Page 57 of Magical Academy for Delinquents
“Yup. Yeah. I’m fine.”
“Oh dear, you know, denial isn’t a healthy thing. Don’t judge your emotions. Just let them be. They are what they are,” she chanted, using the phrase she forced us all to recite like the fucking Pledge of Allegiance at the start of each class.
“They are what they are, and I just need to acknowledge them and let them go,” I said her stupid line in the hope that she’d just head the hell away. But I had no such luck. She could sense vulnerability. And she preyed on it, like some long necked, cross-eyed vulture.
Huchmala sat down in the empty stool next to mine at the sculpture table. She glanced at my deer. “Deer often represent innocence.”
My deer represented an offering to two stone lions so I wouldn’t get eaten. But I nodded, acting like I drank her Kool aid.
“Do you feel like you’ve lost your innocence? Or you’re about to in some way?” She blinked.
Behind her, a Hispanic dude grinned at me. “I’ll take your innocence.” He held up his fingers to create a hole, then used a finger from his other hand to fuck it.
“Here,” I tossed him my half deer. “Take it. I’ll start a new one.”
He glared at me, but with Huchmala there, he couldn’t do much. I used a wire to cut myself a fresh slab of clay and started smacking it like bread dough.
“Good, get your aggression out.” Huchmala nodded. “Acknowledge those feelings of frustration and powerlessness. We all have so much less control than we think we do and so much less than we want.”
We all have so much less earwax than we want,I thought. I knew some students actually wore earplugs in her class, but normally she didn’t bug me. Normally, Huchmala fluttered over to the painters and bothered them. Part of me was tempted to make a ceiling light flicker on the other side of the room to see if I couldn’t get her to go away.
I took a deep breath and stared at my clay. You can do this. Turn a lumpy block into a deer. I grabbed a carving tool, but Huchmala reached over and stopped me.
“Wait. I saw what you did last time, Hayley. You sketched and measured and then cut. Like a surgeon. But sometimes, in life, you just have to feel your way through. Sometimes, the discovery process is as important as the result. I want you to make a deer. But I want you to make it by hand. And I want you to take at least five classes to do it.”
My eyes widened. I only had class three times a week with her. That would make the project take almost two weeks. What was I supposed to do that whole time? “But it’s just a deer.”
She smiled, her eyes almost reaching my forehead. “It’s never just a deer. And this way, by the time you’re done, it’ll be more than just a deer to you.”
She left me at the table, staring wide-eyed at the Hispanic dude who was turning my previous half deer into a head mounted on a trophy board.
I looked back down at the lump of clay in my hands. I gave myself a pep talk. And then, I just embraced the insanity. If I had to spend two weeks on a frickin’ deer, I was gonna make the best life-sized replica of Rudolph anyone had ever seen.
* * *
I lickedmy lips as I stared at the wall in Ho’s class on Saturday—six days since I’d unraveled the twerking spell—worrying again. I’d had all my tutoring sessions with Malcolm, each one hotter than the last. Yesterday, I’d summoned up the courage to try footsie. I’d nearly internally combusted while we played Connect Four and I thought about all the other parts of our bodies I wanted to connect.
My hormones and my dirty dreams weren’t helping anything. I still didn’t feel quite right about telling Malcolm what I wanted. And each session he’d asked me why I’d picked him before I came here. I’d just shaken my head and refused to say anything, rather than lie to him. Any kind of half-truth seemed to rile him up.
And Grayson. That dick. I’d tried writing a few spells to get back at him, but nothing had stuck yet. I was gonna have to get more creative. His smirking face from lunch ate at me. I didn’t know how I’d transition from this battle royale we had to a teammate scenario. And trying to connect the dots felt like jumping from A to Z and skipping all the letters in the middle. I didn’t know what came next, only that something else needed to before I could approach Grayson.
Heat flashed over my panties and I started in my seat. I glanced at Malcolm, who used his eyes to point at Professor Ho.
Aw shit. Jackie Chan was staring right at me like he wanted to karate chop me in half.
I cleared my throat. “Sorry, sir.”
“Sorry, for what, Ms. Dunemark? For disrespecting me by treating my class like it was naptime? Should I bring you a blanket and a stuffie next class?”
Soft laughs dotted the room.
I pressed my teeth together, hard, swallowing down any retorts. Ho gave out detentions the way dentists handed out free toothbrushes. Every single class at least one person got one. I lowered my eyes in submission, hoping maybe Ho’s shifter animal would get the hint. I also tilted and exposed my neck.
“Dunemark, I asked you to tell me about magical shields. You can answer me and then come up to the front to get a detention slip.”
I swallowed a groan. I shoved myself more upright in my chair and said, “Magical shields have been a part of weapon design for as long as history’s been written. Humans and magicals have worked together to try to enhance shielding technology with magic. It started with repellent spells for swords and shields, progressed to castle walls, and so on, until lately they’ve been trying to create a purely magic anti-ballistic missile shield that doesn’t require launching actual missiles, just air detonates the missile set to strike.”
“Biggest issue with this kind of protection?”
