by Martha Carr
“She looks amazing without it,” Margaret agreed. “Don’t you dare leave the dorms until we’re all ready to go to the dance together, got it?”
Laughing at the ridiculousness of the other girls’ excitement, Amanda finally agreed and stayed in the building. However, she went back down the hall to her room instead of waiting in Annabelle’s. Part of her hoped Summer was in her room right across the hall, but the door was closed, and she couldn’t hear anything through it over the excited chatter of the other girls on the third floor as they all got ready for the dance too.
One night. It’ll be over tomorrow. Then everyone will go back to normal, and I can focus on getting better at magic.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Although everyone else was dressed up as much as possible—including the guys—she still felt ridiculous when she walked out of the girls’ dorm with Grace’s arm linked through hers.
“Don’t look so nervous.” Grace grinned at her. “You look amazing.”
“Thanks. I guess. You too.”
“Really? Thanks. This is the first time I’ve gotten to wear this dress. I wish I had better shoes, but it’s not like they were gonna let us go out for a shopping trip.”
“Not like we have any money to go shopping with either,” Annabelle added.
“Please.” Margaret laughed and playfully rolled her eyes. “We never had to buy anything in LA.”
“Yeah, but no one knew who we were in LA. Now we have files at an official magic school with our names on them. You wanna have a bunch of theft on your record forever?”
The students filed out of the dorms in one giant horde and headed for the central field, which was officially open now that the dance was starting. The teachers had sectioned it off from the dorms and the kitchen with a massive archway of twisting vines spanning the entire length of the field. Hanging from the archway was some kind of shimmering fabric that hid everything behind it from view, and a banner of deep blue and emerald green fluttered at the top of the archway—Homecoming at the Academy of Necessary Magic.
“This is it.” Grace bit her bottom lip in excitement although it didn’t get rid of her grin. “What do you think the theme is?”
“They didn’t give us a clue,” Margaret said. “I guess some kind of nature theme, judging by the vines and the colors.”
“There’s a theme?” Amanda asked.
“Yeah, there’s always a theme. At least, that’s what Evi said. She went to school in…”
Amanda tuned out Annabelle’s chatter when she caught sight of what lay beyond the archway as a group of students passed through the fluttering curtain ahead of them. When it was their turn, it took everything she had not to whisk her arm out of Grace’s and run through the curtain on her own.
Then they passed beneath the archway and into what looked like a completely different world.
The teachers had transformed the field to look like the bottom of the ocean. Magical lights floated through the air, casting flickering blue and white to mimic light refracted through water. A banquet table with piles of cakes, cookies, brownies, and a huge bowl of turquoise punch was at the far end of the field. The dance floor in the center reflected the same watery lights, and the bright pinks and oranges on the surface that made it look like coral had to be one of Calsgrave’s illusions.
Lining the field to show the dance floor's boundary were huge strands of artificial kelp eight feet tall, enchanted to float slowly back and forth as if they grew out of the ocean floor instead of the grass in the swamp. Amanda couldn’t find the speakers pumping out lilting instrumental music with the occasional sound of rippling bubbles and a far-off whale song between the melody, but the sound completed the Homecoming theme's feel.
The students milled around the center field, most of them heading straight for the dessert table and the punch. When everyone made it through the archway, a puff of dark blue glittering smoke erupted over the stage—which had been decorated with similar strands of kelp, another archway, and four pillars of what looked like white stone but was probably Styrofoam. Or another illusion.
The music died, and Principal Glasket stepped through the glittering blue smoke wearing a gown that looked made from seaweed and seafoam. She’d even painted her face not with regular makeup but with glittering blue and green to make her skin and neck look like glistening scales covered them. The principal spread her arms, and she didn’t use a microphone this time to address the student body. Her voice amplified across the field, also with a watery-sounding echo.
“Welcome to Homecoming,” she said. Some students cheered and whooped and whistled. “We want all of you to enjoy yourselves as we kick off the first of many dances and celebrations like this at the Academy of Necessary Magic. As you can see, the theme we’ve chosen this year is Atlantis. The underwater city of Earth legend, of course. Not the original home of Atlantean Oricerans.
“Now, I have a few announcements to make before we get down to the festivities. First, I want to thank your teachers and the rest of our incredible staff at this school for helping to create such a magical night for us. Yes, pun intended. Although our Louper team didn’t bring home a win during the match yesterday, I also want to congratulate our team. Their training is starting to pay off, and as human tradition also dictates on Earth, Homecoming is partially to celebrate our athletes, no matter the sport or skill. Oh, and there’s no curfew or Lights Out tonight—”
The students broke into raucous cheers.
“However, that doesn’t mean you have a free pass to run around like a bunch of crazies tonight. Have fun!”
Someone turned the music back up, and the students returned to their small groups of friends for conversations. Only a handful tried to dance to the watery music playing from what must have been Mr. LeFor’s hidden speakers somewhere.
Amanda finally slipped her arm from Grace’s and pointed at the dessert table across the field. “You want a cookie?”
“Not right now, thanks. You obviously do. Go ahead. I’ll find you later when it’s time for the real dancing.”
Annabelle wrinkled her nose and glanced around the field. “Someone should change the music. This is supposed to be a dance, right? Not an underwater expedition in costumes.”
Margaret snickered. “Yeah, I think Glasket spent too much time behind a research desk before they gave her this job. Hey, Mikey!”
“Yeah?” A short boy with spiky black hair approached them, his eyes darting in every direction but at the girls themselves.
“Somebody’s gonna take care of the music, right?”
“Yeah. Pete’s on it. He’ll have it fixed in no time. As long as LeFor didn’t move the controls again.”
Amanda took the opportunity to slip away from Grace and the others and made her way across the coral-looking dancefloor toward the banquet table. She grabbed two chocolate chip cookies and stepped away; otherwise, she’d end up snatching the whole plate.
“Look at you in a dress.”
She spun and puffed out a sigh when she saw Summer approaching the table. “Why are you always sneaking up on me?”
“Not always. Only when you’re distracted.” The girl leaned over the end of the table and grabbed one of each different kind of cookie she could reach from there.
“So what made you show up?”
Summer shrugged. “Wanted to see what all the hype was about. Didn’t expect you to get so dressed up.”
“Yeah, well, it was easier to be someone else’s makeover guinea pig than have to explain why I didn’t want to.”
Cookie crumbs fell from the other girl’s mouth as she looked Amanda up and down. “I like it. Kind of…fancy badass.”
“Ha. Thanks. You too.” She nodded at Summer’s all-black outfit—a pleated mini-skirt with studs, a tank top with only one strap and a giant bow on the back, and tall combat boots. “Especially the boots.”
“I figured they’re the perfect mix of ‘Fine, I’ll be here’ and ‘Nobody talk to me.’” They both l
aughed, then Summer nodded toward the stage decorated with fake seaweed and the four white columns. “That looks familiar.”
“At least there’s no pedestal with a purple stone on it. Then we’d probably have to ’fess up to taking the thing.”
“Nah.” Summer crammed another cookie into her mouth. “They have no idea. I plan to keep it that way. You should too.”
“Trust me. I’m not telling anyone.”
“I believe you, shifter girl.”
“Coulier!” Jackson jogged toward her with his hand in the air. Summer looked the wizard up and down, rolled her eyes, then took off around the perimeter to watch the rest of the dance on her own. Jackson watched her briefly, then chuckled. “What’s up with her?”
Amanda shrugged. “I think she showed up for the cookies.”
“Yeah, me too.” He wouldn’t stop staring at her as he said it, and he didn’t reach for any of the desserts on the table behind her.
“You okay?”
“What? Yeah. Of course, I’m okay. I just…I mean, you’re wearing a dress.”
She laughed. “It wasn’t my first choice—”
“You look great. I mean, good. You look…whatever.” Jackson leapt at the table and crammed a fistful of fudge squares into his mouth. Then he said something else unintelligible through the mouthful.
“What?”
He circled a finger in the air and rolled his eyes as he chewed.
A harsh squeal burst from the invisible speakers, and the warbling instrumental music cut out. Two seconds later, the quick, heavy bass of a new song blasted across the field, followed by an electronic melody growing steadily louder.
“Yes!” Jackson swallowed. “That’s what I’m talking about!”
The other students cheered as the first EDM track got everyone moving to the music. Then the electronic voice came through with a string of cussing repeated with the new rhythm.
Principal Glasket looked horrified as she stood beside the stage with the other teachers. “What is this? Who chose this music?”
Mr. LeFor looked at her with wide eyes. “It wasn’t me.”
“We can’t play this at a school dance, Edward!”
“I know that.”
“Well, fix it.”
Blinking furiously behind his thick-rimmed glasses, LeFor ruffled his red hair and stormed off toward the main building.
Jackson elbowed Amanda in the side. “Looks like Glasket expected this party to be PG, huh?”
She turned toward him and burst out laughing when he grinned at her and danced wildly to the music, flinging his arms in every direction. “You’re right. Those moves are not PG.”
“I meant the lyrics, Coulier. Although my moves are pretty badass. Come on. Let’s dance.”
The memory of trying to get Johnny to dance with her and Lisa at a local Everglades party over the summer made her snort. No point in being that much like Johnny.
“Yeah, okay.” She grabbed another cookie and followed him onto the quickly crowding dancefloor.
Grace joined them and had a good laugh at Jackson’s moves too. “What are you doing?”
“Letting it move through me.” He thrust a finger into the air and nodded. “You gotta feel the—”
The music shrieked again, stopped, and moved on to a different song. It was still electronic dance music, but this time, there were no lyrics. No one seemed to mind the switch, and the dancing continued.
Amanda caught sight of Pete darting toward the field from the back of the main building and booking it toward the dance floor. He pumped a victorious fist in the air before glancing over his shoulder. Apparently, Mr. LeFor hadn’t yet figured out that the culprit had already escaped.
“See?” Grace shouted at her over the music. “This is fun, right?”
“Yeah, now that there’s real music.”
“Hey, I heard there was gonna be a pie-eating contest later.” Jackson whirled around with his crazy dance moves to scan the field. “I’m so down for that. No idea what the prize is, but I bet it’s epic. Coulier, you could totally win that.”
“I’m good on pie, thanks.” Amanda ate the rest of her last cookie and almost sprayed it all over when Jackson’s next energetic spin on the dancefloor sent him knocking into a group of senior girls trying to get to the dessert table.
“Hey! I’m dancing here!”
“Go dance somewhere else.” The girls shoved him back onto the dancefloor, laughing and rolling their eyes as they finally got to the desserts.
“Psh. No appreciation for skill, huh?” Jackson wiggled his way toward the center of the dancefloor, and the other students moved away to give his flailing arms and legs a wide berth.
Grace shook her head. “The whole ‘ignorance is bliss’ thing definitely applies to him.”
“At least he’s having a good time.” Amanda went to brush her hair out of her face, remembered Margaret’s styling efforts, and dropped her hand as she gazed around the field. “That’s what this whole thing is about, right?”
“Hey, you’re finally getting it!” Grace leaned toward Amanda and whispered in her ear, “Did you hear about what Kevin Archer has planned for later?”
Amanda shook her head.
“I heard he smuggled some kind of magical booze in when the seniors went out to the kemana last week.”
“Seriously?”
“Who knows? Might be fun to watch, though.”
Amanda didn’t have anything to say to that. Sure, most of the other students had spent a long time being practically homeless and having to break the rules a lot to survive. She wondered why they were still trying to break the rules when they’d all been given a second chance here at the school.
Yeah, and I break the rules too, don’t I?
A faint glimmer of purple light beyond the dance’s magical barrier caught her eye. It flickered behind the west wing of the main building, right where the wards around the campus were supposed to be. A brief burst of purple sparks shot into the air and quickly disappeared.
What is that?
Grace caught her frown and looked in the same direction, but the purple light was gone. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I thought I saw something.”
“Yeah, maybe you shouldn’t drink anything but that blue punch over there if you already see things.”
“Very funny.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Mr. Derbyshire!” LeFor barked. “I did not give you permission to—”
“It’s fine, it’s fine. Really. I got this.” Pete waved off the Augmented Technology teacher and hopped up onto the stage. “This one goes out to all the kids who have no idea what they’re doing with their life!”
The students cheered.
“Mr. Derbyshire—”
“Wait.” Pete spread his arms and grinned. “I guess that’s pretty much all of us, right? Wait for it…”
The skinny kid hiked up his skinny jeans, then pointed in the air as the last track faded away. When the new one began—some kind of remix, as far as Amanda could tell—he stomped his foot on the stage and nodded.
The other kids cheered and bounced around on the dancefloor, pumping their fists in the air.
Amanda turned toward Grace. “What’s this?”
“You don’t know Dagger Head?”
“Who?”
“Only the best magical DJ on the West Coast! Just wait. It gets better.”
Amanda glanced at Pete, who was now doing some kind of shuffling dance across the stage before Principal Glasket pointed at the ground for him to get off. The witch still couldn’t hide her small, partially amused smile when Pete took a flying leap into the closest students on the dancefloor and went right back to dancing.
So maybe not everyone’s getting in trouble for breaking the rules. Maybe there are no rules during Homecoming. Probably not the best idea with these kids…
Another round of cheering went up when the rhythm of the song changed. The students jumped around in a sea of
bobbing heads and pumping fists, then somebody screamed at the other side of the field.
“Yeah! It’s awesome!” Pete shouted in reply.
Amanda turned toward the scream but couldn’t see a thing through all the bodies. So she darted away from the dancefloor to get a better look.
“Hey, where are you going?” Grace asked.
“I heard something.”
“Amanda! Hold on!”
She slipped through the other dancing bodies, and someone else screamed this time. When she stepped out onto the grass and headed farther away from the dance to look across the campus, the silhouettes of four students were visible in the darkness. They raced toward the central field, stumbling over themselves and turning to look over their shoulders.
“Everybody look out!” one of the junior boys shouted. “Get out of the way!”
Over the music and the cheering and the stomping feet on the dance floor, nobody heard him but Amanda.
“Get out!” Candace Jones screamed. “They’re heading right for the field!”
Amanda took off toward them, and the farther away she got from the magical lights floating around the dancefloor, the more her vision adjusted to the dark. One of the four kids hurrying toward them was limping, clutching his leg, and the other one kept grabbing his friend’s wrist to help him forward.
“Hey, what happened?”
“We were screwing around.” The injured kid grimaced, his hands slippery and covered in his blood. “I had no idea they were so—”
An angry squeal rose from the swamp at the edge of the campus, and the four kids barreled past Amanda toward the dancefloor. “Watch out! Everybody look out!”
Then she saw the enormous wild boar burst through a wall of cattails, heading right for the center of the field.
Only one. That’s easy enough—
Two more darted after the first, squealing and grunting and churning up large clods of dirt behind them as their toed hooves moved with desperate speed across the grass. Four more followed, and she didn’t wait to see how many more boars raced toward them from the swamp. She spun and booked it toward the dance.