms dealer believed to be on the Unspoken's side. Unbeknownst to the Unspoken, however, was that this arms dealer was feeding the Unspoken army with faulty weapons purposefully crafted to fail. Not only did these weapons not fire at humans, but they misfired on the Unspoken. They were destroyed by the very tools they believed would secure their victory."
"Wrap up your argument," Ms. Adlewood said, holding her stopwatch in one hand and scribing notes with the other.
The girl nodded and proclaimed, "There is insufficient evidence to declare the Unspoken nonsentient. Until it has been definitively proven, the Unspoken deserve land as much as humans do."
A wave of nausea hit Silas as Isla concluded and waltzed back to her desk. He screwed his eyes shut, willing his churning stomach to contain his breakfast. Vaguely, Silas was aware of Charlotte slipping from her chair and hastening toward the front of the classroom. Moments later, Ms. Adlewood's gentle hands stroked his back and pulled him upright and out of his chair. On unsteady legs—eyes still closed—Silas let himself be led blindly from the classroom and into the hallway. The tickling crinkle of a tissue was pressed against his face to absorb the blood freely dribbling down his chin, saturating the fabric of his down coat.
The squealing in his mind evolved into a chaotic murmuring, Voices tangling together into a painful force hammering the inside of Silas's skull. At first confused and urgent, the Voices coalesced into a single, firm entity.
Silas snapped his eyes open, finding himself in the office entranceway of the school's resident physick. Ms. Adlewood and Charlotte straddled him on either side, each gripping one of his arms for support. Silas looked up and down, then left and right, every which way searching for the source of the Voice.
A fervor of mutterings filled the space where the clear Voice had been, as if in response to its words. Then there was a sudden hush, and the lone Voice spoke again.
Silas shuddered, fear prickling at his spine. He was led into the physick's office and deposited on the firm cot at its center. As hearing slowly returned, Silas caught pieces of conversation between Ms. Adlewood and Dr. Strath, the school physick.
"...Another one of his episodes," Ms. Adlewood was saying, standing in the doorway and glancing between Silas and Dr. Strath.
Charlotte stood shyly behind her, her doe eyes fixed on Silas. A smear of Silas's blood was congealing on the back of her left hand.
"...Getting stronger… prescribe a higher dose…" Dr. Strath said from his perch on a stout black stool with wheeled legs. The man tugged at the hairs of his curling mustache.
"Perhaps we should have Mr. Carrow take him home," Ms. Adlewood said. Silas's hearing finally snapped into clarity at the mention of Pa.
Sniffing loudly to draw attention to himself—and to clear his nostrils of the now-clotting blood—Silas signed, "My pa will be out late today. He has most likely already left and will not be back until the early hours of tomorrow morn." When he raised his hands to sign, Silas was disgusted by the mess of blood coating his skin.
"What did the boy say?" Dr. Strath asked.
Ms. Adlewood sighed before responding. "His grandfather is not home today to collect him." She clicked her tongue in indignation. "How utterly atypical. Mr. Carrow is usually so punctual and dependable."
Silas recoiled at Ms. Adlewood's facetious words. It was true that Pa seldom picked him up punctually and was frequently absent from guardianship time—conveniently circumventing Ms. Adlewood's scrutiny—but Silas didn't like painting his pa in a negative light, however grounded in reality it was.
"Well, there's no use standing around flapping our gums about what-ifs and have-nots," Dr. Strath grunted, swiveling in his chair to face Silas. "Attend to your class, Stephania. I will take care of things here." He paused before adding, with a brief glance at Charlotte over his shoulder, her bloodied hand in view, "And take care to ensure yourself and your pupils are free from the boy's humors before resuming your lesson."
Ms. Adlewood nodded to Dr. Strath's back and led Charlotte into the hallway. She quickly looked over her shoulder at Silas before wrapping her arm around Charlotte's shoulders and dissappearing from view, the steady tap tap tap of her heeled boots echoing down the hallway.
"Let's have a look at you now," Dr. Strath said and crawled himself, stool and all, toward Silas's cot. He paused, making a face. "But first, how about you take this peroxide and visit the washroom before we begin? I'd rather not sully my fine articles with your nares discharge."