The Foul Mouth and the Cat Killing Coyotes (The King Henry Tapes)

by Richard Raley

  After you are naked you do the normal shower routine: chest, shoulders, lower-back, ass crack, legs, ball sack, finish up with washing your hair. Like Hanks had said, you have to be quick. I didn’t know it yet, but we’d been woken at 5:40AM and were scheduled in for breakfast at 6AM.

  The first day, Hanks kept us going by simple countdowns. “Ten minutes,” the second our feet hit the shower floors, then what seemed like a split second later, “Five minutes.”

  Cleaned up, you have your own towel in your stall. Straight up the nicest towel I’ve ever had before or after. Those things are huge and fluffy and I wanted to marry it the moment it touched my skin. Dried up, you have yourself a robe to put on, so I did, then I walked out of my stall and over to Hanks with a shrug. I was the first one out on account of having grown up in a one shower house with two sisters.

  “Now what?” I asked.

  Hanks did a head-nod behind him. “Go to your bed and change into your colors for the day.”

  “Right . . .”

  So I did as ordered and was rewarded with bumping into Valentine on the way. Also thanks to growing up with two sisters I was used to seeing girls in all sorts of situations boys with brothers and only-children never get to experience, but it still surprised me to see a girl in a tight wrapped robe with her blond hair damp like that. Prince Henry made a comment and I readjusted my robe just to be sure he stayed fully covered.

  Pointedly ignoring my tiny ass, she walked ahead and right to her bed, slamming her privacy curtain shut in my face. Yup, I was definitely going to pay for my little comment. If only you knew fourteen-year-old-me, if only you knew that I’m still paying for it.

  I dressed into my uniform in silence, wondering if maybe I should apologize while we’re still alone, but never actually doing it.

  [CLICK]

  “These uniforms suck,” a big black kid decided as we stood around the door waiting on Hanks to round up the few still left changing. If you’re quick with your shower you’ll have the same situation for the first week. Standing there, confused as hell about who everyone is. Wondering how your day is going to go, maybe a little excited by the unknown.

  “The colors have a tradition over eighty years old,” the tall kid I’d knocked out the day before said.

  “At least you’re not in a skirt,” a girl with ginger features and thick glasses whined.

  “You could have picked pants, girls get to pick,” the teacher’s daughter from the day before explained.

  “Now you tell me!” the ginger whined some more. She’s not pretty since she’s ginger, but she had a nice plump shape to her. Not that I wanted to listen to that voice for long enough to lift that skirt of hers. Give me ‘Kingy’ before a whine . . .

  The big black kid pointed at himself with a hand the size of my head. “Least ya’ll don’t look like Projects Santa Claus.”

  “Yeah, as if not getting to wear makeup isn’t bad enough, they put me in red and white,” a Hispanic chick with a nice ass on her and some kind of accent agreed.

  “Red and white?” a short girl with a cute smile but a nose in need of some plastic surgery laughed, “I’m in yellow and freaking rainbows!” Yeah, I got to agree with her on that. Corpusmancer colors are bad, but spectromancer colors are just plain evil.

  “Know what?” the black kid said, “You’re right . . . and it makes me feel better.”

  “Fucking retards . . .” I whispered under my breath, but on account of the acoustics and my detox, sounded louder than I intended. Twenty pairs of eyes swiveled my way. Shit, fourteen-year-old-me thought.

  Shit’s pretty much how I felt. As if the headache from the day before wasn’t bad enough, it also felt like every bone in my body wanted to break. All I really wanted to do was go back to sleep or shank someone for a cigarette, but there I stood, listening to my classmates worry about clothes.

  Me? I styled the same look I had since I’d arrived at the place. Geomancer deep brown head to toe, undershirt un-tucked, and my coat unbuttoned. I’d have looked better than the rest of them if I hadn’t been leaning against the wall in pain, my whole face covered in sweat.

  I’m off my fucking game, I thought. I’d already made my point not to mess with me the day before, now I was getting involved. Not my style. My style’s to sit back, watch, lurk, pounce at the greatest opportunity.

  Can a fucker get a cigarette in this place?

  “What the hell’s your problem, punk?” the big black kid asked me, about twice my size. Not like the way Welf’s taller than me either. A whole different ballgame. It came to a fight and I’d get thrashed. Iron fist or not. “You knocked out white boy last night, and that shit was funny, but you better watch who you including in retardation, feel me?”

  “I feel you, big man.”

  “Then what’s your problem?”

  I tried to stand up straighter to at least be five feet. You got as little height as me—you learn to maximize what you have. “My problem is that I’m going through nicotine withdrawal . . . no, that’s not it . . . my problem is that the sun is barely out . . . no, that’s not it either . . . my problem is that we’re in a magical school and you decided the most important thing to talk about is clothes.”

  The girl in the rainbows laughed again. “Magical school.”

  A few others joined in. Including the tall boy I’d knocked out. “Dale must have scraped the bottom of the barrel for you,” he told me, but doing so far enough back so he could run Hanks’ way if I started something. His voice sounded funny, like he had an accent but one so weak as to barely be there.

  I grinned something feral back at him. “Let me guess . . . family full of mancers?”

  The boy got a little taller, his pure black uniform stretching. “Seventeen generations.”

  “Well . . . I just found out about it three days ago,” I shrugged, “and I already kicked your ass.”

  “You cheap-shotted me,” he snorted, expression dismissive. “In a real fight I’d wallop you.”

  My grin got more feral. “Never did get your name.”

  He pointed at his nametag. “Can’t read, guttersnipe?”

  “Heinrich von Welf,” I read. “What are you, some kind of Nazi?”

  Before things got more serious, Patrick Hanks finally walked up with stragglers in tow. “That’s enough talking,” he murmured, “We are already . . . five minutes behind schedule. Everyone, follow me! Keep up or you’ll get lost!”

  [CLICK]

  You get twenty or so minutes of breakfast, during which I wolfed down some serious bacon and sausages, not to mention eggs, a bunch of tater-tots, and two cups of coffee. Fucking yes, coffee! Was never big on coffee until I got to the Asylum, but damn did it help with my withdrawals. I’ve been drinking it religiously ever since, it being an earthy kind of drink. Also got a thing for dark chocolate, thick beers, liberal use of pepper, and potatoes in any form they can be cooked.

  Weird stuff the Mancy.

  The Cafeteria is always busy, but during lunch students grab a box meal and take off to their hangout spots, during dinner there’s actually two shifts. For breakfast the Asylum feeds around sixteen-hundred kids in half an hour. It’s hectic, noisy, and just a little dangerous. Hanks kept so busy herding us and herding the other kids walking through our table that he didn’t even eat. Instead he stood there with a glass of orange juice, going all General Patton on every one.

  It’s probably at this point that you’ll notice the Ultra Stare for the first time. Cafeteria has two floors, Single and Bi on the bottom floors and everyone else up top. Means that of the eight-hundred kids on the bottom floor, a whole sixty of them might be Ultras. Half of that eight-hundred is brand new students already hearing rumors about Ultras. Other half of that eight-hundred is Bi Intras older than you but not as powerful as you, which means more than stares—it means loathing and glares and sneers and even worse. Tri and Quad Intras get over it, but Bi . . . the feeling is fresh.

  “It just me, or some of these bitches
looking at us like we killed their dog?” I asked our table.

  Everyone save Valentine started glancing over their shoulders, feeling a little freaked out. Valentine worked at fighting back tears. “Could you be more of an asshole?” the ginger girl with glasses asked me while patting Valentine on the back to try to calm her down. I took a look-see at ginger’s nametag. Her figure made it hard to read, but I managed. Miranda Daniels. Aeromancer.

  Like Ceinwyn Dale, I thought. Couldn’t be further from the truth. “What?” I asked.

  “Killed their dog?” she scolded me.

  Valentine went from holding back tears to letting them out.

  “Oh,” I said. “It was just an expression . . .”

  “Think before you talk for once,” Miranda ordered me like I’d do just that.

  I did. “It just me, or some of these bitches looking at us like we plowed their sister on Christmas morning?” I asked the table.

  Brown-haired green-eyed kid liked that one, laughing so hard he almost choked to death on his milk.

  “Okay, Singles,” Hanks told us, checking his watch, “Time to move.”

  Following breakfast, you’ll head to your first class. Here’s a warning: your first class is going to be disappointing. What else is new about the Asylum, right?

  Hanks ushered us through a door into a classroom. At least the classroom was different from my old high school. Asylum teachers get to keep the same classroom year after year; lets them decorate it however they want. This one was covered in clocks. All kinds of clocks but each old school. Small ones, big ones. All of them ticking. Like the opposite of what you’d expect from Captain Hook.

  I also didn’t see any crocodiles inside, only an Asian woman in a tight brown pantsuit that had yellow floral markings on it. It made you think samurai and wonder if maybe swords would be pulled out if you back talked. The lady herself was tall for Asian, didn’t look full Asian really, a lightness and straightness to her face. So like, half something and half something else, I figured. Had to be about Ceinwyn Dale’s age.

  “Everyone, please find yourself a seat,” she told us.

  I took a seat in the back. Brown-haired green-eyed boy took the one next to me. It’s funny what can start a friendship, ain’t it? I do wonder . . . if it had been Silva or Pak next to my bed would I have been playing soccer with them for the next seven years? Instead . . .

  “You’re only fifteen minutes late, Patrick,” the Asian lady said, “That’s quite an achievement.”

  Embarrassment flushed Hanks’ face over the compliment. He didn’t do emotion very well, but in a very different way than me. “Thank you, Mrs. Ambrose,” he murmured from where he hovered near the door.

  The Asian lady nodded to him, then gazed over the now seated class. “As Patrick just gave away, my name is Kumiko Ambrose; you will call me Mrs. Ambrose. I have the honor of teaching the Ultra Class of ‘09—that would be all of you—History. Since it’s our first day and since we have a whole eleven months together, we’ll be spending today getting to know each other. Your other teachers will continue to teach you the Institution rules and the Institution campus after you leave here . . . with Patrick’s help, of course.”

  Hanks’ face went pink.

  I couldn’t fucking believe it. I felt like shit, I’m at the Asylum, I wanted to know about the Mancy and instead . . . it’s getting-to-know-you day? Again? After I’d already gone through it this year in normal high school? And History? What the chipmunk squeakity squeak fuck does history have to do with the Mancy?

  I simmered in my seat. My headache pulsed. My palms itched. My muscles screamed in chorus to a pulse deep inside my body.

  Let this be a warning to you: be ready for this bullshit.

  Mrs. Ambrose stopped as if listening to something, but then kept going. “I was born to a Japanese mother and an American father on an army base of all things. My family moved around a lot growing up and I lived in three countries and six states before the Recruiter found me. I attended the Institution just like you are and graduated as an Intra geomancer. I went to normal college for a teaching certification and have been teaching history at the Institution for seven years now.” She swept the room with a smile, clocks ticking all around. “Anything else you would like to know?”

  My hand flew up.

  Some of the kids in my class rolled their eyes; others looked embarrassed about what words would be coming out of my mouth. After Mrs. Ambrose nodded to me with an encouraging expression, I asked, “What’s the point of this class?”

  Her smile went away. Had a thing or two to learn from Ceinwyn Dale. “Excuse me?”

  “Is it history about the Mancy?”

  “That’s another class called History of Elementalism,” she explained to me.

  “Right . . . so . . . what’s the point, then?”

  She nodded like she understood. “This is more than just a school for the Mancy, the Learning Council feels best that you learn the same as those in the normal world as well as our more specialized skills.”

  “Okay, but . . . I mean . . .” I think it reflects how hard I tried since fourteen-year-old-me didn’t call anyone a bitch or a fucker during this whole conversation. “I’ve broken a table in half and some other stuff too . . . so against that . . . why do I care about Napoleon being King of England?”

  “Napoleon was Emperor of France,” Mrs. Ambrose corrected me, doing what I would eventually call the ‘Asylum-Watcher’ with her face, like she could study my sanity level. All the teachers must have classes for practice. They all did it to every single kid in my class at least a few times a year.

  “Again . . . what’s that matter?” I asked. “Seems like a waste of time.”

  “Kid needs to learn to shut up,” the big black kid mumbled to himself a few rows to my left. Welf had a satisfied little smile. Guess he thought I looked like a retard . . . like I ever cared what he thought or ever cared about how I look. A few other faces nodded along with me though, including brown-haired green-eyed kid.

  Mrs. Ambrose kept on with the Asylum-Watcher expression. “You broke a table?” she finally asked.

  I shrugged.

  “On purpose?”

  “Accident.”

  “I thought so . . .” she murmured, finally turning away from me and to the class as a whole. “Everyone who has accidentally used the Mancy, please raise your hand.” About ten kids raised their hands, including Welf and Valentine. Mrs. Ambrose nodded at the number. “As you see,” she said to me, “you aren’t special and you have no ability to base what is normal unless you study what is around you and what has happened before you. Hence . . . history!”

  [CLICK]

  Getting to your second class is probably the scariest moment of your first day. Depending on the teacher’s personality, you have anywhere from ten to five minutes. If you’re an Ultra like me, then that means you’re getting the very best teachers the school has to offer; if you’re Intra, odds are you’re having Pent and Hex Ultras teaching your normal classes—that’s a lot of room for personality swing, so be prepared to run.

  Once you are prepared to run, you duck out of your room behind your student-advisor and are greeted with a wall of students—some confused, some gliding along peacefully. Stick to your advisor like glue, don’t get lost or you’ll never find your way on your own. At least a few kids do get lost—don’t be the idiot. Ours were Robin White and Patrick ‘Rick’ Brown. Yeah, wet dream boy, you really need to let that go though. They tumbled into the room five minutes after the group did, Hanks hanging onto them like a mother-dog, a hand on each neck.

  Second class was Math, which I’ve mentioned my completely logical hate for a few times in these tapes. It didn’t help that it was taught by Delores Dingle, all of sixty-five and so old-fashioned she used a chalkboard. Fourteen-year-old-me would have described her as fat around the middle, fat around the side, and fat around the ass. The woman took up some serious space when she moved, but she wasn’t mean, she just wasn’t
up to date and expected you to act like she had as a student. Which I think was back when they walked to school uphill in the snow and got whipped by sexually-repressed nuns or something.

  The one cool thing about Dingle’s classroom was she had a pair of hunting birds sitting inside it on a stand, their heads covered in leather and their claws tied down with leather straps. She’s a faunamancer, just like Hanks, but not an Ultra.

  One other thing about her . . . she’s about as different from my third period teacher as you can get.

  Jethro Smith.

  We walked through the door and there he was, wearing a leather jacket emblazed with a band name—the Madness—over a giant Ultra emblem. The guy was barely older than Hanks, probably the same age as Russell Quilt. Mid-twenties. If the jacket wasn’t a give away to his personality, he had Nirvana blasting from a beat up boombox by his desk and played air guitar with his hands. He waved at us as we came in, motioned for us to take a seat, but never stopped with the air guitar.

  Sitting down, I noticed the skulls for the first time. Not even animal skulls. Human skulls lined the whole classroom, about seven feet off the ground. Jethro Smith was tall, nothing but limbs, and the skulls were at the right height for him to reach up and bring down. Necromancer, surprise . . . surprise. As far as anima and the Mancy went, he’s Ultra strong but doesn’t have the special abilities of the Bonegrinder apparently . . .

  What are the special abilities of a Bonegrinder?

  I ask the questions, you little assholes.

  This ain’t the tape for Bonegrinders. Keep listening . . . we’ll get there.

  The Nirvana kept playing right up until the bell rang, Jethro Smith wailing full circle arm cranks on his air guitar. Few of the boys started nodding along. Few the girls watched on in disgust.

  When the music stopped the classroom seemed empty, Smith putting his finger to his lips for silence. He went to a wall and brought down one of the skulls, placing it on a metal holder that sat on his desk. His fingers left his lips to hover over the skull, swaying and passing over it in a piece of show. He was using the Mancy . . .