by Scott Rhine
“This isn’t fair. It’s much easier to attack than defend.”
“I’m nothing compared to someone with a Book or a ravenous Outsider.”
I made chicken sounds. “Those who can’t do teach?”
Mad Cow narrowed her eyes. “You little upstart. Are you challenging me to a duel?”
“Yeah, tomorrow at the normal class time. We’ll need a witness to keep it fair.”
“Each of us would bring a second for that. I’ll ask Coach Williams. You trust her, right?”
“Definitely.” I didn’t know whether to ask Luca or Lilith. Either would have my back—one physically and the other politically. I’d invite both for a study session in Luca’s workout area in the garage tonight.
“We start ten feet apart. The last one with a lit candle wins?” The way she smiled, she was planning to cheat. Two could play at that game.
“Sure,” I said. “We only use what’s in this room or the things we carried in, and the loser scrubs.”
She sat on the arm of the sofa. “If I win, you’ll tell your posse to lay off the name calling.”
“I’d do that either way. I gave my word.”
That seemed to mollify her a little and lowered her guard. “Then, you invite me to an evening dinner with your father.”
The conniving sneak. “And if I win, you don’t have any meals with him alone.”
“Forever?” She laughed. “That’s hardly balanced.”
“For the rest of the month?” I countered.
“Done.” She was pretty confident that she’d win.
My friends and I were going to have our hands full tonight.
27. The First Cheater doesn’t stand a Chance
Dad took me out to a new pizza place that Vincenzo had recommended. As we waited for the order, he said, “They import the meat special from Italy.”
“You keep staring at my glasses,” I said.
“I’m sorry. Their size startles me every time.”
I shielded my face because a couple of girls from school were pointing and whispering. “It’s not my fault. I have to wear these aviator goggles in public.”
“We can change the order to go if you’re not comfortable.”
“Sure. We can chat while we wait.”
Remembering our last car ride into school, he asked, “How was your day?”
I peeked at him over the lenses, and I knew. It stabbed me like walking on Legos barefoot in the dead of night. I couldn’t scream or show any sign of emotion. Dad had ratted me out to the headmistress about Miss C’s nickname. I suppressed my true feelings so I could milk him for information. I sound like a real witch now. “If someone wanted to draw a protection circle superfast, could you think of an easy way to do that with things lying around the school?”
“Is this for an assignment?”
“No. I just want to modernize the Art a little. Chalk and chants are so old-fashioned.” I hit one of his hot buttons on purpose.
He snorted. “How big of a circle?”
“No rules on that. I only have to fit my body inside and have room to move my hands a little. Speed, ease of consecration, and accuracy are the only requirements.”
“That’s easy. You start with something with a round base, like a music stand. Being on the altar would make them pure. They’re raised in the center, so the outer rim can stamp the circle in clay or something.”
“What about on a cement floor you don’t care about?” I asked.
“Spray paint around the outside, and the void will be a perfect circle.”
I shook my head. “Close. Spray patterns can have weak points unless you do multiple coats, and I think the ring has to be a consistent width.”
“Hmph. Dip the stand in wet paint and use it like a stamper.”
A grin spread over my face. And give the pole a twist to make the line uniform. “You’re a genius. Don’t tell anyone else about this, but I’ll give you the credit for this idea when I start my own journal.”
His face fell. “Poppet, don’t talk like that. The experts can fix Althea’s Book. We just have to wait for the insurance to pay out.”
“They want all the money that you and Mom worked for all those years. I can’t blow it on some artifact that may never function.”
“It’s your inheritance.”
I pulled a stack of napkins out of the dispenser because we had none at the cottage. “So far, the Art has cost us everything we had.”
Looking down at the checkered tablecloth, Dad said, “I felt the same about the pursuit of truth in journalism. Didn’t mean I could stop. It’s how we’re wired.”
“After we eat, I want to head down to the garage to workout with Luca.”
“Actually, I figured you’d be in a hurry, so I ordered two pies. You can take one down and share it with her in payment for all the help she’s given you.”
He sounded so glum that I grabbed his hand. “Hey. I’m not ditching you. It’s just something important I need to prepare for tomorrow.”
“Sure. I’ll be in bed by ten—a typical teacher’s schedule. Try to be quiet when you come back in.”
****
During the secret meeting of the Rejects Duel Planning Committee, I left my watch by the cottage tub with soft music playing, slow enough to put any listener to sleep. I left the stupid bifocals there too. In honor of Dina, I wore my volleyball gear, complete with the black Spandex leggings. Dad wouldn’t suspect anything out of the ordinary if he found the outfit in the laundry.
Luca had already phoned two others from our lunch table, asking for their help. She was the first to show up at the garage in full motorcycle ninja regalia—black jeans, leather jacket, and combat boots. When she spotted the pizza on the toolbox, Luca dropped the sheet of painter’s plastic she was carrying. “Awesome!”
The girl chowed down like Zak. I kept my hands clear of the box. Does she have a tapeworm?
Noticing my look, she said, “Sorry. My father doesn’t keep anything in the fridge but beer, and we’re out of bread.”
“What’s the plastic sheeting for?”
“Mph, Put it on the electric car, floor, and walls. I don’t want your aunt firing us over a paint splash.”
I unrolled a piece the length of the garage stall and grabbed the staple gun from the toolbox. “Good point.”
“Use duct tape to seal the joints,” she said around a mouthful of double pepperoni thick crust.
How often has she done this? Since I didn’t have her height, I stuck to measuring and cutting. “What did you find for practice gear?”
She passed me a lighter like the one on our fireplace. “This will save you time up front. The candle has to be lit first.” Then she picked up a round, metal trashcan lid, the sort Zak would’ve used as a shield while playing knight in our old backyard. That would be my practice stamper.
We decided not to rely on my angelic amulet for defense because it wouldn’t be charged by good deeds until Saturday morning. Besides, Luca didn’t think revenge plots against teachers were covered by its warranty.
Blaise honked in the driveway shortly after we finished sealing the empty stall of the garage.
I ran out and shushed her. “What part of secret didn’t you get? Dad is a teacher.”
“He waved at me on the way by. He knows what my piece-of-crap car looks like. Don’t worry. He’s on the phone with someone.” Dressed as an upscale Japanese girls’ school ninja in a black skirt and long socks, she popped her trunk and hauled out one of two gallon-sized jugs of paint. “I bought it on the way over here. Silver Tempra paint.”
“Isn’t that the kind kids use in kindergarten?”
She rolled her eyes. “I already had them mix a jug of Mom’s holy water in at the store. It’s the only type of paint you can do that to.” She lugged one of the jugs into the garage for our practice session. I left the second one in the trunk so we’d have a full one for tomorrow.
“Besides,” my cousin whispered, “you want something that�
��s easy to clean if you lose.”
“She’s not going to lose,” said Luca, holstering the staple gun on her belt.
Dropping the paint on the cement floor, Blaise said, “Holy crap. You’ve built a murder room.”
I laughed and offered her pizza.
Yielding to peer pressure, my health-conscious cousin accepted a single piece. “Seriously, why do you keep this much plastic sheeting around?”
“In case I ever catch my boyfriend cheating.”
“You don’t have a boyfriend yet this year.”
“Pays to be prepared,” Luca said. She passed out purple latex gloves from a box. “Use these so you don’t get any evidence under your nails.”
As she gloved up, Blaise said, “You’re freaking scary, Benedetto.”
I snapped her with a glove the way guys use a towel in the locker room. “Be nice. She’s on our side.”
Luca ignored us, drinking straight from the two-liter bottle of Pepsi I’d brought for the whole group.
As Blaise ate her slice, she said, “Creutzfeldt is good at negotiating and wards. I checked her file, and she was chosen to head the school’s active-shooter defense team.”
“Not Bradstreet?” I asked.
“Miss C distracts the person while the headmistress aims the cannon at them. Bradstreet can’t get close to a death, or she feels everything they do.”
“What’s my file say?” I asked.
“Gag and blindfold you so you won’t be so annoying.”
This make Luca cough with laughter. “You’re trying to make it come out my nose.”
She gave my cousin a playful shove, but Blaise remained deadpan serious. “Isa, what kind of candle will you use?”
“I was thinking about stealing a votive candle from the chapel: low, wide base, and a little wind shielding on the side. Those don’t last too long, but the duel will be over in less than a class period. Is that fair?”
Blaise snorted. “My mother gave me a crash course in dueling, and she cheated at every turn. She used one of those April Fool’s candles that won’t blow out.”
“Classic Aunt Harlow. How did you get through her shields?
“I couldn’t with magic. I finally passed her test by using a Frisbee to knock her candle over. I bounced it off the wall behind her so she couldn’t block. My point is that both sides are expected to cheat. You never know what your opponent is going to pull.”
With a grin, I said, “I’ll bring a volleyball to extinguish her candle.” The thought of serving one into Emma’s passion-lipstick-covered face warmed me.
“Smuggle it in your backpack, but don’t give her advanced warning to counter it. Also, anything you can find in the room at the time of the duel is fair game, even if you have to hide it in there ahead of time.”
Luca considered the rules. “So we’ll just have to sneak in tonight to prepare the teachers’ lounge.”
“We could,” I said. “Dad goes to bed at ten, and I can snag his keys out of the dish by the front door.”
Bad-girl Blaise shocked us both. “And I happen to know the override alarm code for police and fire services.” When we stared at her aghast, she said, “What? I was saving it for my senior prank day. Since you guys are my only friends, it might as well be tonight. Besides, if Lilith comes with us, no one would dare arrest us. She’s a walking get-out-of-jail-free card. Now show us your mojo, Isa.”
The paint wouldn’t stick to the plastic, so we opened a ten-foot band on the cement floor that we’d need to scrub later. With her usual precision, Blaise marked the starting areas off with masking tape. “My new Chinese tutoring sessions started after school today. I peeked into the lounge on my way by and saw how she had it laid out.”
We decided against real candles in the garage because we didn’t want to start a fire.
Choosing the side by the big overhead doors, Luca drew a standard-sized chalk circle so she could lob weak magic blasts at me. Feeble attacks were all she could manage since Blaise had to charge the circle for her.
The little circles I stamped were like Styrofoam coolers, ultralight but sturdy enough for their temporary purpose. I overlapped them so they would reinforce each other like the Flower of Life. By the time Luca could chew halfway through the first, I had another layer of insulation. Each step away from the center of the original felt like I was straining against a rubber band around my waist. Connecting the initial three with a triangle helped to stabilize me, like resting on the rung of a ladder, but each inch was a climb.
“You slow down too much when you move to the next layer,” Blaise said. “It makes you vulnerable. You need to throw another distraction at her before each surge.”
We paused, which gave me a chance to recover. “I could wear wooden clogs to school. Dodging them will throw her off her game.”
By the time I built the third layer, nothing could penetrate my wall, and I was halfway to my opponent’s circle. At five layers, I’d be on top of her.
That’s when Lilith brought in a microphone stand from her karaoke set. She wore a stylish oilskin duster jacket that I may have seen in a futuristic movie, with dressy high-heeled boots. Even without long hair, she had style.
“Too small,” said Blaise. “We want a minimum of two feet across.”
Lilith gaped at the half-finished Tree of Life diagram. “Holy crap. You can hold more than one circle at a time?”
“Can’t everyone?” I asked.
“No. I’ve heard about Special Teams doing it to protect a diplomat. The force of will required is enormous.”
Luca gave me a thumbs up. “Right on. You go, girl.”
Shaking her head, Lilith said, “Didn’t anyone notice how much she’s sweating?”
“It’s summer, and we blocked the breeze with plastic,” Luca said.
“Why are you taking this risk?”
I replied, “I have no magical offense. I have to rely on the material plane. The Tree of Life symbols keep connecting until I’m within physical reach of her circle.”
Frustrated at me, Lilith appealed to the others. “She needs to stop now, or she could strain something.”
Blaise backed her. “She’s right. If you exhaust yourself in practice, you’ll have nothing to bring against Mad Cow.”
“Don’t call her that,” I replied. After releasing the enchantment, I sank to my knees in relief. “We shouldn’t insult other women. I shouldn’t have started it.”
“You’re still going to spank her ample behind in public, though?” Luca asked.
“Oh, yeah. I’m in a fight for Dad, the only family member I have left.”
Lilith put a hand on her hip. “Why? When you leave for college in two years, she’ll swoop in then. He’ll be all lonely.”
“Not helping,” I said, pouring myself a drink.
Grabbing the big water bucket and a scrub brush, Luca said, “You have to protect your turf to get respect.”
Blaise went on to explain our break-in plan and the duel strategy.
“Dag,” said Lilith said in admiration. “Girl’s got game. If you don’t mind, how are you going to keep the stamper from extinguishing the candle? It won’t stay lit if you cover it.”
We all cursed. None of the rest of us had considered that problem. I sat down in defeat. “Now we have to start over again.”
“Not necessarily,” said Blaise. “What if we pre-etch the first circle tonight and just don’t charge it till tomorrow.”
“Everyone will see it,” Luca said, offering the last two slices of pizza to the newest arrival. Lilith accepted with gusto.
I recalled some black-light posters from my brother’s room. “Not if we use ultraviolet ink. The spirits can see it, even if we can’t. I just need a small marker to know where to touch it. It should flare up when I feed it a charge, telling me where the borders are for a second.”
“Since you challenged her, Miss C gets to pick her side,” Blaise pointed out. “What if she picks the one you drew on?”
Lu
ca seemed confident. “Then we poison both cups with Iocaine.” I laughed, but Blaise looked confused. Luca spelled her plan out. “We draw the same circle on both sides. While you guys handle the mop up here, I’ll procure some UV paint. I have a friend who throws raves.”
“How will we sanctify it?” I asked.
“Blessed salt,” Lilith replied. “Most witches have it around the kitchen.”
“In case the spaghetti sticks to the bottom of the pot?”
She laughed. “No, silly. In case things get out of hand on Halloween. It reinforces the safety of your house’s threshold when the veil between worlds thins.”
The more I heard about the witch world, the less safe I felt.
****
I put my watch to bed early for the sake of anyone tracking me. Long after dark, we rode to the school together in Blaise’s car.
Lilith asked, “Isa, why didn’t you drive?”
“She’s only fifteen,” Blaise and Luca said together.
“Oh, wow.”
Luca held her phone up as a flashlight while Blaise and I broke into the building. We fumbled around a lot and giggled more. I sent the two Ls to the chapel to fetch a sanctified stand and a votive candle.
Meanwhile, my cousin and I prepped the teacher’s lounge. While I carefully drew out the invisible circles with the help of a UV flashlight, she hid the Tempra paint inside the room’s sizeable trashcan. Then she ransacked the shelves until she found the April Fools’ Day candle.
“Cut off the wicks,” I said.
“I can’t. That would be destruction of school property. I can, however, seal the box shut with so many layers of packing tape that she’ll give up.”
“Ensign Hutchinson, make it so.” My poor Star Trek impression actually made her laugh. Mark that one on the calendar.
When the others came thundering back to the lounge, Luca held the four-four-tall brass Easter candle stand over her head in triumph. “The biggest, holiest base we could find.”
I blocked her passage. “Don’t step in the wet paint!”
“Sorry.”
“That’s awesome!” said Blaise. “But where are we going to hide it? It won’t fit under the sofa.”
“Behind the curtains?” Lilith replied. She handed me a candle stub with a three-inch base, which I stuffed into my backpack.
