by Rebecca Hall
“I knew you were awake,” Bates said, opening the door. Mitch reached for his desk again. This time it was the alarm clock that went flying. Bates caught it and put on top of the wardrobe. “Class starts again tomorrow.”
“That means I can sleep in today,” Mitch said, burrowing a little deeper into the bed.
“That means if we don’t escape now we’ll get roped into last minute cleaning and child watching,” Bates replied, toeing through the clothes on the floor.
“I’m up,” Mitch said, sitting up just in time to catch the clothes that Bates threw at him.
“Meet me in the dining hall in five,” Bates said, backing out of the room.
Six minutes later Mitch sat down opposite Bates with a bowl full of cornflakes and a cup of coffee.
“You’re late,” Bates said around a mouthful of toast.
“Do you know how long it takes to perfect the cornflake to milk ratio?” asked Mitch who had almost experimented with the cornflake to coffee ratio. He did not do mornings.
“I do,” Bates said, “but that doesn’t explain why your shirt is on inside out.”
“Dick,” Mitch muttered after confirming that his shirt was in fact the right way out.
“You know I don’t like that name,” Richard said, sitting next to him.
“I was talking to Bates.”
“Well you might want to hurry up, I saw a couple of teachers heading this way and the girls are getting impatient.”
Mitch started shovelling down cornflakes as fast as he could and washing them down with coffee, proving that it was possible to perfect the cornflake to coffee ratio. Richard shook his head as Mitch finished off the last spoonful. They hadn’t even had time to get properly soggy. The boys dumped their dishes in the sink and fled before the teachers could show up.
Mindy and Gwen had got bored waiting for them and were skipping pebbles across the still lake.
“Finally,” Gwen said, catching sight of them, “hurry up would you, I was promised hot army boys.”
“You’ll have to settle for hot regular boys,” Mitch replied, it was already sweltering and far too early on a Sunday morning for Mitch to want to be awake. “It’s not as if we know their training schedule anyway.” It could be very entertaining watching the poor suckers at the Army base go through training and even more entertaining watching them conduct weapons’ tests, but they couldn’t sneak out often enough to have a firm idea of their schedule.
“They’re probably busy with the clean-up,” Gwen sighed, “but at least out there no one will ask us to clean up.”
She set off around the lake. The school fence was high, solid and covered in thorny rose bushes that would have been climbable if they hadn’t been of the extra thorny-variety. There was only one hole in it apart from the main gate but it was a fairly substantial hole, Lake Moawhango. Mitch wasn’t a huge fan of sneaking out in winter, the lake was cold at the best of times and some years they were able to skate on it, but it had been a long, hot summer and the lake level had dropped enough that they could escape without getting their feet wet.
“Where to now?” Richard asked once they were all out. “Shall we follow the path or go exploring?”
The path wound around the lake, probably; it could just as easily peter out after a few hundred metres, Mitch had never followed it and he couldn’t imagine ever being that bored.
“Exploring,” Gwen said, “better chance of army boys that way.”
Richard rolled his eyes but voiced no objections as they left the Academy behind and made for the training camp. There was no sign of the soft yellowing grass that carpeted the Academy out here, instead there was hard dirt and the occasional tussock or scraggly bush that made you wonder how the wild horses found enough to eat. After an hour of wandering around in the increasing heat they gave up on finding anything interesting and laid out blankets on top of a small hill. They had a small picnic of whatever junk food had survived the trip to the Academy and a week without classes, marmite sandwiches that someone more awake than him had made during breakfast, and bottles of water and orange juice. They were far enough from the Academy that they didn’t have to worry about being spotted but still close enough to find their way back.
Gwen stripped down to her bikini and stretched out across the hill, her long white limbs glowing in the sun as she tried to make up for a Christmas spent in the snow. Not that Mitch was looking of course; he was watching a tiny white speck zoom along the Desert Road. He wasn’t checking out Gwen’s legs or ass or anything and even if he was they were both single. Totally not looking, he was watching the car that had vanished beyond the horizon while he wasn’t paying attention.
Bates and Mindy had moved down the hill and were making out with slightly more noise than was strictly necessary. Mitch had met quieter birds, the annoying ones that woke everyone up at dawn by screaming at the sun. Mitch ignored them as well.
“How long do you think Angel Girl will last?” Mitch asked to give himself something to focus on that wasn’t Gwen.
“She’s here to stay,” Richard said, “you don’t walk out of a collapsing building like that without magic and a lot of it, they won’t let her go anywhere else.”
“She what now?” Gwen said pushing herself up and staring at him incredulously.
Richard ignored her, something Mitch would have sworn was impossible. “You’re not the only one who’s run up against her before Mitch, I’ve talked to some of the others and it’s pretty clear that she’s a good all round student.” Mitch grunted, the knowledge that he wasn’t the only one who had lost to her was not comforting. “Sounds like she’s been using magic for years, she’s just more subtle about it than we are so you have to be watching to see it.”
“See what?” Gwen demanded.
“She reacts to things before they happen, answers questions before they’re asked.”
Gwen rolled her eyes, “Even normal people can do that sometimes.” Gwen was right but it was a common subconscious ability among magicians. Those with an affinity for it became empaths or seers.
“Not to magicians,” Richard said, “or did you not wonder how she knew to move out of the way on Monday.”
“Hmph, that still doesn’t prove that she belongs here. This is the International Academy of Magic, not some second rate magic school.”
“God, don’t let Nikola hear you say that, he went to one of those second rate schools remember,” Richard said, rubbing his nose.
“She saved Cullum,” Mitch said slowly. His body anyway, Cullum’s mind was in need of pharmaceutical help. “I thought he was dead, I followed the blood bond and... she stayed in that basement while that damn building was coming down on top of us. I was certain that he was dead, that they all were and... and that bitch knew that they weren’t. She knew that my brother was trapped down there and didn’t say a word!” He had spent the last week trying to convince himself that it was a fluke, that the quake had caught her and cleared a hole through which she had seen Cullum but if she really did belong here... He lurched to his feet, he wasn’t entirely sure what he was going to do but it would probably involve a lot of yelling.
“Whoa there, slow down,” Richard said, pulling him back onto the ground. Mitch tried to break free to no avail, Richard was much bigger than he was.
“She knew Cullum was down there and...”
“And nothing...” Mindy said, coming back up the hill with Bates. “I talked to Belle and maybe Hayley did know that there were people down there but she didn’t know who they were. How would she know that one of them was your brother? She probably didn’t even know that you have a brother, why would she?”
“Because,” Mitch said, giving up his attempts to escape Richard’s hold.
“’Because’, now there’s a great answer. I know Hayley can be cold at times but cold is what they needed down there, you would’ve been in the way.”
“Cullum is my brother,” Mitch roared, escaping Richard’s hold and jumping to his feet.
“Bitch,” Mitch yelled around Richard who was standing between them.
“Calm down Mitchell,” Gwen said, rolling over and sitting up, “she’s not worth it.” Mitch wasn’t sure if she meant Hayley or Mindy but there was no way he was getting around Richard; Richard was taller than he was and twice as broad. Gwen smiled at him. “Why don’t you sit down and help me with this sun tan lotion, please. I’d really appreciate it.”
Mitch sat down and took the bottle while Richard guffawed behind his back. Mitch ignored him and focused on the task at hand.
#
Mitch scanned the dining room, vainly hunting for an empty table. Normally he would have sat with Bates but Bates was sitting with Angel Girl and Mindy. There was no way he was joining them.
“Come on,” Gwen said, leading the way to an almost-empty table.
“He broke my nose once,” Richard protested. As usual Nikola was sitting alone, leaving plenty of space for the three of them at the other end of the table.
“That was more than a year ago,” Gwen said, “I’m sure it’s out of his system by now.”
“And what if it’s not?”
“I’ll sit between the two of you. Now come on, I am not eating standing up.”
Richard sat as far from Nikola as possible and Gwen sat beside him leaving Mitch next to Nikola, though that was stretching the word to its limit given the amount of elbow room they had. Nikola didn’t react to their presence.
Mitch prodded at his spag-bol and glared at the table where Bates sat with Angel Girl. He couldn’t remember the last time they hadn’t sat together and it was all Angel Girl’s fault.
“I thought you liked spag-bol,” Gwen said, kicking him under the table when he didn’t respond. He did, and what they cooked at the Academy was way better than anything his parents could make. They exhausted their skills with microwavable pies and boiled eggs. Richard was greedily devouring his and ignoring the dirty looks Gwen shot him for getting the sauce everywhere.
“Well? Earth to Mitch,” she kicked him again, harder. “I feel like I’m monologuing here.”
“Ow. Alright, alright, I like spag-bol.” He shoved his fork into the middle of the dish and heard it clink off the plate as he twisted it around a couple of times and shoved it into his mouth. “Ha e ow?” he asked.
“Animal,” Gwen said, continuing to daintily pick at her own plate. Somehow she was managing to avoid getting the thick tomatoey sauce everywhere.
“Think we’ll have normal classes tomorrow?” Richard asked eyeing the queue speculatively. He had already demolished his dinner. Mitch thought he was wasting his time; they had arrived pretty late and the food was already running low, he didn’t think there would be enough left for seconds.
“Almost,” Nikola said finally deigning to acknowledge their presence. “They’re reworking the timetables to fit us in around the primary kids.”
“How do you know?” Mitch asked.
Nikola’s blank stare said that he was an idiot for doing so. “They made the announcement at lunch, it’s been on all of the noticeboards all afternoon. They’ve probably released the new timetables by now as well.”
“We’ve been busy,” Gwen said, eyeing him critically. Mitch couldn’t understand why, Nikola looked as if he was a meal short of starvation; his own physique was much more impressive. Nikola’s eyes flicked across the three of them and then he returned to picking at his own plate, whatever interest he had had in conversation vanishing. Gwen glared at him, she did not like people ignoring her.
Mitch shook his head and resumed eating while Gwen pushed her plate away. Richard shot her a single pleading look and fell upon it with all of the restraint and intensity of a starving dog.
“I might get to avoid Latin for another year, maybe even avoid Angel Girl completely,” Mitch said hopefully. At the other end of the table Nikola started coughing as he choked on his dinner.
“If it’s not Latin it will be Ancient Egyptian,” Gwen pointed out, “and there are only thirty-three of us, I doubt you can avoid Angel Girl completely.”
“I can try,” Mitch said, shooting another glare at where she was sitting with his best friend, only to find that the table was empty.
“I believe probability would like to disagree.”
Mitch transferred his glare to her, “I’m supposed to be the maths genius at this table.” He’d been top of the class in maths for years.
“You do the numbers then.”
“Stranger things have happened,” Mitch said, knowing that the numbers were against him.
“True, you did see Nessie that time, I’m sure that was much more likely.”
Richard laughed and Mitch concentrated on finishing his dinner, it was rude to talk with his mouth full.
When he returned to his room he found a new timetable had been slid under his door. His face fell; he was still stuck with Latin and lunch had been swapped with fifth period, of course the children would get to eat first.
THE ACADEMY
Latin was every bit the Hell Mitch had been expecting. He didn’t even have Bates to help him and, with only seven people in the room, he couldn’t hide in the back row as Mr Crane droned on and on about the linguistic features of Latin and its similarities to modern languages. At least by the time he had finished droning there was no time left for them to actually learn anything.
His day didn’t get any better as, contrary to all reason and logic, his second period teacher did demand their homework.
“There was an earthquake last Monday,” Mitch protested.
“Which means you had an extra five days to work on it Mr Mitchell, many of your classmates have completed theirs. And the majority of the class at least started on it.”
Mitch glared at his classmates, which included Angel Girl and Mindy, both of whom had handed in complete assignments.
After an entirely too short break they had three consecutive classes and he was finally able to spend a couple of them with Bates. Even better, he got to avoid Angel Girl; after third period he’d begun to worry that against all probability he was going to be stuck with her in every class.
By the time the bell rang to signal the end of fifth period Mitch was starving. He arrived in the dining room and found it looking like a disaster zone. While he was struggling to learn the alchemical properties of feldspar the children had been eating lunch and there clearly hadn’t been enough time for the kitchen staff to clean up. He could probably expect more of the same at dinner with the children eating while he had to endure a two hour magic practical. The practicals ranged from the mind-numbingly boring details of day-to-day magic to the excitingly dangerous lessons in their specialisations. The best lessons were generally the ones somewhere in between, but the first lesson of the term was always dangerous and Mitch didn’t think that having it a week late would change anything.
He sat with Richard and Gwen again. Bates ate with Mindy who still wasn’t talking to him after yesterday. Mitch didn’t care, he didn’t want to talk to her anyway. He did wish Bates had chosen to sit with him though, apparently Bates only had two classes with her. Mitch had had to sit alone in fourth period, Bates had picked Mindy over him then as well. At least Mindy wasn’t in Teratology with them.
Mitch just didn’t see the point of tracing the family tree back ten generations. Who cared if his great, great grandfather had choked to death on an almond? Or if his great, great, great grandfather had had five children. Social studies with monsters was one thing but it seemed to be all social studies and no monster. Even after a day spent learning Latin and the properties of feldspar Mitch couldn’t imagine a more boring class. At least he didn’t actually have to see Angel Girl; she was downstairs on the computers while he was upstairs with the rest of the class.
“Bet’s off
,” Bates said thumping a heavy book down next to him.
“What? Why?” Mitch said, trying to catch his notes before they escaped in the breeze caused by Bates’ book.
“You know why,” Bates said, opening his book and almost ruining all of Mitch’s hard work. He grabbed his pencil case and dropped it on his notes before they could escape again, even they didn’t want to be here. “Hayley is a genius and she has magic.”
“They could still transfer her,” Mitch said, finally pinning down the last of his escaping notes.
“And I could have been Merlin in a past life. She’s staying. New pool, what’s her speciality? You’ve got until the mid-year testing to decide but once you bet you can’t change your mind.”
Testing was carried out twice a year along with their mid-year and final exams. There was no way to fail it, the only thing testing did was identify your speciality. A couple of questions had told him that Nikola had received inconclusive results every time. Apparently it was quite common for teenagers to change their specialities, some people even changed in their twenties. By the time you got to your thirties you were stuck with what you had. Mitch was hoping to change to something cooler. Self-manipulation was a lame speciality even if it did allow him to jump out of second storey windows, something that he had no intention of ever doing again.
“Let me think about it,” Mitch said, trying to decide between precognition and earth magic, both seemed equally likely which probably meant that everyone was betting on them.
“I’m limiting the specialities to three each,” Bates said, “the popular ones won’t last long.”
Dr Henly walked past and gave them a disapproving glare though Mitch had his notes from last week out so that it looked as if he was working. It might look a little more convincing if he had a pen in hand. Bates had managed to cover half a page while they were talking.
“Popular ones?” Mitch hissed once Dr Henly was out of earshot.
“Yeah, precognition, earth magic and phonomancy.”
“What? No one specialises in phonomancy.”
