Diagnosis

They all retreated into the office, and the headmaster closed the door before taking his seat behind a big desk. When everyone was settled, he folded his hands and let them rest on the gleaming surface in front of him. “Karr, your parents and I have been having a conversation.”

“About me?”

“About you,” his mother confirmed. “We’ve been so…”

“Worried,” his father offered.

She continued, “Yes, we’ve been worried about you, dear. Ever since your grandmother left us, you simply haven’t been yourself. Your headaches have gotten worse, and we all know they’re happening more frequently. Yesterday alone, it happened twice!”

“I know, but I’m learning…” He stopped. What could he tell them? He’d tried the truth before, but it’d never worked. His grandmother had believed in the Jedi, but no one else in the family did. “I’m learning to live with them.”

His mother smiled warmly and patted his knee. “You’ve been very brave, Son. But we’ve finally heard back from the specialist you saw last month—the one who came in from Chandrila. It took a long time to go through all the test results, but now we have some…” She looked up at her husband, but he didn’t finish the thought for her, so she kept going—even though she didn’t sound terribly confident. “We have some answers, and we have a plan.”

Tomar confessed, “You’ll probably like part of it, but you might hate the rest of it.”

Karr sighed. “So…give me the good news first, I guess.”

“The good news,” his mother repeated. “Well, you hate school, don’t you?”

“This one,” he admitted, avoiding eye contact with the headmaster.

The headmaster sighed. “I realize you’ve had your difficulties, especially with a death in the family.”

“My mother,” Tomar said. “His grandmother. She lived with us. She and Karr were very close.”

The headmaster bobbed his horned head with sympathy. “It must have been a hard time for everyone, to be sure. And now this.”

Karr sulked. “Now what? I believe I was promised some good news.”

His mother pressed onward. “Yes, and the good news is—after the end of this term, you won’t have to go to school anymore! Not this one, at any rate. You want to leave it so badly, and you’ve had so many fainting spells, we’ve realized that it’s just not safe for you to attend here any longer.”

“Wait. What?”

His father hastily chimed in, “You’ll be joining my brother at the trade school in Taeltor Province, where you’ll learn to take things a little easier.”

He was stunned and not at all happy. Neither one of those pieces of news sounded particularly good. He felt like he’d been lied to. “What? You can’t…you can’t do that. You can’t just send me away because I have headaches.”

The headmaster unfolded his hands and leaned forward, the upper and lower horns on his face coming closer. It was probably meant to be a reassuring pose, but it mostly felt threatening. “That’s not what’s happening here, young man. Your constitution is not suitable for all the…excitement. That’s what your doctor said.”

Karr turned to his parents. “I get picked on a lot, but that’s not what causes the headaches. Or the fainting.”

Looway looked at him with wide, damp eyes that were sure to spill over with tears any second. “But dearest, that’s exactly it. The stress of it all. That’s what the doctor concluded—and he’s the foremost expert in the sector.”

“I don’t care who he is. He’s wrong. Grandma said I have the Force, and I believe her!”

“Even if we believed that—and we don’t,” his father was quick to add, “there are no more tests they can give you. You’ve been checked over by every capable physician and droid we can afford, and this is your diagnosis.”

“My diagnosis is that I’m weak?”

His mother shook her head. “Your diagnosis is that you’re sensitive. You’ve been complaining about this school since your first day. I thought you’d be happier to hear that you don’t have to finish your term.”


- Force Collector, Chapter 5