Have Spacecat, Will Travel: And Other Tails by John Hartness (top ebook reader .TXT) 📕

little smile and reached for the power she knew bubbled just below the surface of her life. She could feel it, the power of the Knights of the Round Table that coursed through her, Rex, Lance, and Kyle. The ability to get stronger, faster, more skilled when they needed to go into combat. She felt the power, the soul of Sir Gawain, the Knight of legend, but…something was wrong. She couldn’t reach it. She couldn’t touch the power. Something was blocking her, and now Scott was about to break her face.

“Is there a problem here?” Mr. Murden’s voice cut across the picnic area like thunder, all low and rumble through the still air.

Scott took a quick step back and sat down hard as the bench hit him right behind the knees. “Nope, nothing at all, Mr. Murden. Gwen was just sharing her apples with me and the boys. She’s super-nice that way, you know.”

“I am aware that Miss Dimont is very nice, Mr. Golbert. I am also aware that it is time to begin our ascent into history. So if the four of you would please dispose of your garbage in the appropriate receptacles and join the rest of the class, we shall depart post haste.”

Murden gave them a steady look that brooked no disagreement, then turned and walked to where the rest of the class was gathered, watching.

“I guess we’ll finish this conversation later, Gareth,” Scott said, stomping off after the teacher’s stork legs.

Gwen gathered the last scraps of her lunch and shoved everything into the brown paper sack she’d carried on the bus with her. The whole time she cleaned up after herself, her mind whirled. Why couldn’t I get stronger? Can I only become Sir Gawain when we’re all together? Or maybe just when Rex is around? Am I not a knight without Arthur? What the hell? With no answers forthcoming from the universe, Gwen tossed her trash in the green barrel by the table, slung her backpack over one shoulder, and joined the rest of the class.

Mr. Murden stood at the trailhead, delivering a lecture about the importance of the Battle of Kings Mountain to the colonials’ cause in the Revolutionary War. Gwen smiled to herself, knowing that while Murden had technically lived through the American Revolution, he was as dependent on the history books as the class he taught, since he’d been asleep in a tree for the whole thing. Not to mention the centuries on either side of it. Murden’s former life as Merlin, archdruid of England and chief advisor to King Arthur was useful for a lot of things, but his firsthand knowledge of American History was pretty lacking.

“Now, please welcome Mr. Richard Gualtieri, our guide for the next portion of the tour.”

Mr. Murden stepped aside, and a guy that looked more like a suburban dad than a historian stepped up, a broad grin splitting his round face.

“Good morning,” he said. “My name is Rick Gualtieri, and I’m a ranger in the U.S. Park Service. Yes, I am, in fact, Ranger Rick.” He looked around, as if expecting a laugh, then pulled out a red bandanna and mopped a few beads of sweat from his gleaming bald head. “Anyway,” he went on. “Today we’re going to hike up this trail about half a mile, then we’ll get to the actual location of the battle, and you’ll be able to see why the conditions very much favored the colonists, who were familiar with hunting and trapping in these hills. The redcoats, or British Army, were much more accustomed to fighting on at least somewhat level ground, where large groups of men charged at each other over huge fields, supported by swift cavalry and thundering munitions.”

Ranger Rick started walking up the inclined trail backward, never looking behind himself or paying any attention to where he put his feet. He just kept up a steady stream of monologue as he led the students up the graveled walkway and into the dense woods. Gwen hung back a little, giving the rest of the class a little separation as Mr. Murden dropped back to join her.

“Is everything all right, Miss Dimont?” Murden asked.

“Yeah, I guess,” Gwen replied. “Todd and those jerks were just giving me the normal crap. You know, I’m a freak, I’m not a real girl, I shouldn’t be allowed to live like a girl, all that shit. Oops, sorry.”

“I suppose we can excuse the language as long as the rest of the class is beyond earshot,” Murden said, a kindly smile stretching across his narrow face. He glanced ahead of them, where Gwen’s fellow students followed Ranger Rick’s beaming face and khaki cargo shorts farther up the mountain. “But that isn’t all that’s bothering you, is it? You deal with their close-minded opinions every day, and while their treatment of you is often reprehensible, I have seldom seen it trouble you to this degree.”

Gwen sighed, trying to figure out how to put into words what was bugging her. “Yeah, there’s something else. When I was getting ready to fight Scott, I was ready to kick his ass once and for all. And now that I can turn into Sir Gawain at will, I finally have the power to. But when I went to change, I couldn’t. I could still feel the Gawain-Gwen there, but it’s like she was just out of reach. Like something was blocking me.”

“Did Scott instigate the fight?” Murden asked, his blue eyes sharp under the bushy white brows.

“Of course he did!” Gwen’s voice rose, and she quickly dropped her volume as a couple of the students near the tail of the procession glanced back. “I mean, he came over and started calling me names, and saying stuff like he always does. He totally started it.”

“I don’t doubt that he was the first to begin the confrontation, but did he choose to initiate the actual fight?”

Now Murden’s eyes seemed to bore into her very soul, and Gwen could see why Merlin was