School by Nathaniel Hardman (top reads .TXT) 📕

“Oh, that doesn’t help,” Jeff groaned, squeezing his eyes shut. He took a deep breath and blew it out slowly through his teeth. “Okay. Let’s do this.” Another deep breath, then he took Ushegg’s knife and began slicing off spongy chunks as fast as he could go.

“Hey Jeff,” Suzy said behind him, her tone sweet and friendly. “You wanna just cut up some for me, while you’re at it?”

Jeff clenched his jaw. Sisters.

“You learn any more sweet kung fu today?” Jamal asked.

“No,” sighed Jeff, collapsing onto the floor by the others. “Qush Yurwush had to do something, so he had us play some more kixtoy. Man, I’m beat. We actually had to do some dancing in magic class. Like, MAGIC dancing. Hey, how’re the beads coming?”

Nacho shrugged. “Okay.” He was trying to use a sharpish rock to saw one of the monkey bones. “It’s hard to break off pieces without breaking the whole thing. Wish they’d let us have real tools. You want to help?”

Jeff reached for the bone Nacho was holding out to him, then hesitated. “I don’t know; my hands are kind of sore.”

Zoe guffawed. “From playing soccer?”

“No, it’s... Suzy, is your tree stinging your hands a lot?”

Suzy looked up from her writing. “Yeah, sometimes I get a little sting. It doesn’t leave a mark or anything though; it’s not that big a deal.”

“Yeah... Maybe mine likes me more. It stings me a lot these days – the roots I mean,” he clarified as Shen looked at him curiously. “Whenever I fertilize it, I get these little stings from the roots, like it’s trying to eat my hands instead of whatever I’m giving it.”

“I don’t think that means it likes you more,” Suzy said, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah, yeah,” Jeff said, laughing uncertainly and shrugging. He took the bone from Nacho and began sawing at it with a plastic ruler. “What are you writing?”

Suzy looked up again. “I’m making more copies of the word list. All the other classes keep asking for these when we go to the bathroom. And I think – if some of the teachers could talk to the aliens… Maybe they could… I don’t know. I just want to spread this around.” She trailed off.

Jeff nodded, wishing the dictionary had been his idea.

Sawing with the ruler was ridiculously slow going. “Hey, anyone heard any good jokes lately?”

No one answered, so he said, “Okay, here, I just made this one up:  What do a fancy French restaurant and a hungry skeleton have in common?” There was a long pause. “No one? Bon appétit!”

“Get it?!”

“Get it?”

“Anyone?”

THIRTY THREE

Jeremiah came in through the front door and hobbled toward the bathroom for the first-aid kit. He had managed to work his way past the army barricade that night and tried sneaking across the parking lot, only to experience first-hand the fire spell surrounding the castle.

In the living room, he passed a scientist setting up some sort of high-tech gadgetry with a tiny spinning satellite dish. Almost, he stopped to watch, but his feet hurt too much, and he hurried on.

Jeremiah got the burn cream from the hall bathroom; then his curiosity got the better of him, and he went back out to the living room. He sat on the couch with a groan and eased off his shoes, then peeled off his socks, wincing as he exposed the red, blistered bottoms of his feet. He glanced over at the scientist, who wasn’t paying any attention to him.

As Jeremiah began applying the cream, he asked, “So are you going to take that out in the backyard when you’re done?”

The scientist answered without taking his eyes from his work. “No, this is going to stay right here.”

“Why would you want it here? How are you going to learn anything about the spider from here?”

“This sensor will be able to detect anything new that appears in your house.”

“Like if I walk in the door, it will go off?”

“No, like if you are suddenly replaced by an alien, it will go off.”

Jeremiah considered this as he propped his feet up and let the cool of the ointment seep into his feet. He made a connection, and it made him angry.

“That’s why you’re keeping the spider here. That’s just your excuse to stay here and study my house, because it was ground zero.”

The scientist finally looked back at him and did a double take at the sight of Jeremiah’s bare feet coated in cream. “Uh, no. Look. I don’t know anything about that. They just asked me to come calibrate this sensor. I think, if you have questions like that, you should probably talk to Major Harper.”

“Major Harper,” Jeremiah grumbled. “I know the deflect-to-Major-Harper trick...” He realized he was being grouchy because of his feet, so he waved the man back to his work.

It occurred to him now that he should have waited to apply the cream until he got up to his bed. He looked at the clean carpet, then looked at his stiff, blackened socks, then at his singed shoes... Doesn’t Lori have some slippers down here? He didn’t see them. Finally, he rolled off the couch onto his knees and began crawling, careful to keep the burn cream off the carpet.

He was just starting up the stairs when Lori came down. She said, “Why are you crawling? Oh, Honey, you didn’t tell me it was that bad!” She rushed to him, inspected his feet, and made a big fuss. Next time, she declared, she was coming with him, and she was bringing the first-aid kit.

She helped him upstairs to their bed, careful to put down a towel under his feet so he didn’t get burn cream on the blankets. She asked if he needed anything, offered to bring up food. It