School by Nathaniel Hardman (top reads .TXT) 📕

“Do you remember the other day when James asked you to go to that movie, and Mom said it was a date, and that we can’t go on any dates until we’re sixteen?”

“Shut up.”

“Well,” Jeff went on, “You remember how you said it was ‘the worst day of your life’?” Suzy didn’t say anything, and Jeff went on. “I wonder if today might not be EVEN WORSE?”

Gradually the shivers died down. Rocks and roots were poking into her back, and a cloud of gnats had appeared that kept getting in her mouth. She sniffled, then gagged and spat out a gnat. “Yeah,” her voice broke a little, “today sucked.”

Jeff woke up shivering, his hands tucked in his armpits, his body curled into a tight ball. Suzy’s back was right up against his, the one warm spot on his body.

He felt around until he found the wand. “Fire!” he whispered. “Flame on! Fuego! Incendio! Avada kedavra!” He dropped it, disgusted.

He tried to pull the branches over himself, but there just weren’t enough to cover him. He tried to pull a big one off of Suzy, but she had it tucked behind her body. Grumbling, he pulled his arms inside his shirt and pulled his shirt up over his face. It felt good on his head, but it left his stomach bare and cold.

He wondered if it was almost morning. Peeking out of his shirt, he saw the light was coming from the huge yellow moon shining through the branches overhead and the softly glowing mushrooms that covered the decomposing tree.

Something about the moonlight decided him.

Jeff stood quietly, dropping the rest of his branches on Suzy. At his movement, a cloud of neon butterflies scattered up from the mushrooms and fluttered around the clearing. It was beautiful and surreal, but he was too cold to really appreciate it.

Jeff looked around and saw a fluffy long branch seven feet off the ground on a broccoli tree at one end of the clearing. He bent down and felt the ground where he had been lying; the rock digging into his back all night had certainly felt sharp. He dug it out of the hard ground with cold, raw fingers, and running a thumb over it, he found that it did have a bit of an edge.

He went to the tree at the edge of the clearing, and after a quick attempt confirmed that it was too big to break off directly, he took his rock and began to saw and chop awkwardly.

Within a minute, a trickle of tree juice ran down his hand and arm. These trees were odd, wetter and softer than trees should be. He wiped his wet arm clean on his shirt and kept chopping.

And then, suddenly, the tree was gone. In its place stood something equally green and thick, but quivering with life and energy.

Before Jeff could even drop his arm, a branch shot out and encased his wrist. Another wrapped around his chest, another around his legs, and he was yanked into the air.

Jeff might have cried out, but the branch around his chest was too tight. He was lifted up, up, until he was level with a long, smooth face. Its features were half tree, half alien, but the bared teeth and narrowed eyes made the expression on its face universal.

Jeff’s feet dangled twenty feet above the ground.

He stared into the angry, intelligent eyes and wheezed out, “Please.” He didn’t have breath for more, but he tried to say it with his face. The green irises locked on his for several long seconds; then the face, and the grip, relaxed marginally.

Jeff gasped for air. “I’m sorry, please don’t hurt me, I won’t cut off branches, please don’t hurt me, we’re just kids, I won’t break down any more trees, I promise.”

He knew the thing couldn’t understand him – he hardly knew what he was saying himself – but as he spoke, he saw the thing’s expression soften, becoming more STERN than angry. It was the homeowner who comes running to the broken window ready to catch vandals, but finds frightened little boys and a baseball hit too well.

It shook its thick head slowly. Then in a deep, but very smooth voice, it said something like, “Sirx ggax[3] nu xshuz.” It bent and lowered Jeff slowly to the ground and released him. “Rix quth xshuz,” it said, shaking a branch at him, then stretching out the dozens of limbs growing out of the upper half of its body, it pointed at the trees all around it. Finally, it swiveled several of its arms and pointed at something to the right, rumbling, “Azu nox iru.”

The tree man gave Jeff a final stern nod, and then suddenly, it was gone. In its place stood the tree Jeff had been cutting earlier.

Jeff stood there trembling for a long moment before turning to look at what the tree man had pointed at. Something was lying on the ground there, maybe thirty yards away.

Jeff was scared to investigate, and yet, as the shock of the encounter wore away, he was left oddly reassured. The thing could have crushed him or eaten him or hurled him over the treetops, but it hadn’t. And there was something about its expression as it set him down; it had felt familiar and safe, like a scolding from a cross but benevolent uncle.

The thing the tree man had been pointing to turned out to be a smaller, already dead, fallen tree. As Jeff pulled it back to where Suzy still slept, he found himself laughing. Funny that getting chewed out would be the first thing on this planet to make me feel right at-home.

EIGHTEEN

Jeremiah zoomed in on the alien in the middle, the one who had shot the spell.

He was going over the footage of one of