Blood Rock by Anthony Francis

can correct her grammar,” I said, laughing, “that alone will have been worth the price of admission.”
    “We’ll do our very best,” Fremont said with a grin, starting the paperwork. But when done with name-address-and-phone-of-parent, she bit her lip. “And her real name? I do need it for the record.” Cinnamon lowered her head and mumbled something, and Fremont canted her head, making her glasses into reflective half-moons. “What was that, dear?”
    “Stray,” Cinnamon said, quiet as a mouse. “Stray Foundling.”
    Fremont’s head stayed frozen. “Is that another joke?”
    “I’m afraid not,” I said, squeezing Cinnamon’s hand again. “Her former guardians aren’t bad folk, but they basically warehoused her. The only reason she has a name on record at all was a trip to the hospital when she was six. We’re petitioning to get it changed—”
    Fremont kept staring at us, eyes hidden behind those half-moons, then she shook her head and began typing. “Is Cinnamon spelled like the spice?”
    “Yes,” Cinnamon said eagerly.
    “I hope you get it changed soon,” she said, smiling. “People really called you Stray?”
    “Until DaKOta,” Cinnamon replied, with a big toothy grin at me.
    “Good for you,” Fremont said. But she didn’t look happy as she took the rest of the information we could give her. Finally she muttered, “no transcript … no transcript.”
    “Is that really going to be a problem?” I asked. “Because I haven’t found one in my back pocket while you’ve been typing. I hope we haven’t all been wasting our time.”
    “No, it’s just … this is a middle school. There are certain skills she’ll need coming in,” Fremont said, focusing on Cinnamon. “What books have you read recently, dear?”
    “I hates reading,” Cinnamon shrugged, not meeting her eyes. “I likes audiobooks.”
    “You read audiobooks?” Fremont raised an eyebrow. “Like what?”
    “I dunno,” Cinnamon said sullenly. “Fuck, I didn’t knows it would be a test—”
    “Cinnamon!” I said.
    “We do not tolerate such language at the Clairmont Academy,” Fremont said. “And we have standards here, which you will have to meet to become a student.”
    “What’s ‘standards’ means?” Cinnamon said, sharp and suddenly scared. “You don’t means cuss words. What’s ‘standards’ means?”
    “Since you have no academic record, you will have to take an entrance exam.”

Entrance Exam

    “But … but the letters, they swims!” Cinnamon said, eyes going wide. “How can you ask me to take a test before you teaches me to keep them still?”
    Fremont’s brow furrowed when Cinnamon said the letters swam. “ Can you read?”
    “Would you ask that if I was blind?” Cinnamon said. “That’s why there’s audiobooks.”
    “You’re quite right, Cinnamon,” Fremont said, glancing at me. “So consider this the start of an aural test. What have you been reading? ”
    “I-I—dunno,” Cinnamon said nervously.
    “You don’t know because you don’t remember, or because you don’t read?”
    “I do too reads,” Cinnamon said. She slipped out her iPod and began thumbing the wheel. “Magical Thinkin’,” she said. “The Omnivore’s Dilemma. Kafka’s Seashore—”
    “You … have all those on there?” Fremont asked Cinnamon—but her eyes flicked to me, sharply. “You have all your books on there?”
    “Not everything ,” Cinnamon said. “Just recent stuff. It only holds thirty gigs.”
    “May I see?” Fremont asked. Reluctantly, Cinnamon handed her the iPod; equally reluctantly, Fremont took it from Cinnamon’s long, clawed fingers. Once she had it, however, she clickwheeled like a natural. “ The Year of Magical Thinking ? Kafka on the Shore ? Really?”
    “Yeah,” she said. Nervously, she grabbed an odd, numbered Rubik’s cube off the desk and began twiddling it with her bony claws. “I ran out of Mom’s books, but we knows this blind witch, and she gave me