Fantastic Schools: Volume 2

by Nuttall, Christopher G.

  “I think so, Titus,” she lied. “She was really mean, Grandma,” Emily frowned.

  “Well,” Applegate heaved a sigh. “I guess I’ll need to start interviewing for a new teacher.” He looked at the three instructors. “No offense, but the lot of you will be apprenticing for a while longer.”

  “Are we going home now?”

  The sound of running footfalls and murmuring voices came from the outer hall.

  “That would be the other parents.” Applegate waved at Dowardo. “Help the teachers guide each child to their guardians.”

  Scott pulled Emily to one side. “Yes, we can go home now.” He nodded at Agatha, who interpreted his intent. Her dad had no intention of letting his daughter resume her lessons at a preschool of wizardry. If the other parents felt the same way, it might close the school down permanently.

  As it turned out, the children only had to miss a week of preschool while the investigation was completed, and the last of Miss Caressa Iyabo’s malevolent presence was purged from the building and surrounding environment. The Monday following their enforced absence, one by one, they returned with their parents’ blessings. The Grand Master still hadn’t lost all of his charm or his powers of persuasion. Linza, Ziva, and Jett welcomed each student at the door.

  Emily was the last one to arrive, but only because she was still hugging her Mommy.

  “I’ll be here when you get out of class, sweetheart.”

  “You’re really going to school, too?” The little one still couldn’t believe big people went to class.

  “Your Grandma said it wouldn’t hurt for me to audit a few lectures, and well…I guess I really missed this place.”

  “Me, too, Mommy.” Then she whispered, “Is Daddy and brother going to be okay with it?”

  “You were there when we all had Sunday dinner with Grandma. We agreed as a family that you could come back. Daddy and I even met with the Mommies and Daddies of your classmates.” Angelique was warmed for a moment by how her normally shy but stolid husband had stepped way outside of his comfort zone. He was the world’s best Daddy, especially to his daughter, a wizard in the making. “Now you run along. Don’t make your new teacher wait.”

  They both shared a secret giggle before hugging one more time.

  “Bye, Mommy. I love you. See you later.” The girl waved as she trotted through the doorway.

  “Bye-bye, Emily. See you later.” Then after the toddler disappeared inside, “I love you so much.” She allowed herself a moment to watch her daughter scamper through the class’s doorway. Then she crossed the courtyard toward the tower. If the younger Iyabo was still hiding here or had confederates, she and Mother would help find them—together.

  Emily ran past the desk at the front of the room, and hurriedly took her usual seat next to a grinning Tamika. Em had always adored her friend’s collection of “Upside Down Unicorn” t-shirts. Last night, Daddy let Grandma give her a black one with the rainbow-colored creature’s horn buried in the ground, and its legs flailing in the air. It was the same one Tammi was wearing today.

  Folding her hands in front of her on the desk, Emily’s face beamed with glee. “Good morning, Teacher. Sorry, I’m late.”

  “Not to worry, Miss Watson. I’ll allow it this time.” Then standing, the newly-minted instructor walked around to the front of her desk. “Good morning, class. My name is Mrs. Agatha Pye, and I’ll be your new head teacher.”

  Grandma and Emily shared a conspiratorial wink between them. The budding, little sorceress knew this would be the best, funnest school year ever.

  James Pyles is a published science fiction and fantasy writer as well as a freelance Information Technology textbook author and editor. A growing number of his short stories have been published in anthologies and periodicals since 2019. He also has a passion for reading the genres he writes and is currently working on more interesting and compelling projects for 2020. You can find him at https://poweredbyrobots.com/ or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/jamespylesauthor/

  Going Home

  Becky R. Jones

  Middle school is rough to begin with. Add in stinky boys and kinetic magic gone wrong and Moira Donaldson is having a bad day. Now, she has to help her teacher figure out a way to get their school back to where it belongs. They also have to do it without sacrificing anybody.

  Going Home

  Middle school stinks. Really stinks. It especially stinks if you’re the only girl in your kinetic magic class, and the teacher looks at you like you’re some kind of freak. The boys do, too, but they’re boys. Being the only girl in a family with five boys means I’m used to boys. Being the youngest kid means I’m used to boys doing stupid things, too. But I really hoped that there would be other girls in this class. My best friend, Sara, is good at kinetic magic, too, (not as good as me, but still good), which surprised both our dads, but she said she’s not really interested in learning more about it. Dad says that kinetic magic is usually stronger in boys, but that doesn’t mean a girl can’t do it and learn to get really, really good at it. He did have to kinda yell at the school to get me into the class, which was sorta embarrassing, but besides being the only girl in a class with a bunch of stinky boys, this is probably my favorite class this year.

  My name is Moira Donaldson, and I’m thirteen years old. Like I said, I’m really good at kinetic magic, which is moving things around. One of my brothers took this class, Basics of Kinetic Magic (how do they always manage to make classes sound so boring?) and he said they got to build a scale-model pyramid using real stones just like the original pyramid builders did, but on a smaller scale. I thought that sounded totally cool. I’ve been building things like that since I was a little kid. So when the school finally decided to let girls (namely me) take classes in the kinetic magic track, I was totally psyched.

  We’re almost halfway through the school year, and the teacher, Mr. Scaramucci (we all call him Mr. S., but not to his face), still looks really surprised when I raise my hand in class and even more surprised when I have the right answer. I’m pretty sure in the parent-teacher meetings he asked my dad if he or my brothers were doing my homework or something. I would have loved to see the look on Dad’s face when that question was asked! Dad’s the one who made me practice extra at home and when I have questions about my homework he always says, “Well, what do you think?” Do my homework for me?? Not a chance. He said that he didn’t want me to believe that I couldn’t do something just because I’m a girl. Dad’s pretty cool.

  So, stupid boys and stupid teachers are two of the biggest reasons middle school stinks. Another one, and right now, it’s THE BIGGEST one, is that middle school stinks is because weird stuff always randomly happens. Take today, for instance. I was in kinetic class, and we were practicing moving multiple things around at one time. So, three big stones, five chairs, that sort of thing. Everybody is just going along, shifting piles of stones and chairs and whatever from one side of the playground to the other, when some idiot didn’t focus enough and shifted the entire school elsewhere. (I bet it was Benny Dunleavy…not only is he stupid, he thinks he’s super smart. That’s a bad combination.) Now, nobody knows where or when we are, the teachers are panicking (well, they’re not showing it, but I bet they are. I mean, how many times has the school shifted into another plane of existence?) and we are on some small island in the middle of some gigantic lake somewhere. The sky looks kinda weird, like a blue-gray almost-storming look. I’ve never seen it like that before.

  I think we’re in a lake and not an ocean. I can sort of see a shore when I look across the playground. And, there are trees pretty near the water, which I don’t think happens at the beach. It looks a lot like a lake we went to on vacation one time. But this lake is much bigger. And, I know there was no island in the middle of the one we went to. Especially not an island with my middle school on it. Duh. So, Benny (I’m sticking with my idea that it’s Benny because he’s just that arrogant, and he’s looking really, really scared right now and
trying not to let Mr. S. see him), has somehow managed to shift the entire school to this stupid island. And, nobody seems to know how to get us back home.

  “Mo! Mo!” Sara was running across the playground toward me.

  “What?” I quit trying to see if I could spot anything on the shore.

  “Where are we? Did you do this?” she asked when she stopped next to me.

  “Me? Why do you think I did this? I don’t run around moving whole buildings!”

  “Yeah, you do. Remember that time last summer when you moved your dad’s garden shed across your back yard? He was soooo mad!” Sara laughed.

  “Okay, yeah. But I never moved it elsewhere. And, no, I have no idea where we are. But I think Benny Dunleavy did it. He’s an idiot and thinks he knows everything.” I said we were elsewhere, that area of unknown that we all knew was in between our world and the world where magic didn’t exist. But I really hoped we had only shifted somewhere else in our own world. I had never heard of anybody bringing anything or anybody back from elsewhere or from the non-magical world.

  Sara looked worried. “Do you think we’re really elsewhere?”

  “I hope not. But, the trees over there don’t look like any trees at home.” In fact, the trees looked like something out of a picture book that I’d had as a little kid. They had long, skinny trunks, and weird, poofy-looking leaves that were all clustered at the top. They were swaying a little bit, but there was no wind. Freaky.

  Sara watched the trees. “Yeah, I don’t like those. They look weird. Are you sure Benny did this?”

  Mr. S. walked up. “Miss Donaldson, I need your help.” Sara and I both stared at him.

  “Um….Okay.” What was going on? I didn’t think he liked me.

  He looked at Sara. “Miss Preston, do you have any abilities in kinetic or image magic?”

  Sara shot a questioning glance at me; I shrugged. I had no clue what Mr. S. was really asking about.

  “Yeah, I can do both,” Sara said.

  “She’s as good as me in kinetic magic,” I added. Whatever was going on, I didn’t want to be separated from Sara.

  Mr. S. raised an eyebrow. “Excellent. I need you two young ladies to accompany me. Mrs. Barber will be working with the other teachers to organize the rest of the students. We’re not sure what happened, but we will need to work together to get the school back to its original location. Our class and anybody else with any ability in kinetic magic will be working to move us back.” He turned and walked purposefully back to the main building. Sara and I stared at each other and then hurried to catch up with him.

  As we trotted across the playground trying to keep up with Mr. S., I tried to find some clue so I could tell for certain if we really were elsewhere, somewhere strange in our own world, or in the non-magical world. I really didn’t know how I would know if we were in the non-magical world. And, if we were in the non-magical world, how were we getting back? If anybody I knew had been there (and I had my suspicions about Dad), they’d never said anything, and I’d never read any descriptions of it. Dad didn’t really talk about it either. Those trees were bugging me; they were still moving together. Based on that alone I’m guessing we were somewhere strange in our own world, or elsewhere. Creepy.

  “Um, Mr. Scaramucci?” I figured he’d know if anybody did.

  He glanced down at me and raised one eyebrow. “Yes?”

  “What happened? Where are we?”

  He looked back toward the main building and kept walking at a rapid pace. “Well, we, that is the teachers and the principal, believe that we are elsewhere, between our world and the non-magical world.”

  “How can that happen?” I really wanted to know if Benny had done it.

  “I’ll explain it when we have the class together. I don’t want to have to repeat myself several times.” He opened the door to the main building and waved me and Sara through. We walked down the hall, past the cafeteria. I started to go upstairs to our usual classroom when Mr. Scaramucci stopped me.

  “No, we’re using the auditorium.” He waved his hand toward the door at the far end of the hallway.

  We walked into the auditorium, and I saw all the boys in my class near the front. Benny-the-idiot was still trying to hide behind some of the others. There were also some teachers and other adults, along with a bunch of other students, standing around including my next-older brother, Donny.

  Donny walked over and gave me a hug. “I bet Benny Dunleavy did this, and I bet he has no idea how he did it, so the rest of us have to figure this out,” he whispered as he hugged me. I laughed and stopped myself from staring over at Benny. So, I wasn’t the only one who’d noticed. My brother was pretty cool and smart. He was one of the things that made middle school less stupid and stinky. I hoped Mr. S. had figured it out, too.

  Mr. Scaramucci vaulted up onto the stage at the front of the auditorium and clapped his hands. “Okay, quiet please. Everybody, please listen up and pay attention. Grab a seat close to the front.”

  He waited about ten seconds for the shuffling and muttering to die down as everybody found a seat. (Benny didn’t sit in the front row).

  “Okay, so somebody in Introductory Kinetics has managed to move us to this island.” He shot a glance at Benny, who was ducking down behind the kid sitting in front of him. It was pretty funny because Benny is pretty tall, and because he’s so arrogant, he’s always made sure the teachers know he’s there. Now, all of a sudden, he’s trying to hide. He really is an idiot. He should just have a sign that says, “I did it!”

  Everybody else was looking at all of us in the class trying to figure out which one of us did it. I saw some of them staring at Benny.

  Mr. S. clapped his hands again. “I said, listen up! You are all here because you have either demonstrated or potential skill with kinetic magic or image magic. Since the individual responsible for our present situation claims to have no idea how it happened, we will all have to work together to move us and the school back to our proper location.”

  I raised my hand. “Yes, Miss Donaldson?”

  “Mr. Scaramucci, sir, why do you need all of us? Why can’t the person who did it just use their magic to shift us back even if they don’t know how we got here?”

  “Good question, Miss Donaldson. Does anybody want to answer that?” Was Mr. Scaramucci really turning this into a class lesson?

  One of the older kids, a girl I sorta knew, Jenny O’Reilly, raised her hand.

  “Miss O’Reilly? You have an answer?” Mr. S. stared at her.

  Sara leaned over to me. “He looks surprised that Jenny raised her hand,” she whispered.

  “Well, he seems to think that girls don’t know anything about kinetic magic and can’t build things. You should have heard my dad about him!” I whispered back, putting my hand over my mouth to stop a giggle.

  “Sir, there’s a pattern to a move that only the originator knows. If it’s a simple move, like moving a table across the room, or stacking blocks, another person can simply create a new pattern and remove the chairs or the blocks. But, if it’s more complex, um, like, um, moving a whole school, then the best way is for the original person to move it back so that everything returns to the exact way it was before.” Jenny sounded pretty confident.

  “Correct, Miss O’Reilly. Very good answer.” Mr. S. looked even more surprised.

  I leaned over to Sara, “As far as he knows, she’s only the second girl that can do kinetic magic. Besides me.”

  “What about the rest of us?” she asked indignantly.

  I snorted. “I bet he won’t really believe it until he sees you move something.”

  Sara rolled her eyes.

  “…divide into teams to work on the problem.” While Sara and I were whispering, Mr. S. had kept talking about how we were going to bring the school back. I sat up and started to pay more attention.

  “Several of you in here are skilled at creating images and opening them, in other words, image magic. We need you to begin setting up a
n image of this school in its proper place. Make sure it’s three-dimensional, include all the streets around it, the landscaping, everything. We need as accurate an image as possible; that will have to be done outside. That’s one team. Until that image is complete, the kinetics team cannot move us back. We, the kinetics team, will work on retrieving the original pattern to move the school back and avoid any…unpleasant endings.” He paused and swept his gaze over the group sitting in front of him.

  I looked around. There were about twenty students, three other teachers, a lady who worked in the cafeteria, the principal’s secretary, and two of the janitors. It had never occurred to me that the secretaries and janitors could have strong magic skills. Why would you work as a janitor if you were a kinetic? Dad had always told me that kinetics were in high demand by building contractors. That seemed like an easier job than being a janitor.

  I also noticed that Benny was still trying to duck down behind the seats. Did Mr. S. really not know who’s fault it was? I mean, I know he said that the person responsible didn’t know what they did, but that could be a cover for he didn’t know who did it. Donny caught my eye and shook his head. Brother-sister code for don’t say anything.

  It bugged me that Benny was spending so much time hiding. Normally, he was right up front bragging about what he did and making sure that everybody, teachers included, knew what he did, even if he did get in some trouble, because he almost always got told how talented he was. Something was off here. Much as I wanted Benny to finally get in trouble, this was starting to look really weird.

  Mr. Scaramucci clapped his hands again. “Listen up, people. The image team will go with Mrs. Brattle, and the kinetics team will come with me.”

  The cafeteria lady turned out to be Mrs. Brattle. She was good at illusions and images? That might explain some of our cafeteria food.