School by Nathaniel Hardman (top reads .TXT) 📕

disgusting now that it was unattached to the pig.  Ushegg came over, picked it up, and put it in his bag.  Suzy shuddered.

Eventually, the chik checs stopped running back to their mound and instead began to disappear, squealing and de-tailed, into the fields.  Jeff hadn’t seen any movement in the hill for a while now, and he was aching and sore, both from the work and the four times he had been hit by the pigs’ spells.

He tossed his shovel out into the field and climbed up what was left of the embankment.  “Ushegg!” He waved and caught his attention.  “All done?”

Ushegg nodded wearily.  “Okay, I cauz we have enough.”  He walked toward Jeff slowly, dragging his feet as he walked, but his smile was mischievous as ever as he looked up and asked, “Did you like the chik checz?”

Jeff rolled his eyes and slid down the hill.  “Yes...” he faltered, not knowing the translation for, “I’m going to invite them to my birthday party,” and not sure the sarcasm would come across right anyway.  As he reached the bottom of the hill, his footing gave out, and he sank into one of the partly obscured entrances.

His momentum pitched him forward, and as he threw out his arms to catch himself, a chik chec came scrambling out of the dirt directly under him. As if it had been choreographed, he landed on his side and caught the little pig by one of its back feet. “Hey, look at that!” he started to crow to Ushegg.  Then the chik chec leveled its tail and shot him in the face.

This was worse than all the times Fogu had punched him in the face during martial arts class. His vision went black for a second, and when it cleared, he was holding his nose, which was bleeding almost as much as his eyes were watering.

He groaned and staggered to his feet, wiping tears away with his sleeve. Jeff looked around to see where it had gone, and he saw Ushegg holding it in his arms a dozen paces away. He had the tail tucked firmly under his armpit, and he had the body cradled tight against his chest like a baby.

“Hey, watch this!” Ushegg said. He gave the pig a sudden squeeze, and a ripple shot out from its tail. A look of pure delight spread across his face, and he turned around so the tail was pointing toward Jeff. Ushegg craned his head, aiming the pig’s tail, and gave it another squeeze.

“Hey knock it off!” yelled Jeff as he dove out of the way of the blast. Ushegg could barely hold on to the squirming chik chec, he was laughing so hard, but he still managed to squeeze it again and again, sending bolt after bolt flying at Jeff.

Jeff ran toward him, dodging shots from the pig blaster until he finally sidestepped around Ushegg and yanked the chik chec out of his arms. Ushegg’s armpit grip on the tail was too tight, and it detached as Jeff pulled the pig away.

Jeff looked down at the writhing beast in his arms. The hairless little nub where its tail had been made him think of eating shrimp – the way he would pull open the clear, stiff part at the end to get at the last piece of meat inside. It also made him a little queasy.

Ushegg sobered up finally, and he slipped the tail into his satchel with a sigh. He gave Jeff a slap on the shoulder and pointed to the chik chec Jeff was still holding in his arms. “This one, you can guch. You have uoshrus this.”

Jeff gazed down at the thing he held. “What will I do with a,” he didn’t know the word for PET, so he settled for “chik chec?”

Ushegg furrowed his brow. “Eat it,” he said. Jeff stared back blankly. Ushegg held up a fist by his mouth and pretended to gnaw on a drumstick. Jeff looked back at the ugly little pig. Well, he thought, it probably beats blue oatmeal.

“But what can we do for the kids in the OTHER classes?” Suzy pressed Zoe as they made their way back into the city. “I mean, I don’t think they’d let everyone out for fieldtrips like this, but is there SOMETHING we could do? Something we should ask for?”

Zoe shrugged uncomfortably. “Getting us all home…” She seemed to be avoiding eye contact, looking ahead and not at Suzy, but then she narrowed her eyes and pointed at something in the sky. Suzy squinted.

At first, she thought it was a shigg. It had the shape and speed of the giant bird they had seen on their last outing with Ushegg. But as it soared closer, she could see it was green, reptilian and un-feathered. And someone was riding on its back.

“Dragon!” Jeff yelled, even as an alien on the street yelled, “Chushr!”

Ushegg and the guards broke into a run, racing for the school, the same direction the dragon was heading. As it soared overhead, the guards shot spells up at it, seemingly without effect.

“Jeff!” Suzy yelled, as the kids ran after the running guards. “Why are we chasing it?!”

“I don’t know!” Jeff yelled back. “‘Cause everyone else is!”

Suzy ground her teeth at this but followed the rest of the class down the cobbled streets, across the bridge, and finally through the gateway into the courtyard where they skidded to a stop.

The dragon was perched high on the castle wall. On the dragon’s back, an alien stood up slightly from his stirrups, shouting something down at Ushegg’s dad, gesturing furiously at the little tree in the center of the courtyard.

Suzy couldn’t understand a word of what he was yelling. She squinted up at him. He was lighter than the other aliens she had seen, and slightly tan/grey rather than green, though his full-length pants