by Amy Hopkins
“Hissing?” Cisco raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Did she smuggle a cat in?”
Penny felt the heat rise in her cheeks. “Um, actually, it wasn’t a cat.” She gave Amelia an awkward wave. “Hi, roomie.”
“Oh.” Amelia sidled away while Cisco covered his mouth in a sudden fit of coughing.
“You won’t tell?” Penny glanced around.
The hallway was mostly empty. The other students had gone into the next class. Penny leaned over and unzipped her bag and drew out a thermos. A sleepy reptilian head poked out, tongue tasting the air as the snake emerged from the container.
Cisco leaned in for a look. He gave a low whistle of appreciation. “Hey, pretty girl. Or is it a boy?”
“Girl, unless you want a new piercing,” Penny confirmed.
Disturbed, Boots raised her head out of the bag. She saw her admirers and stretched, showing off the rainbow pattern on her scales.
“Great. I live with a snake charmer.” Amelia didn’t seem too upset with the development, though. She carefully reached in to stroke Boots’ scales. “Wow. Smooth as butter!”
Footsteps approached, and Penny shoved Boots back down.
“I know it’s against the rules,” she whispered, eyeing them both. “But I tried to leave her behind, I swear! She stowed away, and I didn’t realize until I was at the airport.”
Mara—the girl in the red top—passed them, giving her curly blonde hair a flip. Penny watched her go, feeling a stab of envy at the girl’s swinging hips, wrapped in jeans so tight you couldn’t fit a credit card between the cloth and her skin.
“How’d you get her through Customs?” Amelia asked. “They check for Mythers now.”
Penny shrugged. “She’s good at hiding.”
Cisco gently nudged them along the hallway. “We’re gonna be late. And just so you know, the rule against having pets on campus? Doesn’t apply to stuff like that.” He winked. “You’re safe.”
Penny blew out a giant breath. “Really? Damn, Boots will hate me if she finds out I stuffed her in a thermos for no reason.”
Cisco halted mid-stride, then shook his head and continued walking. “There’s so much to unpack in that statement that it’ll have to wait until after class.”
Penny and Amelia followed Cisco down a winding staircase to the basement level of the academy building. Released from confinement, Boots had slithered off to explore.
“This class is going to run past lunchtime, and I missed breakfast,” Amelia complained. “I’m already starving!” She hit the bottom step with a thump, then rubbed her stomach for emphasis.
“What’s down here?” Penny looked around, taking in the deep brown of oak-paneled walls and the many doorways leading from the small landing.
“Training rooms, mostly.” Cisco shrugged, unimpressed. He pushed open the nearest door and stepped back, holding it wide for the girls.
Penny let Amelia go in first, giving Cisco a timid smile as she passed him a moment later. It was Amelia’s low gasp of awe that brought her attention to the room ahead. When she looked up, she almost tripped.
“Big, isn’t it?” Cisco’s sly grin suggested he’d expected the girl’s reaction.
Although the high ceilings and decorative wainscoting matched the rest of the Academy, the scope of the room was like nothing upstairs. “It’s as big as my house!” Penny said.
She wasn’t exaggerating. Penny guessed the room must be close to half the footprint of the entire building. The staunch pillars interspersed through the room certainly suggested it was big enough to warrant the extra structural integrity.
“That’s what she said.” Already over her surprise, Amelia smirked and sauntered away.
Penny waited until Cisco closed the door. “I didn’t miss a day of classes, right?”
Cisco shook his head. “No, today’s the first day. Why?”
"I just wondered how you know so much about this place.” Penny wasn’t sure what she had expected. Maybe that he’d seen it on a brochure or got a tour when he arrived. She certainly didn’t expect Cisco to blush, mumble an excuse, and walk off. “Curious,” she murmured.
“Over here!” Amelia waved Penny over to where she stood huddled in a corner with Clive and another student—a brawny, heavily-freckled guy with flaming red hair. Penny made her way over and introduced herself.
“I’m Red. And before you ask, yes, that’s me real name.” The boy grinned sheepishly, letting his thick Irish accent explain.
“So, what’s with the giant classroom?” Clive asked, letting his eyes roam the space.
Penny shrugged. “The timetable says it’s defense class. Maybe they use this for practical lessons?”
“Practical?” Amelia winced. “Maybe I should have paid more attention to the dress code.”
Glancing down, Penny compared Amelia’s pointed heels to her own utilitarian boots. “Yeah. They did mention something about wearing flats, didn’t they?”
“Those boots could even kick my ass.” Clive chuckled. “What are they for, kickboxing kangaroos?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Penny scoffed. “You try and kick a ’roo, and you’ll end up in a hospital. These are for fighting crocs.”
“Good morning, class!” A man strode in, carrying a cardboard box large enough to obscure his face. He dropped it by the door with a thud. “Welcome to defense class. Suit up.” He gestured to the box beside him.
Cisco was closest to it, so he walked over and peeked inside, then drew out a pair of padded sticks. “You want me to hand them out, Professor Jones?”
Huh. So, Cisco had not only been down in the training room before, but he also knew the professor.
“Go ahead, Cisco.” The professor clasped his hands behind his back and wandered toward the middle of the room, curious eyes following him. He looked military, Penny decided. If his close-cut hair, confident stride, and tough build weren’t enough, he had a pair of dog tags swinging from his neck.
Despite this, he seemed to view the students with a sliver of discomfort. “I’ll be right back.”
Penny took a pair of sticks from Cisco. “Up close and personal with the professors, too?” she whispered.
Cisco winced and quickly moved to the next student without answering.
“What’s gotten into him?” Amelia asked from beside her.
Penny shrugged. Any answer she might have given was interrupted by the return of Professor Jones. He held another box, this one small enough to fit under one arm as he pushed the heavy door shut and latched it. The box was made of wood and padlocked shut.
“Are we all armed and ready?” Jones asked.
Penny could have sworn the box moved. Jones’s biceps flexed as he gripped it tighter.
“Well?” Jones barked, clearly not used to being ignored.
A smatter of “Yes, sirs” only made him scowl harder.
“Listen up! When I ask, you answer. None of this lollygagging. Now…ARE WE ARMED AND READY?”
The professor’s bellow made more than one student jump, and Penny saw Clive give a sneaky salute out of the corner of her eye. The “Yes, sir!” chorus was louder this time.
It seemed to sate the professor’s temper. He nodded once, then set the smaller box on the ground and drew a key from his pocket. He crouched with his back to the class.
“Right! Ready...and... GO!” Jones dove to one side, and the lid of the box flew open. For a moment, there was silence.
“Go where?” someone called.
“AAAAIIIIEEEEEEEEE!!!” Something small and red flew out of the box and headed toward the nearest student, Kathy. It hit her in the solar plexus, and she let out a loud “Oof!” as she doubled over.
Chaos erupted. Someone screamed, and another yelled for help as Penny lost sight of the…whatever it was as students ducked and dodged, trying to get out of the way before they were targeted.
“Back up,” she snapped at Amelia. “Against the wall.”
Taking her own advice, she slipped back to pr
ess against the wall behind her, padded sticks gripped with white knuckles.
“There!” Amelia thrust one of her weapons toward the middle of the room, where a tiny creature in a tall red hat was attached to a girl’s head, yanking out clumps of her blonde hair as she squealed. “Is that… No way.”
“It can’t be,” Penny murmured. Then again, she’d said that when she found Boots, too. It can’t be a Rainbow Serpent, she’d assured herself then. Still, this? “There is no way we’re being attacked by a freaking garden gnome!”
As if her words had called it, the gnome paused for a brief moment. Its tiny glittering blue eyes met hers.
“Oh shit!” Penny readied one of the sticks.
The gnome screeched, then leaped like a rabbit onto the heads of students, darting between flailing sticks.
Penny widened her stance, winding up like a softball batter. The gnome took one last flying jump—right into Penny’s two-handed strike. Rather than shoot back across the room, though, the gnome gripped the makeshift bat, holding on with tiny hands, booted feet, and a clamped jaw.
“Ahh!” Amelia shrieked and slammed one of her sticks down on Penny’s. Whether by accident or design, she caught the creature on the head.
With the sound of breaking china, the gnome shattered. Sharp ceramic pieces scattered along the floor, showing no sign that they had been alive and moving just moments before.
Penny turned wild eyes toward the professor, who looked just as stricken.
“What. The fuck. Was that?” she demanded. America might have different educational standards than her home country, but surely, setting a wild creature loose to attack a class full of students wasn’t part of that?
“You killed him!” Rather than being relieved, Jones’s voice was horrified. His hands clutched at hair too short to grasp. “Rodney was our only specimen! You killed him!”
Penny’s jaw dropped. “It just beat the shit out of—“ she paused to do a quick headcount, “five students!”
Professor Jones swung his head around as if just noticing the havoc the gnome had wreaked inside the classroom. “Oh.” His shoulders dropped, and he let out a breath through his nose. “I guess that might have been a bit ambitious for the first class.”
Jones walked over to pick up the wooden box, heedless of the group of students still too stunned to do anything but watch.
“Ambitious? More like an indictable offense,” Amelia muttered.
Penny was sure she’d spoken too quietly for the professor to hear, but he swung back around.
“You two.” He pointed at Penny and Amelia. Penny’s heart dropped. Had she really just sworn at an instructor on her first day? “Good work.”
If Penny’s jaw had dropped any farther, it would have touched the stone floor. She caught Cisco smirking at her from across the room and quickly snapped her mouth shut.
Professor Jones gestured at Red. “You. Pick this mess up, and make sure you get every bit.” He thrust the box into Red’s hands, then, on his way out of the room, called, “Class dismissed,” over his shoulder.
Penny glanced at Cisco, who had a hand pressed over his mouth. When a bubble of laughter swelled in her chest, she couldn’t hold it back. Between giggles, she gasped, “What the hell just happened?”
There was a smattering of nervous laughter as Red started scooping bits of ceramic into the box. Penny knelt, picking up the tiny shards by her feet. Within a few minutes, the class had cleaned up the mess, and every bit of the psychotic garden gnome—or “Rodney,” as Jones had called it—was carefully secured back in the box.
“Who the hell calls a murderous garden ornament ‘Rodney?’” Clive asked. It set off another round of laughter.
“Forget the décor. I’m starving.” Amelia yanked the door open and held it for Penny. “I was in the cafeteria yesterday. Cook said the full menu will be up today!”
Penny’s stomach let out a noisy growl. “Take me there,” she moaned. “My stomach just remembered I skipped breakfast. The last thing I ate was airport food.”
Amelia shook her head. “I hope you’re not expecting much better. Still, it’s food! Let’s go.”
Chapter Three
Penny followed Amelia upstairs and through the foyer of the old building now used as a college. The cafeteria was just off the main room, a dining room filled with two long tables. It had a wide serving window on one wall.
“Everything. Just give us everything,” Amelia told the plump, elderly woman.
Cook wagged her finger at Amelia. “What did you forget?”
“Please,” Amelia added, rolling her eyes good-naturedly.
“Um…” Penny looked at the deep trays of food, her mouth watering. “I’ll have the same. Please!”
The cook dolloped meatballs, an assortment of steamed vegetables, some kind of baked pasta, bread, and gravy onto two plates, then slid them onto the counter at the end. “Here you go.”
“Thanks!” Amelia snatched up both plates and nodded to a spot at the end of one of the tables. “Over there. We won’t get anyone trying to shove past us at that end.”
Penny followed dutifully, and the two girls were soon joined by Cisco as the rest of their class took seats scattered across the long tables.
“Good grub,” Penny mumbled through a mouthful of eggplant.
“Mmmm, Cook has been here a month now, working on the menu.” Cisco shoveled a pile of baked pasta into his mouth.
“Does ‘Cook’ have an actual name?” Penny asked.
“Yeah.” Cisco swallowed a mouthful of food. “Cook.” At Penny’s glare, he explained. “Her first name is Millicent, which she hates. Her last name is Cook, which she is. And ‘Mrs.’ makes her feel old, apparently. She was pretty insistent that the students call her Cook, nothing else.”
Penny stabbed the air with her fork, pointing it at him. “Spill.”
Cisco froze. “What?”
“You knew about the training room.” Penny held up a single finger. “Professor Jones knows you, and you know the entire history of Cook’s name and how long she’s been here.” Two more fingers joined the first one, punctuating each point. “And when I ask you about it, you looked like I just caught you with your pants down.”
“Hey, that's right!” Amelia threw down her cutlery and scowled at Cisco accusingly. “I’ve been here for a whole week and I’ve never seen Jones, and the very first thing I was told when I got here was that basement levels were out of bounds until classes started. And I only call Cook, Cook because you told me to.”
“Look, I was here early, ok?” Cisco stared at his plate, the heat rising over his face turning him a ruddy shade of red.
“Francisco! There you are!” Professor Madera headed toward them, her short legs and sharp heels clicking quickly across the floor.
“Oh, God save me.” Cisco had gone from red to crimson. “Or kill me. Either. I don’t care, just do it quickly.”
“It’s so good to see you making friends!” Madera smiled and bent down to kiss Cisco’s dark hair. “Ever since he was little, he’s had trouble fitting in.”
“Aww, Francisco,” Amelia crooned, voice shaking with suppressed laughter.
“Now, I have a faculty meeting this evening, so I won’t see you at dinner. Make sure you call your father. He won’t let me live it down if you forget.” She patted his head and left, heedless of Cisco’s tortured expression.
“Are you gonna tell us, or do we need to go grill Professor Madera about widdle Francisco’s childhood?” Penny asked, unable to wipe the grin off her face.
“Fine!” Cisco balled up his napkin and tossed it on his plate. “She’s my mother, ok? She promised she wouldn’t tell anyone!”
“Well, technically, she didn’t,” Penny reminded him.
“I’m never gonna live this down, am I?” Cisco groaned.
The two girls exchanged a glance, then answered in unison, “Nope.”
The early release from Defense class had given the students a free afternoon.
Curious about the building, Penny suggested they give her a tour. “I didn’t see much when I got in last night. Besides, I’m sure Mister Teacher’s Son will do a great job of showing us both around.”
Cisco rolled his eyes, but Amelia enthusiastically agreed. “You have to see the library. It’s amazing, and the grounds are huge! Come on, Cisco. Be nice to the new girl…” She gave him a cheeky smirk. “Or I’ll tell your mom.”
Cisco threw his hands up in defeat. “Fine! It’s not like anyone else in the whole Academy is ever going to speak to me now that my secret is out.”
Penny patted his shoulder consolingly. “It’s not that big a deal, you know. It’s only funny because you care so much.”
The topic was forgotten once Cisco showed Penny the expansive library. Inhaling the scent of old books and running her fingers along the shelves of leather-bound tomes, Penny oohed and ahhed appropriately. “And we can borrow these any time?” she asked. She’d have to cram in as much reading as she could while she was here.
Cisco nodded. “They’ll set up a real borrowing system once the next group of students comes in, but with only a few dozen enrolled, they didn’t bother for this term.”
“How’d you get recruited, anyway?” Penny asked. “Is it because your mom is teaching here?”
Cisco shrugged. “I fit the criteria. I don’t think they would have let me in if I hadn’t.”
“What criteria?” Amelia asked. “My recruiter just shoved a letter in my hand and told me the first semester is free. I wasn’t even sure what it was about until I got here.”
“You enrolled in a school, knowing nothing about it?” Cisco asked. He ushered the girls out the door into the next room. Desks lined the walls, leaving room for the pool table in the middle. They passed through without stopping and emerged onto a long terrace framed by ornate balustrades.
