School by Nathaniel Hardman (top reads .TXT) 📕

she continued the chant, watching in wonder as the leaves folded into buds, then sank into the branches. Then the branches themselves began to contract, shrinking back toward the stem and then disappearing entirely.

Finally, feeling no more resistance, Suzy lifted her hand out of the dirt and stared in wonder at the wand she held. It was about five inches long and shiny, greyish-brown. She stared at her palm, rubbed it with her other thumb. There was no mark, no sign of the attacking tree’s roots.

“So,” said Jeff, interrupting her wonder, “Overall it was pretty easy?”

FORTY ONE

“But what if your wand DOES work?” Jeff asked again. “I don’t want to leave it.”

“I know! But if mine DOESN’T work, we’ll want to try fertilizing yours more – make it stronger, you know?” Jeff started to argue, but Suzy cut him off, “Just leave it! There are more important things right now than whether you get to keep your magic wand.”

Jeff looked like he might still try to pick his wand right now, so Suzy hooked his arm in hers and pulled him back to the classroom along with the other students.

“We could probably use two wands when we’re trying to switch the school.” Jeff tried, sounding desperate. “Like maybe we can double-team it. Or if you’re doing the switch spell, and the guards come to stop you, I could protect you and fight them off.”

“Oh please. As if we’d be able to fight anyone off with these wands. Yurwush is only letting us take them because they’re too small to be dangerous. Look, if mine works, you can use it to come back here for your wand later.”

With this, at last, Jeff stopped arguing.

Just before they reached the door of the class, Jeff stopped her. “Maybe… we should just go do it now,” he said.

Suzy considered. It felt too sudden, like there should be some finishing-up ceremony, a graduation. But they had the wand now and knew – hopefully – how to use it. Shovuy walked past, and on an impulse, Suzy caught her.

“We go to our school now,” Suzy said. “Goodbye.” She gave her friend a hug. Shovuy stiffened in surprise and looked distinctly confused as Suzy released her.

“I don’t know if they give hugs here,” Jeff whispered.

“Shut up,” Suzy said, wiping her eyes. “Let’s go.”

They hurried back through the city, down the now-familiar streets and cobbles. As the crossed the bridge, Jeff said, “I didn’t say goodbye to Ushegg.”

They walked through the castle gates, past guards that seemed surprised to see them but didn’t make any fuss. Suzy had the wand in her pocket; they weren’t sure the guards would be as relaxed about it as Yurwush was.

When they walked into the classroom, there was a moment of surprise, then electric excitement, then silence, as Suzy pulled out the wand.

“So does it work?” Shen asked, his voice hushed, reverent.

“Yes!” Jeff said, at the same time Suzy said, “We don’t know.”

“Let’s try something! See if it works,” Nacho suggested.

“Do something small first,” Shen put in.

“I’m small,” Prithi said, and Suzy laughed before seeing the earnest, hopeful expression on her face.

“No,” Jeff said to Prithi, “Something really easy like a pencil or an eraser or something like that.”

There was an explosion of noisy offers, “Here, use my pencil,”, “My watch!”, “My shoe!”

Suzy took Zoe’s pencil and set it on a desk in front of her. The class quieted down and stared at the pink, glittery pencil. Suzy pointed the wand, then looked at Jeff, “Just, ‘switch’?”

Jeff shrugged. “We can try something else if that doesn’t work.”

Suzy nodded and bit her lip. The class held its collective breath. Suzy pointed the wand and yelled, “Switch!”

The pencil switched. A plain, yellow, number-two pencil sat where Zoe’s had been.

A couple of them cheered, which made everyone else cheer, but then Jamal yelled, “No, but it’s HERE!” He held up the pink pencil.

The spell had worked, but only across the room.

Jeff leaned close to Suzy so she could hear him over the clamor of the class. “You have to say what you want it to switch for,” Jeff whispered.

“What, ‘earth pencil’? But there are earth pencils all around here.”

“Uhhh,” Jeff considered. “Try ‘earth candy bar’. There definitely aren’t any of those around here.” Suzy narrowed her eyes. “What?” said Jeff, defensively, “I’m just saying. To get a candy bar, the spell would have to get it from earth!”

Suzy shook her head, still frowning. “No, that... It doesn’t help. Eventually we have to switch the whole school back. I don’t want it to switch for some other random school or some other building here on this planet.” They were both silent for a while before Suzy went on, “No, you know how Qush Yurwush was always talking about how you have to like, SEE what you want the spell to do? Like plan it out in your mind? Visualize?”

Jeff stared back blankly. “Did he say that? No wonder my spells never worked very well.”

“Yeah, it’s like, the words help guide it, but they’re more for you than for the wand. ‘Cause the wand doesn’t know any words, except the one word you teach it when you feed it the ingredient.”

“Did Yurwush ACTUALLY say all of this, or are you just making this up?”

“I don’t know!” Suzy barked, unexpectedly loud, her voice breaking a little. She took a deep breath. They were so close, and to finally have the right tool but not know how to use it was agony.

“Okay,” said Jeff, patting Suzy’s shoulder. “Okay. Visualize. Visualize and attack. We can do it, Suz. It’ll be okay. The wand WORKS! It switched the pencils, and now we just have to focus on what we want it to do.”

Suzy nodded. “Okay,” she took another steadying breath and