School by Nathaniel Hardman (top reads .TXT) 📕

monster and tried to roll over, but she couldn’t. She reached out and grabbed one of the guards around the ankle. He slapped her hand away but shouted to the others, “Shiy ex itush!” They all got on one side of the stone caterpillar, put their hands under it, and heaved, flipping it, and Tanesha, onto its side.

The guard nearest Jeff lifted his rock again, high over his head, then brought it crashing down with all his strength. Against the hard ground, without the Tanesha cushion, the blow gave a sickening-yet-satisfying crunch.

The two tail-end sections of the caterpillar broke off from the main body and rolled over, the legs waving obscenely in the air.

Suddenly, the fangs pulled out of Tanesha’s leg, and the body writhed and rolled, getting its own black legs under it and making a frantic, centipedal sort of scurry toward the fruit tree.

Wands came back out now as the men rushed in pursuit. Jeff noticed they were targeting the legs, and where the spells hit, the legs went stiff, dragging along or dropping the segment of the body they supported.

Soon, the thing was still.

The aliens closed in with their rocks like a pack of frenzied, homicidal giants. Another segment broke off, rolling toward Jeff, the broken joint oozing darkly. It was the single most violent thing Jeff had ever witnessed, and after a minute, he had to look away; he was feeling dizzy.

He put his hands on his knees and took a couple of long, steadying breaths. Then he thought of Mr. McArthur, who had turned the exact pale shade of green as the caterpillar; then he thought of the rocks and the fangs and the barbed legs, and it was all suddenly too much.

He had to sit down.

Jeff looked around at his classmates. The first person he saw was Peter, eating one of the purple fruits. Jeff wanted to get up and punch him in his stupid face.

Suzy and Jada were by Tanesha, comforting her, propping her head up on a mossy stone, looking for something to use for a bandage on her leg.

“Don’t put that rock under her head,” Jeff heard himself say. “Shock. Head should be lower that the heart. Uh, put it under the bleeding leg.”

Suzy shot a look at him that he couldn’t read. Then she eased Tanesha’s head up and slid the stone out. She tried to lift the leg, but Tanesha winced and moaned. “You’re supposed to prop up broken legs?” Suzy asked.

“Uh...” Jeff racked his brain. “Let’s see. Okay, you come upon someone who’s hurt. You call 911,”

“911!” called Nacho, faintly. Suzy and Jeff both looked sharply at him, but he didn’t notice. He was staring at the ground with an unsettlingly blank face. Shen appeared next to him and quietly helped him sit down.

Jeff shook his head to clear it. “No, wait. First you make sure the situation is safe.” Jeff glanced about the clearing, then did a double-take. The sun was glinting off something glossy moving in the fruit tree. “HEY!” He raised a hand and pointed even as he jumped to his feet.

The guards’ work was loud, and they were absorbed, so they didn’t notice Jeff until he plowed into them, tackling two of them into the bushes. Then there was an angry scramble, and Jeff got kicked in the ribs, and his hair got yanked.

Jeff heard someone shout, “Choshoythmu!” and an electric pulse went through his leg. He tried to stand up, but his leg didn’t move, and he flopped forward on his face. He heard the word repeated again and felt the pulses in his back spread over his body. He tried to lift his head and found he couldn’t.

Strong hands grabbed him and rolled him over. He was being held up by a furious, shouting guard, but Jeff’s eyes looked past him, into the tree. After a minute, the alien dropped Jeff and turned to see what he was looking at. Then he jumped back and started pointing and shouting.

There was a scramble for wands, and then the guards were shooting spell after spell into the tree at the second rock caterpillar perched there.

When the first spell hit the caterpillar, it jerked back from the large branch and scurried up the trunk. It was not as large as the first had been – softball segments to the other’s basketballs – and moved much faster.

The guards heaved and rolled the first caterpillar out from under the tree and got back to work on it. Jeff’s view was blocked by the bushes, but it seemed to him that they were taking a lot more time than necessary making sure the thing was dead. Why weren’t they helping Tanesha?

Jeff heard Suzy’s voice then, trying in her best Alien to demand that the guards come help. If they answered Suzy, Jeff didn’t hear it; the pounding didn’t stop. Jeff heard Suzy saying Ushegg’s name. He wished he could see what was going on.

Jeff worked on wiggling his toes, then his ankles, his fingers, then his wrists. He was just rolling over and sitting up when the aliens finally finished their barbaric work. They straightened to catch their breath for a moment; then they started lifting the jade balls, testing how best to hold the smooth and slippery-with-black-blood segments.

The humans let out a collective cry of outrage; when were they going to help Tanesha?

Ushegg spoke up then, insisting they come help the injured girl, and finally, two of the guards walked over to examine Tanesha. Jeff waited for them to pull out their wands and heal her, but after a while, they mimed lifting and carrying and pointed to the humans and to Tanesha.

Peter and Suzy both started to protest, but Ushegg spoke up, explaining – Jeff thought – that the break wasn’t something they could fix. They’d have to carry