“At all?” Jesus asked.
“She said we would have to skinny dip in the Antarctic to even get worried about exposure,” Raj clarified.
“Make sure you take a video when you do that,” Val teased him.
I put down my food, nudging Pocket with an elbow. “Mega fern throwing?”
Pocket glared at me.
I chuckled at him. “That’s what it is, ain’t it?”
“She put a seed in the ground and then it was an apple tree like fifteen seconds later,” Pocket grumbled. “But! We always wondered what floromancers can do as an Intro-Elementalist, right? Miss Van Houten explained it as having to do with regulating substances and chemicals in our own bodies . . . so . . . once I figure it out, I can win any drinking competition ever.”
Jesus seemed impressed. “A more noble goal the Mancy was never used to achieve.”
Miranda predictably rolled her eyes at us, but stayed nice enough to ask, “What about you, Jesus?”
Jesus shrugged at her. “Mega animal breeding.”
We laughed at that.
After another rib, I manned up and asked Val, “How was Teresa?”
Some of Boomworm appeared in her face. That fearless badass of a girl who could accomplish anything. “She tried to burn me with her thumb the first time Mr. Rowland turned his back on us.”
“Now I have to kill her,” I stated.
But Val gave me a look that reminded me she fought her own battles. She also raised her hand to show me the back was smooth and unmarked. “I burn even less than Raj freezes. Teresa was pretty frustrated about it.”
“Catherine Hayes is a complete evil bitch if anyone was wondering,” Miranda shrilly told us. “Every time I tried to ask a question she papercut one of my fingers!”
Val grabbed Miranda’s hand to examine. It had freckles. Also had three papercuts on the middle, index, and thumb. “Miranda!” she scolded. “You need to go to Miss Strange!”
“It’s only a papercut,” Miranda grumbled, “and I don’t want anyone to know about it. You’re always fighting your battles, let me fight mine.”
Raj opened his mouth to proclaim his undying love—still going strong, if occasionally distracted by Intra girls—but Miranda’s glass-covered glare kept him from saying anything too wild. Instead, he managed, “If you need any antiseptic, I have some in my room.”
“Thank you,” Miranda whispered.
“Antiseptic,” I said, “we have very different stash priorities . . .”
“Condoms?” Pocket guessed.
“Lube?” Jesus added.
“Lockpicks?” from Val.
“And one of Miranda’s 34DD bras I forgot I had,” I admitted.
The Ginger Nemesis gasped.
“Want it back?” I asked politely. “Or you back down to 34D after that weight loss burst you put on for last Winter Ball?”
“Eighteen years old and still a pervert!” she accused me.
“Well . . . yeah.” I turned to Raj just to prove her point. “When you say you don’t freeze, does that mean you don’t feel it or like, your balls don’t even shrivel up?”
“I . . . I . . . don’t know.”
“Should figure that one out.”
“For what reason?”
“To satisfy my curiosity?”
“We could set up a betting pool,” Jesus pointed out. “Will balls shrivel or not, then throw him in the Cafeteria freezer for a few hours.”
Pocket squinted at us. “We’d have to videotape it though.”
I shook my head after awhile. “Raj is trustworthy enough that people would take his word. We can skip the fetish porn.”
“Tonight?” Jesus asked.
“Wait . . .” Raj whispered. “I don’t . . . I don’t like this idea.”
“It’s science, Raj,” I told him, “but I’m out on tonight. Got to find this Plutarch asshole so I’m not stuck reading again tomorrow.”
“We’re not fooled,” Miranda butted in. “You enjoyed every minute and every new scrap of information.”
I ignored her. “What about Sunday?”
Pocket nodded. “Only after Camping Club.”
“Still with that horse shit?”
“I’m kind of club president now . . . and for the Nature Lover’s Club and the Park Cleaner’s Club.”
I made a disgusted noise. So much free time wasted.
“You could actually join a club, you know,” Val pointed out to me. “All the geomancers would love to vote you the Rock Out Club’s president.”
I scowled at her.
She smirked at me, not fazed at all. “Or you could join the Elementalism Club with me, Raj, and Miranda. We have a lot of fun discussing the Mancy.”
My scowl deepened. “You want King Henry Price to join a club that Hope Hunting runs?”
Val’s face was pure mischief. “Think about how much it will annoy her.”
Insufferable woman . . . breaking up with me and still she’s too awesome for me to hate. “I’ll think about it after I figure out what’s going on with Plutarch,” I said, even though I knew I never would.
Hard to tell the star ‘no.’
Even when your ass cheeks are still burnt from the last go around.
[CLICK]
If I was a crazy Artificer hermit, where would I hide?
Don’t suppose there’s a house inside of the Mound I’ve never heard about before?
After a brief moment imagining myself learning Geomancy from a hobbit, I shook away the possibility. Fuck no. Not happening. Even if the little, hairy-footed bastard has really good weed.
Plutarch had to have a house in with all the other teachers somewhere. It’s just . . . there’s a lot of houses out there. We call them the ‘teacher’ houses, but you got ESLED officers, Recruiters, even some of the mundane in charge of the Asylum’s day-to-day life had houses and families of their own in that little piece of suburbia transplanted into the Sierra Nevadas.
It’s a town really, a whole town for Plutarch to hide in—three-thousand? Four-thousand? Five-thousand people? Never got an accurate count during my stay at the place. Suppose someone knows. Maybe I should give Russell Quilt a call, he would. Might know where Plutarch was at too.
Only the Testing Room would be closed at this time of the night, almost 9PM. I was supposed to be asleep by 10PM, but then . . . who would check in on me? Another weird bit of freedom after so little agency. It made me frown as I crossed the Asylum grounds from the Cafeteria to the teacher houses.
Not that long of a trip. Cafeteria’s in the middle of the school pretty much. Come out into the Park, nod at the Parkies in their little groups—lots of floromancer Intras in them, keep heading around until you find the Anima classrooms, then it’s past that building, across the horseshoe road, and by the Quad Intra Dorms.
Not a single teacher stopped me or said a word against my progress.
I have free rein of the school . . .
Where was the fun in that?
No more sneaking out, just . . . being out late.
That poor bastard Welf, the pranks I’d be able to pull off now!
But not tonight.
Had to find my Jedi Master first.
Welf could wait.
It’s not like I was a stranger to the teacher houses. I’ve been to Ceinwyn’s a few times, I’d been to the Lady’s a few times, even had dinner with the Gullicks before, but I’d never really searched them out. Everything interesting at the Asylum was on the other side of the road. Out here was just . . . lawnmowers and yard-flags and garden gnomes and shit King Henry Price will never be interested in.
Ain’t ever gonna keep house. Ain’t ever gonna mow a lawn, ain’t ever gonna have a dog, ain’t even planning on any family. Don’t want to be a cog, sure as shit don’t want to get trapped in by kids and a wife. That’s all I need . . . Guild of Artificers Member No. 62523, wife, three kids, two dogs, badass lawnmower. Got itself a kickstand.
Growing up sucked ass.
&n
bsp; Good thing I’m so fucking short, ain’t it?
I walked through the teacher neighborhood like an outsider, like some young thug on the hunt for trouble. Bash your mailbox with a baseball bat, piss on your lawn, forget defiling your daughter, I’d defile your poor, lonely wife.
They had streetlamps, for some reason that fascinated me. City street lamps too, all modern like, not the wooden pole country-kind I grew up around, electric lines hanging haphazard, gangs loading the things down with shoes tied together at the laces. Real driveways with nice cars, manicured lawns, sprinklers puttering here and there. Purely upper middle-class, Johnny going to Stanford on a baseball scholarship, Suzy going to UCLA to learn Art History kind of neighborhood.
Promise there’s not an Asylum next door.
I checked each mailbox. Some were kind enough to have marked who lived there. Others weren’t. I came across Jethro Smith’s place by accident, shrugged my shoulders, and went to knock on the door.
He opened it and immediately flinched at the sight of me. Guessing it had to do with him wearing cooking mitts and an apron that said ‘Bake or Die.’
We stared at each other awkwardly, like we’d crossed swords during a three-way or something.
“Want some crème brulee?” Smith eventually asked hesitantly.
“Tell me where Plutarch lives and I won’t blackmail you.”
He rolled his eyes. “I’ve won Best Campus Pie and Cupcakes for the last five years, think people know about my hobby.”
“But not your students,” I reminded him.
His face scrunched up like he had swallowed some non-alcoholic beer. “I’ve been sworn to secrecy on the Plutarch thing.”
I studied him. “Bet going on then?”
“Bet on everything, King Henry, it’s the Asylum life. If you could find it in your heart to wait until next Friday to figure out where he lives, I’ll split the pool with you.”
“Next Friday?”
“All the good days were already taken . . .”
“I’m planning Russell Quilt’s bachelor party,” I reminded him some more.
“Yeah?”
“I might be willing to keep this secret if you supply me with booze for the evening.” An oven buzzer went off behind Smith. I peeked around him and noticed some floral arrangements on the walls. “Guess that’s your brulee.”
“You think you can get Russell Quilt drunk?”
“Yup.”
“Can I come and see it?”
“Yup.”
“Got yourself a deal, King Henry.”
“Is that The Bachelor I hear on your television?”
Smith slammed the door in my face.
[CLICK]
No reason to go to the other teachers if even Jethro Smith wouldn’t talk. Meant I either had to find Plutarch’s place on my own—good luck in the dark, even with street lamps—or I had to find someone willing to, in her own words, ‘massage the rules so they work for me.’
So I went to Ceinwyn’s.
Who opened her door before I even knocked on it. “Nope,” she told me, “no can do.”
“You’re shitting me!”
She’s Ceinwyn Dale, so she smiled. She also opened the door farther to reveal the Lady sitting at her kitchen table, knitting. “They even gave me a warden to ensure I didn’t cheat.”
I glowered at the Lady. “Shouldn’t you be in your coffin at this hour?”
The old woman cackled in answer. “He’s in for quite a surprise if he thinks vampires look like me.”
Ceinwyn’s smile twitched. “When he’s older I’ll introduce him to one and report back to you.”
The Lady glanced up from her knitting to give Ceinwyn a steady expression of warning. “That could have dangerous consequences for the boy.”
But the pride in Ceinwyn’s expression at seeing me at her door, an Ultra graduate student, never wavered. “He’ll survive.”
The Lady’s return grunt gave no opinion one way or the other, but she did go back to her knitting.
“You’re doing it still,” I told Ceinwyn.
She nodded. “When you’re older I’ll stop talking over you too.”
“Like . . . twenty-one?”
“More like fifty.”
“At least the old bag will be dead by then!” I yelled to make sure the Lady heard me.
“Augustus Caesar is said to have lived to one-hundred and fifty,” the old woman informed me to my dismay, needles never stopping in her hands.
I scowled. “At least have the grace to retire by then.”
Click. Click. Click. “Then Ceinwyn would have to run the place.”
This time it was Ceinwyn who scowled. She liked traveling the world to find new mancers too much to be shackled to the Asylum as Dean. She’d do it, and she’d be good at it, but she would hate every minute of it. “I can’t help you find your teacher, King Henry,” she said, “even a Dale dares not overstep herself with some wagers.”
The Lady grunted again, this one very clearly finding humor in that comment. “My ears are good enough to hear any whispering you might try, Ceinwyn, don’t even think about it.”
Ceinwyn nodded at me to go. “Get some sleep, King Henry. You have plenty of time to search for Plutarch tomorrow.”
Finally, my scowl turned to Auntie Badass. “You bet on me to find him tomorrow, didn’t you?”
Ageless eyes met dirt eyes. “No teacher will help you, King Henry.”
Yet another door shut in my face.
[CLICK]
For once, it was Fate who saved my ass a long walk back to my new apartment in the Ultra Dorms.
Late as fuck and who do I see coming out of her parents’ house?
Naomi Gullick.
Not my Number One Fan and yet . . . well, she handed her vagina over to just about any guy who smiled at her, so . . . I figured I had a shot. We should be clear, kiddies, that saying this, I ain’t putting the girl down. I ain’t calling her a slut or a whore or any of those words this puritanical society loves to throw at teenage girls of a more affectionate disposition. Shit, my sister JoJo’s one of them.
And I love her, right?
Maybe?
A little bit . . . kinda sorta.
But my point is: girls like Naomi are doing the world a good turn. She’s spreading happiness wherever she goes. Happiness and hillbilly crabs about a week after this particular star-crossed meeting, but we’ll ignore the Hillbilly Crab Epidemic of 2013. Take her relationship with Raj. Poor guy was so much more sure of himself after he had a girlfriend for a little while. Even stopped lusting after the Ginger Nemesis for every hour of the day.
That’s a good thing.
And all the other fellows that Naomi dated? Every weekend . . . for like . . . seven years straight . . . spreading happiness all around! And did it hurt her? Outside of the Hillbilly Crab Epidemic of 2013 that is?
No!
First Rule of the Foul Mouth, kiddies: thou who wanteth to sexith, do not throweth the ‘S’ or ‘W’ words with malice. Only with laugher and mirth may they be sayith. Praise be to the givers of the va-jay-jay!
Va-jay-jay was what was on my mind when I saw Naomi that night. She’s a cute girl for one, with curly brown hair, green eyes worthy of a dryad, and a nice pair of shakers on her despite her being so thin. For two . . . I was still pissed off at Boomworm and hound-dogging it with Naomi seemed like a sure thing to get Val out of my head.
I gave the girl a predator’s grin as she worked her way across her childhood lawn. Half the Gullicks bred true as floromancers, made for quite a yard with plants and bushes that never should’ve survived mountain winters. They even had a greenhouse that took up half the backyard.
Naomi saw me, stopped. “Are you stalking me, Foul Mouth?” she teased.
“Just enjoying freedom. Want to enjoy it with me?”
She snorted, but did slide up beside me as we walked out of the neighborhood. “Visiting Miss Dale?”
“Trying to find Plutarch,” I growl
ed. “He didn’t show for my class and none of the teachers will tell me where he lives.”
She smiled at me like she had a secret to tell.
Naomi’s also a gossip. Between her and her friends—Robin, Sandra, and Tamiko—and all her ex-boyfriends, she knows just about everything that’s going on at the Asylum.
“What?” I asked.
“I could just tell you, but I’d rather you earn it,” she flirted, green eyes sparkling.
Fuck me, I’m a dumbass. No teacher would tell me. That’s what Ceinwyn had said. But a teacher’s kid would know too.
I sized her up. Very cute girl. I sized her up again as a potential enemy. Nothing I couldn’t handle. “You know where he lives then?”
“Maybe,” she teased.
We walked a bit. Eventually I went with blunt, “How is it you and me have never teamed up for anything? With your gossip and my scavenging skills we could run this place.”
“There was that whole Pocket choosing Sabine over me thing,” Naomi reminded me.
“Right, but . . . that’s never stopped either of us before.”
“And the waffles. I can’t even look at waffles without getting mad at you.”
“I did try to warn you. I’ll also grovel if it will help you get over it.”
“Then the you choosing Sabine over me Tri Winter Ball thing.”
“I was grieving, not right in my mind.”
“Then you were back with Boomworm.”
“That’s very much FUBAR.”
“And here we are now,” she whispered, voice sultry and right near my ear, “and instead of offering me a glass of stolen wine like I know you can supply, you just want to know where the old hermit lives.”
Pussy!
Mancy.
Pussy!
Mancy.
This place is really screwing with my priorities in life, I admitted to myself.
I sized Naomi up again. Cute girl. Interested girl. “What if I handle the old hermit tonight and Sunday I put together a whole evening for you? Including a bottle of wine?”
“Trying to get my will weak with liquor, King Henry?” Naomi kept on flirting.
“Chocolates as well,” I kept promising.
Another thing, kiddies: if a girl has a reputation of being a cheap date, that don’t mean you shouldn’t put in your foremost effort. She might stick around for a little while longer if more guys did.
The Foul Mouth and the Mancy Martial Artist (The King Henry Tapes Book 5) Page 10
