School by Nathaniel Hardman (top reads .TXT) 📕

Jeff growled and ran for the tree.

Faintly, he heard the voice of the alien he had just been fighting. “Good, boy. Let the jarsshus-thuosh tree do my bishg for me.” Something about his tone made Jeff deeply, deeply, uneasy.

Even as Jeff ran, Suzy was shooting spell after spell at the alien. She didn’t need to actually BEAT him, she reasoned; she just needed to keep him occupied until Jeff got the big wand. It was annoying though, seeing him block these spells so casually. Maybe if I build it up...

Suzy began chanting, “Alien choshoythmu, alien choshoythmu...” The alien noticed the break in the barrage of her spells and began hobbling toward her faster.

“Oqur!” she yelled. The spell was thicker, and it flew faster, but the alien blocked it just as easily.

Behind her, Jeff chanted the spell to harvest the tree. He sounded like someone reading a page from a foreign dictionary while walking over hot coals.

Ahead, the alien continued to advance. Suzy gritted her teeth. There has to be a better way to do this, she thought.

She watched the alien’s shuffling progress, and her eyes narrowed. She lifted the wand again, but this time, she pointed not at the warrior, but at the ground in front of him.

“Stone keshu,” she chanted, “Stone keshu, stone keshu...” She let the power build as the alien took several more slow steps toward her. He was only ten feet from her now, with the tree another twenty feet behind her. When she didn’t think she could wait another moment, she released the spell with a shout of “Oqur!”

The alien brought his shield down to protect his feet, but the spell hit the stones just ahead, covering them in flames. The warrior took a step back in surprise, and Suzy felt a brief rush of satisfaction. Then the flames began to die down.

“Keshu, keshu, keshu,” Suzy chanted, pointing at the stones. A weak flame appeared at the tip of her wand, as if it were her dad’s grill starter. The flames on the stones went out. “Shoot!” she yelled.

She looked up at the alien, and their eyes met. Then his eyes narrowed, and with a shout, he charged.

The alien took one big step before he reached the section of cobbles Suzy had set on fire. She hoped he’d burn his feet on the still-hot stones, but he surprised her, diving over the hotspot, rolling on his shield and coming up directly in front of her.

By reflex and by surprise, she shot her hand out and connected solidly with the warrior’s chest. The wand flew from her hand.

The alien had still been rising from his dive, and the hit surprised him, knocking him back. His face contorted in pain as he stepped, and at that exact moment, Jeff gave a cry from behind her. Alright, she thought, plan B.

Suzy never had gotten much out of the martial arts lessons at the zvuiy. She hadn’t enjoyed them like Jeff, and she always felt awkward trying to hit Shovuy without really hitting her. But she never could have played forward in soccer without some aggression, grit, and physicality.

Suzy didn’t bother with punches; she knew they weren’t her strength. Her power was in her legs, and she used them now, snapping high, hard kicks up toward the alien’s face.

The alien took a step back, and another, dodging the kicks, but with a satisfying look of surprise on his face, then pain as he stepped on one of the stones that had been burning. He hadn’t expected an attack like this from a kid.

Suzy pushed her advantage, kicking for his chest and face again and again.

She should have tried something different.

On the fourth kick, the warrior caught her leg and cranked it up, throwing Suzy to the ground. He lunged forward and tried to plant a knee on her, but she rolled away, churning her legs furiously. She felt her foot connect with him but wasn’t sure where; she hoped it hurt.

Suzy rolled up and away, back onto her feet, even as the warrior pushed himself back up from his knee. The man’s eyes burned at her, but Suzy glared back just as hard. Slowly, they began to circle.

Behind her, very quiet, Suzy heard a thump, like a foot slapping down on bare earth. Jeff, she thought. How long ago had he stopped chanting? She glanced over her shoulder, and the alien pounced.

He came in from Suzy’s side, fast and low, throwing a punch toward Suzy’s kidney. Suzy tried to pull away, sucking her middle away from the blow. The punch didn’t quite land, but the next punch, the follow-up uppercut Suzy had stuck her head out to receive, that caught her squarely on the chin.

Suzy reeled back, head spinning. Another blow, like a sledgehammer, hit her on the side of the head, and she dropped to her knees, then to all fours. She couldn’t see straight; little flecks of light were dancing around the wildly tilting plane she vaguely recognized as the ground.

A huge pressure landed on her back, and something warm and firm wrapped around her neck as she collapsed to the cobbles. Tight. Too tight.

Suzy reached up for the muscular arm that was choking her. “Stop,” she tried to say, but only a wheezy gurgle escaped. Somehow, the arm got tighter.

She could feel the alien’s hot breath on the side of her face, and she swung her arms wildly, clawing, gouging at any part of him she could reach. Her fingernails ripped long furrows in the arm around her neck, but it didn’t relax. If anything it grew tighter.

“Please,” she mouthed, but made no sound. She heaved and bucked and thrashed, she scrabbled at the cobbles, ripping and clawing to pull one up, but still the arm got