SKY CITY CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES CENTER

“Who’s that guy getting the file that we need to look through?” Alia was irritable from having rounded in the hospital all night. The Council wanted her to do double work, but kindly they had given her a tutor to keep on pace with her classmates. The tutor though was miffed to have a students who did not possess his superior mental faculties.

“That’s Confundus Marks. He’s a social worker who can calm situations by adjusting.”

The man in question was looking through a wall shelves with files. He was sickly in composition but even from her distance Alia could smell a faint vanilla scent. Confundus pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose as he found the binder he was looking for . He gestured Stu forward and handed him the page of interest.

Stu’s eyes quickly skimmed the document before he nudged Alia to take a look. “Miss Feor is already in the system. She was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol while her daughter was in the passenger seat.”

Alia inhaled. “What if she’d exploded? She would have harmed so many people.”

Mr Marks smiled thinly and turned to Alia. “She would have had the child confiscated if we had known of her ability. All we were aware of was her levitation. Miss Feor was able to adhere to the center’s guidelines so we saw no reason to remove her daughter from the situation.”

Stu rubbed his chin. “Can you tell us a little bit more about her?”

“Did she have a drinking problem perhaps?” Alia interjected.

Marks sniffed. “Miss Feor, Emmie as I knew her, got pregnant at seventeen and soon after her boyfriend abandoned her. I don’t know much about her parentage or friends before she came to Sky City. She did ask the workers at the center to help her with the drinking problem. You would have to talk to them if you want to hear more about that.”

Stu’s eyes narrowed. “Were any bruises on Dura, the child?”

Marks recoiled. “If bruises were found on the child she would have immediately been taken away from the mother.”

Stu pulled a black notebook out of his back pocket and flipped to a page. Then he looked at Marks. “We have a report saying that you were present at the apartment the day of the incident with Dura and Miss Feor.”

“I often make unannounced visits to check up on their situations. I’m sure if you do more digging you’ll find Emmie Feor was a lousy parent and often came entangled in messes with men.”

=//=

SKY CITY DISTRICT ELEMENTARY 4

“I haven’t been to a place like this is years.” Chief Obi traced a child’s crayon drawing on the wall. “My job usually takes me to more grimy places.”

The teacher smiled. “Dura was quite a creative girl. I was hoping she'd have more artistic abilities than miliaristic ones.”

“Can you describe the events on the day of the accident.”

She rubbed her head. “Oh that was parents day. Most of our students display only weak ability so we try to make an activity that everyone can participate in. Our biggest donors are all politicians so we decided to do Watership Down.”

“Seems a bit mature for a grade school.”

“We made it a bit more family friendly with our own adaptation. I remember Miss Feor was crying during the performance. She always seemed to have it pretty tough. Dura was a phenomenal kid given her circumstances.”

“Did you ever notice marks or bruises on Dura?”

“Oh no. Dura would have complained and stuff like that are things I would have noticed immediately.”