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The library was the biggest building at your hometown of Esperanza. It was right next to the communal workshop where your grandpa was now working on some repairs and upgrades to the tractor that you had bought a couple of months ago, with the help of some of your neighbors and some pieces from scavenged warmechs.
You got to hang out inside that huge building, to study. Quietly, with a thick book tucked under your shoulder, you wandered through its halls, passing by the librarian who was hand-pressing some more copies of books into paper made from local bean stems. Eventually, you went passed one of the study halls, and noticed there one of the daughters of the town's mayor, Teresa Esposito. She was meek girl around your age with her family's characteristic cat ears, and she seemed to be trying to talk to another blonde and conceited-looking girl who was sitting next to her. That other girl was probably a few years younger than you two. And you remembered that she had a very Scandinavian name, Fatima bint Mohammed, or something like that. Her family were newcomers from a different settlement, but you didn't really know much more beyond that.
"So how would... you do this equation here?" Teresa timidly asked, as Fatima seemed to just ignore her, idly thumbing through pages of a book and eyeing some ridiculous-looking mathematical diagrams.
"This is such a waste of time." Fatima laughed dismissively, shaking her head. "Look, tell your dad that I can't <span class="mu-i">teach</span> you how to be a genius like me, OK? Sure, I can <span class="mu-i">tell</span> you a way to do your homework, but that's the problem - I just realize on my own how you're supposed to do this, while you don't. I come up with methods, you don't. You have to memorize, I realize. Get it?"
"Maybe you could teach me how to... realize." Teresa whispered.
Fatima gave her a long, skeptical and condescending smirk.
"So anyways" the blonde eventually mentioned, as she rose off the seat to fetch a book with a title written down its spine in Chinese. "Tell your dad that for me, OK?"
Teresa nodded sheepishly and went back to struggling with her math homework.
