Bad Girl School

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Bad Girl School Page 21

by Red Q. Arthur


  “Yet,” said Carlos, and Cooper gave him a fist bump.

  “Really, really impressive,” I said. “But a quick question. Any luck with the other thing?”

  “Oh, you mean the curse?” Julia laughed. “Hey, it’s only been two days.” Pause.

  “But… yessss.” She drew the answer out, to tantalize me— and also out of pride, I thought. Something was happening here, something like the sum being greater than the parts. Maybe each of us was psychic in our own way, but when we got together, we got stronger. You might expect that, but we didn’t just get a little bit stronger— we got a lot stronger. Almost exponentially stronger.

  I wished A.B. and I could take the whole group with us when we went to Uxmal. But that would probably look suspicious. And anyhow, no one at Cozumel had mentioned the others were there. So they must not have been.

  “In fact tonight,” Julia continued, “we’re going to make the transfer.”

  “All right!”

  First we floated Stuffed Curly back to the table, and then we built tough, thick shields around ourselves (all except Cooper), the whole group working on each person’s shield until it was penetrable only by bullets, and even that might be in doubt. (Or so I imagined.)

  And then we did make one for Cooper.

  After that— and here was what the group had figured out in my absence— we slipped it off and put it aside, like a piece of physical body armor, so that we could pop it back on at a second’s notice.

  Then, to my amazement— and appreciation— we made one for the Curly dog! And popped it off for a quick outfitting as well. Brilliant!

  “We tried it last night,” Sonya said, “but we forgot to close it up, you know? Shoulda put feet on it.”

  “Hey, wait, I’ve got an idea. We could eliminate a step. Let’s make a new shield for Curly, only with a hole in it for the curse, so we can leave it on him… hey, wait, here’s a better idea. Forget the hole. Let’s make it a door that we can leave open while we do the transfer, then snap shut without having to build a whole new piece of shield.”

  “Could be worse,” said Cooper. “Could be a lot worse, Jaguar Snake. Maybe there’s a reason we let you in here.”

  Jeez, the curse must be weakening— he was finding ways to make insults sound almost like compliments.

  So we made the new piece of toy body armor— that is, astral toy body armor— and turned to Cooper. Once again Sonya and Carlos were assigned the job of keeping the curse in the dog while Julia, Kara, and I pulled. We’d just started tugging the thing off when I thought of something. I’d forgotten how sticky it was. “Hey, hold it.”

  Everyone opened their eyes, clearly annoyed.

  “Before we do this, let’s turn his shield inside out and see if any of the curse is sticking to it.”

  Julia said, “Whoa. Yeah, let’s do.”

  And so we did, each person working in his or her own mind, turning an imaginary shield inside out, and removing icky, sticky pieces of psychic slime and storing them in the toy animal. An onlooker would have thought we were crazy.

  “Only crazy,” A.B. said, “for thinking it imaginary. You do have an onlooker, girlie-poo.”

  All righty, then. The thing was real. Good, because the curse damn sure was. It might not look like some sort of cross between chewy algae and half-digested beef, which was how I saw it, in fact it might not look like anything, but it was definitely real.

  And the shield must have been too, because it had lots of little curse-specks sticking to it, like so much toxic lint. Curiously enough, we all finished de-cursing it at the same time, and then we turned back to Cooper.

  This time the shield didn’t seem so stubborn. In fact, seemed to come off almost like a wetsuit stuck on with astral Velcro, more of a peeling than the mental jackhammering we’d had to do before. But it was really stubborn Velcro, and the wetsuit split and splintered over and over, and each piece had to be pried off and stuffed in the dog.

  Just when I felt the job was done, Julia said, “Ready?”

  We all were.

  “Pop his shield on.”

  We astral-Kevlared Cooper.

  “Now slam that door!”

  We slammed. I could have sworn it closed with a “thunk.”

  “Seal it shut! Now!”

  I started out with astral sealing wax, then I put grout on top of that, and some putty and a good coat of epoxy. After which I poured cement on it. And for good measure, I mixed up another batch and poured it over the whole shield.

  “Whoa,” Sonya said.

  Carlos said, “I feel it too. I mean, I don’t.”

  “What?” Julia asked.

  “It stopped resistin’. Think it’s in there to stay.”

  “Woo-hoo!” Kara hollered, which was by far the most animated I’d ever seen her, and then, for the first time during the procedure, I looked at Cooper. “How do you feel?”

  He smiled. “Great! Fantastic. You guys, just in case anything happens and I can’t talk again, I really, really have to tell you how much I appreciate this. You’re the greatest friends anyone could ever have and I just…” His eyes started to water up… “I just wanted you to know.”

  We were quiet for a second and then Carlos said. “I didn’t think it was possible to talk that fast.”

  Cooper’s eyes lit on me: “Especially you, Reeno.”

  Me? Why? There must be some reason; I should ask what it was, but I couldn’t get the words out. I felt a sudden warmth spread to my cheeks. What, I wondered vaguely, is that about?

  “Let’s keep working, people,” Julia said, “while we’re hot. We can talk after the meeting.” She looked at me. “This is the part where we send Haley some energy. Listen up, newbies, the principle is something like you might see at a pep rally; or maybe a revival meeting. People with a common focus create energy.”

  “In church,” Sonya said, “you know how people put their hands up when a Gospel choir sings? Y’all ever do that? Makes your palms and fingers tingle. That’s when you can actually feel it.”

  “Ohhh.” I had a sudden memory of doing that at a rock concert.

  “Now what’ll we chant? Or sing?”

  The most rousing song I knew came, not from a concert, but from the movie Casablanca, the scene in which they sing the French national anthem. “I don’t guess anybody knows the Marseillaise, do they?”

  Cooper said, “I do,” but no one else did. So the Marseillaise was out.

  Sonya said, “Let’s just chant her name, why don’t we? That way she’ll be all we can think of.”

  “Sure,” said Julia, and we started chanting, “Haley! Haley! Haley!” We kept it up for a long time, maybe a good five minutes, eventually holding hands and swaying in a circular motion, I have no idea why, we just did it.

  “Keep chanting,” Julia said, “but begin to form the energy into a ball. Imagine where Haley is— just down the road in Santa Barbara…”

  Whoo. I was beginning to see what this was all about. I could feel the energy, it was there, all right, the room did feel like one in which people were cheering for a team, or singing hymns, even applauding after a particularly rocking concert— there was that excitement, that electricity, that focus on a common cause. And toward the end of the chant, I could see the energy too. It was blue at first, and wispy, and then it grew yellow, and then orange, like a fire; it was this hot, roaring, live thing contained in the circle we’d made when were joined hands. I was getting light-headed.

  “Get ready to send it… okay now… on the count of three— One…” The orange cloud coalesced into a blazing, shimmery, exuberant ball… “Two…” The ball began to rise above us… “Three…” It shot through the wall with what I could swear was a great “Swoosh.”

  “Swoosh,” said Sonya, clearly having heard it too. I closed my eyes and focused on getting it to Haley.

  As one, we dropped each other’s hands and fell back in our chairs. “Everyone tired?” Julia chirped. “That was fantastic, Rangers. Tonig
ht I brought whole power bars for everyone. I think we’re gonna need them.”

  As we munched, Kara thought to ask, “How do you get these, anyhow?”

  “You’ll never guess.”

  “Oh, just tell us. We’re too tired to guess.”

  “Our faculty adviser supplies them.”

  Evelina? A faculty member was supplying contraband? That was almost as strange as… well, as the whole off-the-charts evening.

  Cooper said, “Anyone else seeing colors?”

  “Yeah. I am,” I said.

  Sonya shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. Jus’ means you’re a little stoned.” She paused. “Jus’ don’t operate any heavy machinery.”

  “Listen,” Carlos said, “what are we going to do with that damned dog until we can make the drop?”

  “Think we gon’ have to work on that shield every night,” Sonya said. “Maybe more. Sooner we do it the better. We gotta find out Manny’s schedule.”

  “I’ll do it,” Cooper said. “With pleasure. Why don’t we just put the dog back on the top shelf? Then we can take him down whenever we need him.”

  So, tired as we were, we floated the thing back up; but it wasn’t easy. Was it the curse that made it heavier? Or we just exhausted? We wouldn’t know till we tried it tomorrow.

  I slept like a dead woman.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE—CHOCOLATE HELL

  Dad called early the next morning. Which terrified me. I spoke even before he could. “Is Haley okay?”

  “What? Oh— sorry to scare you. Thankfully no bad news. But it’s funny you should ask. She seems a little better. Her breathing’s stronger, and she’s stirring a bit. She isn’t leaking at all today.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief.

  “But your mom’s not that great.”

  “What? Mom?” My mom wasn’t the sort of person things happened to. She usually happened to other people.

  “I know it sounds crazy. She’s always such a rock. But, Deb, she’s completely overwhelmed. She collapsed last night and they admitted her to the hospital. Don’t worry, it’s not that serious— I mean, not a heart attack or anything. But they’re keeping her for observation.” He paused. “It couldn’t have come at a worse time, because I have to go to San Francisco for the weekend.

  “Anyhow, the point is, we’ve had to hire a full-time nurse to stay with Haley— your mother doesn’t trust the hospital— and I’ve given her your number in case… well, in case we need you to come home right away. The school knows and they’ll bring you.”

  My heart speeded up. What he meant was, in case it looked like Haley was going to die; in case I might only have one chance left to see her. I understood what he was trying to say— but not say— and I could feel tears pricking my eyes, starting to cloud my vision. But there was something I didn’t understand.

  “Dad! Are you telling me Mom’s so out of it she can’t even dial the phone?”

  “Umm, no, baby, I’m not saying that. Not because of the fainting thing— or whatever it was— you know what I bet? I bet she forgot to eat and had a low-sugar attack. You know how she can be. She just has a lot on her mind.”

  What he was saying was Mom might forget me; that he didn’t trust Mom on the small matter of her younger daughter any more than Mom trusted the hospital. Well, okay, that wasn’t news— but it still made me feel bad.

  “Okay, Dad, I get it. But who’s taking care of Curly?”

  “Your buddy Jace is. You know how she’s always liked him— so I phoned and asked if he’d like to take care of her. I thought it would be better than boarding her.”

  “Dad, that’s so sweet! To think of Curly like that.”

  “I’m taking her over right now. I have to leave for the airport in about an hour. By the way, Jace said to tell you hi.”

  That was nice. I wish he could have said the same for Mom.

  ***

  Usually A.B. didn’t turn up till around two o’clock, but I needed him now! How to get him? Oh, yeah, we had a system, but it involved making a spectacle of myself. Oh, well. No alternative.

  I went out in the middle of the quad and hollered as loud as I could: “FIELD GOAL!”

  Too late, I saw Cooper walking towards me, waving. Oh, God, this was embarrassing. But he had such a cute smile on his face. Could this be the same kid? “Field goal?” he said. “Is that some kind of signal or something? Because, see, there’s no actual game going on. Unless maybe it’s an astral game. Yeah, that could be it. Are you seeing something I’m not?”

  As sad as I felt, he had me laughing. He was funny! Who knew?

  “Bingo. It is a signal. If A.B.’s too far away, telepathy won’t work, so I have to actually yell for him. ‘Field goal’ is his idea of a joke— something about the way Lola kicked him that time.”

  “Ha! An assassin with a sense of humor.”

  “Whoo. Assassin’s right. How about the way he took out that Mayan, huh? Did it make your blood run cold or what?”

  “You actually saw him do that, right?”

  “Yeah. My first murder.”

  “You’re something, you know that? I’d have been reduced to whimpering.” He smiled at me like he thought I really was something.

  “Oh, no, you wouldn’t. Things were happening much too fast.” I smiled back at him.

  He was still smiling. What was happening here was that somehow or other, we’d wound up kind of staring into each other’s eyes, and as I’ve mentioned, Cooper had really pretty ones. To tell you the truth, I felt kind of woozy.

  All of a sudden, with no warning, his eyes got all wet. “Reeno, I can’t believe we’re having this conversation. I mean… that I can actually… I just can’t believe I was such an asshole and you guys…”

  It could have gotten all sticky and gooey there if A.B. hadn’t suddenly appeared. He gave Cooper a big old “Wowwwwwrrrr!”

  To me, he said, “This better be good, human. Tell your little boy friend to run along.”

  My little boy friend? I may have blushed. I looked up at Cooper, but he was way ahead of me, looking so amused you’d have thought he overheard us. “Sounds like Cuddlekins wants you all to himself. Catch you on the flip side.”

  I think the Beast was starting to like him— he didn’t try to strangle him or even give him rope burns.

  “What’s so important it couldn’t wait till afternoon?”

  “A.B., my mom’s in the hospital. This thing with Haley’s breaking my whole family down. Listen,” I blurted, “if the Rangers can remove Cooper’s curse, we can do Haley’s. And we need to do it now. You could help us— we could all hold onto you and we could time-travel to Santa Barbara—”

  “Slow down, Novice. First of all, I can only accommodate one passenger at a time. Three at the most.”

  “We could do it in shifts!”

  “Second, the trivial psychic attack upon Cooper is a child’s prank compared to the centuries-old malignant, virulent, and, not to put too fine a point on it, lethal one levied upon your family.”

  “So?” I threw back my shoulders defiantly. “We’re getting really good.”

  “NOVICE, HEAR THIS. THE ALPHA BEAST WILL NOT BE RESPONSIBLE FOR UNLEASHING THAT THING UPON THE PLANET! TRY IT AND I WILL STOP YOU.”

  Okay, that was that. I didn’t doubt he’d stop us if he was going to speak in that tone of voice. But I couldn’t help resenting that he was so willing to sacrifice Haley.

  “Oh, please, girlo. There’s only one thing that can save Haley, and it’s not some bunch of admittedly talented but nonetheless amateur psychics. That codex has to be returned.”

  Huh? He’d never said that. “What are you talking about?”

  “It must be retrieved to prevent the 2012 disaster— if indeed the disaster even exists. We don’t know that it does. But it most certainly must be returned to remove the curse. Only you can remove it and only by stealing the book— which you have already stolen. So we know you will steal it. The only variable is when.”

  �
��What are you talking about? How do you know this stuff?”

  “Seers have seen. More powerful psychics than you have interpreted the curse.”

  I was outraged. “Why didn’t you tell me this? And if they’re so powerful, why couldn’t they see where the book was in the first place?”

  “This is new information, based on your own group’s considerable achievement. I’ve so far avoided telling you in an effort not to further raise your stress levels. But now I believe I must be clear: The book must be returned to its rightful owners before the curse can be removed. And it obviously cannot be returned until we actually have it in our possession.”

  Suddenly I was plain tired. “You mean we have to time-travel twice? Once to get it and once to return it?”

  “Certainly not, Student. By now succession will have occurred.”

  “And that means?”

  “There will be heirs.”

  That was a relief. I didn’t think I had more than one time trip in me in the near future. “Okay, fine. In that case, we need to go to Uxmal now! Today. Before lunch.”

  A.B. cocked his head in the adorable way a normal kitty will, a move I’d never seen him perform. On him, it looked slightly ridiculous. “Student, how do you feel?”

  “Feel?” That was the last thing I expected. The Alpha Beast inquiring about my welfare? What was this? “What do you mean how do I feel? I feel…” Well, when I thought about it, not so hot.

  “As a rule, it takes days to recover from time travel that spans centuries. If we go now, you could short-circuit.”

  “I could what?”

  “You could end up in a coma like your sister. Although you might manage a short hop.”

  “A short hop? What good would that do? Where would we go on a short hop?”

  “Off-campus, I should think. Have you thought about what we’re taking?”

  “Run that by me again?” And then I remembered what Dona Marina had said: Jaguar-Snake Woman came “bearing wonderful gifts that made the entire town delirious with happiness.”

 

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