Clowning Around

Kano sat up and stretched his body while unleashing a loud yawn. He had never had such a pleasant sleep in his entire life. As he was enjoying the after-effects of his slumber, a hard pillow struck him from behind.

"Shut up, Kano! I'm trying to sleep," Dora cried out in a tired voice.

"S-Sorry," Kano replied as he bit his tongue.

"Why're you up so early?" She added.

"T-T-Teacher Larks is working on a p-p-project, and he need m-m-my help," Kano answered with anticipation.

Hearing the man's name, Dora sprang up and declared, "What are you helping him for? Don't you know that Matron dislikes that man! I forbid you from helping him!"

Kano frowned and said, "He isn't a b-b-bad person. You should try t-t-talking to him!"

Dora pouted and responded, "If I see you talking to him, then I'll- I'll never speak to you again!"

She then turned around and curled back into her bed.

"Dora..." Kano implored. "D-D-Don't be so unreasonable!"

Dora snorted in response and refused to answer. Kano sighed and stood up. As he left his room, he contemplated on his decision. In truth, he wanted to see what Teacher Larks had planned for the day. Although he was barely awake during his trip back home, he still remembered everything Teacher Larks said. And those words were nothing short of revelationary for Kano. His whole life, Kano felt that he was inadequate, stupid, doomed to be illiterate.

Everyone kept telling him to try harder. Yet no matter how hard he tried, he kept failing in doing things that others found infinitely easy.

'Am I not trying hard enough?' He would constantly ask himself. And each time, he'd push himself harder, and harder, only to fall flat on his bottom in the most spectacular manner.

'Maybe I am stupid, like everyone says,' was the thought that nearly cemented itself within his psyche. That was until yesterday.

"I'm special," Kano muttered to himself with a resolute expression. "Teacher Larks said so!"

____

Once Guy returned to the orphanage, he walked back to where he had stored his haul from yesterday.

Although Guy wasn't a trained psychologist in his past life, he had learned through years of experience how to teach kids with dyslexia. Unlike other kids, those with dyslexia find it hard to decode language.

As an example, when an average child hears the word "apple", they are able to picture the image of the red fruit in their head. Those with dyslexia are unable to make that connection quickly. Adding on to that, after an average child reads the word "apple" they can easily catch that word the next time they see it in a text. They associate the sound of the word, with the written form of the word and the mental image of the word. This is also difficult for dyslexic kids.

These are just the issues faced within the literature, some dyslexic kids also find it difficult to process complex mathematical concepts that seem trivial or straightforward. An average child can process addition in its abstract state after understanding what the concept means. Unless a dyslexic child is properly taught to make the jump from literal addition to abstract addition, they can never process the operation in their heads.

So altogether, teaching a dyslexic child is impossible if the pedagogy style employed is the same as those without dyslexia - at least in the beginning stages anyway. Guy's current aim was to get Kano to a point where he could start coping with the kids of his own age. And without any magical potions or spells to "cure" dyslexia, Guy resorted to the only means he knew to help Kano get over his current roadblock and learn to live with his disorder.

That was why Guy had recruited Kano and Markus to collect a large quantity of clay yesterday. Through his travels in his past life, Guy had learned to become more resourceful. Without a controlled learning environment available, Guy was often faced with many challenges when he wanted to help kids with learning disorders. After stumbling along a few times, Guy drafted a solid set of solutions that could be implemented in any place.

Thankfully, the orphanage was in a location that wasn't so out of the way or isolated as some villages he had previously visited. There was a lot of natural vegetation, a plentiful spring, and even a large stretch of steps for him to work with.

The first move of his teaching plan was to process the clay and make it workable. As he beheld that large mound of unprocessed clay in front of him, he exhaled loudly in anticipation.

"Time to get to work!" But right as he was about to get down and dirty, a low voice called out to him.

"W-Wait for me!"

Guy turned around noticed Kano running up to him. "Kano! What are you doing here?"

"Y-Y-You said you needed m-m-my help for the project. I c-c-came to help!"

Guy laughed mirthfully and added, "It's good that you're here. I hope you don't mind getting dirty?"

Kano shook his head seriously and awaited instructions.

And with that, the two began. Guy first added water to the clay and let it reach a viscous state. Through using magic, he could easily skip the process of retrieving water from the spring. As he activated a |Water Ball| spell, Kano exclaimed with an agape mouth and wonder in his eyes, "Wow!"

Guy smiled and ruffled the boy's hair, "Do you want to learn how to do this?"

Kano nodded his head like a chicken pecking at grains.

Guy held his chin to mimic contemplation and said, "Hmmm, I guess I can teach you. But this depends on how well you do in my project. Can you do that?"

Kano nodded much harder and narrowed his gaze with immense seriousness.

"Good boy!"

Once Guy wet the clay mixture, he used another customised spell by disseminating his mana through the mixture. He identified the clay particles in the slurry and began transferring them carefully into a large container, carefully separating impurities and unwanted residues such as pebbles, roots, and sometimes small insects! Kano retrieved additional containers from storage when he found the current one filling up.

After Guy was satisfied with the separation, he then used another spell to separate the water from the mixture. As the clay became drier and drier, his mana consumption increased significantly. Guy wasn't planning to completely dry the clay, he only wanted to get it to a point where it was still kneadable and could hold itself together, but wasn't too gooey.

With that finished, Guy added a bit of clean sand by eyeballing the quantity.

"Time to mix it all in," Guy said to Kano, and the two began kneading the clay and sand mixture. As Guy worked the mass in his container, he chuckled over how easy the earlier bit was. Usually, all of this would have taken him half the day or longer. But with magic, everything became as easy as one-two-three. Guy could have very easily magicked the mixing process too. But he wanted to leave something for Kano, to give the kid a sense of accomplishment and ownership.

The two worked their containers, taking frequent breaks to massage their aching arms. After Guy was satisfied, he let the clay settle by wrapping up the container.

They then went to have lunch.

____

"Dora, where's Kano?" Grace asked with concern.

"Hmph! He's off playing with that man! 'Helping him on some project,' he said!" Dora answered with a pout.

Grace frowned and asked, "What kind of project?"

"I don't know. He took Kano and Markus out to the spring yesterday and the three brought back a lot of mud."

"Mud?" Grace asked in a low mutter. She wouldn't be lying if she admitted that she disliked that man, Guy Larks. From the very first day she met him, she got this awkward vibe from him. It was the way he looked at her and talked to her.

'It's just like them!' The moment those faces flashed into her mind, her legs threatened to buckle. But she quickly caught herself. She glanced at Dora and sighed in relief when she saw the girl running up to some flower along the side of the path.

'But it isn't "exactly" like them,' she mentally added. There was a desire in the man's eyes, but there was also regret, and a third emotion she had never seen before. It felt warm and wholesome, completely unlike 'them'. They only had desire, a lot of desire, and maliciousness!

Grace quickly shook off those images from her mind and picked up her pace. Once she approached the orphanage, she walked around to the back to see what the man was up to.

"Ouch, that h-h-hurts!" Kano's voice exclaimed.

Grace entered a heightened state of alertness as she frantically searched around for some sort of weapon. She grasped at a broken broom leaning against the wall and rushed towards the sound.

"I know. Why don't you let me finish instead?" The man's voice responded, causing Grace to slow her pace.

"No! Teacher Larks, I p-p-promised I would help you with the p-p-project!" Kano retorted anxiously.

"I know you did. But you won't be of any help if you're aching all over, right? Let me take it from here."

She then heard a resolute denial from Kano followed by the sound of rushing steps.

"Hey! Wait for me!" The man said with a chuckle mixed with a sense of defeat.

She carefully approached the corner and looked around, only to be greeted by a funny sight of the two covered in mud and smiling like idiots!

'What the hell are they doing?'

Her question was answered by Kano, "H-H-How much longer do we need to work the c-c-clay?"

Guy rubbed his chin subconsciously as he pondered on the question, "A few more minutes, that's all."

His answer was met with a light chuckle from Kano.

"What happened?"

Kano covered his mouth with his hands and pointed at Guy's chins. Guy looked at a puddle nearby and realised that he had smeared the clay on his chin. He then looked at Kano and laughed harder.

Kano stared back blankly, to which Guy pointed at Kano's mouth. By reflex, Kano licked his lips only to catch a swatch of clay.

"Ptoo! Ptoo!" He spat out amidst the roaring laughter from the man. Grace wanted to walk over and knock Guy's head, but then the man quickly cast some spell and conjured water to clean Kano's face.

Grace grunted in satisfaction and decided to leave the two to their devices. "They're just playing around," she added to assuage herself.