The Foul Mouth and the Fanged Lady

by Richard Raley

  There is also the Cafeteria, which ended up one of my favorite buildings during my stay. Good ass food for three meals a day. No running in to steal breakfast before heading to school or packing my raggedy backpack with enough snacks to get me through my weekends away from my drunk parents. No more square school pizza. That’s some vile junk. Square school pizza disproves socialism more than any political argument ever did.

  Those are the buildings but Center Section also holds the Park, which is pretty much a park in the middle of the school. Trees, bushes, ponds, more bushes, and nooks for some privacy that led to plenty of awkward situations—nothing like being found making out with a cute floromancer girl by your Languages teacher. Jethro Smith. Thinks he’s a rock star. Bastard started to give me advice.

  It was always a danger. Teachers and students both like to walk around the place on off hours. Just like any high school, you have certain kids that hang at certain places. Parkies are seen as the suck-ups, always under the teachers’ eyes, or in some cases protection. Guess what? I wasn’t a fucking Parkie.

  Nice place though. Thought so walking through it the first time with Ceinwyn Dale. Didn’t like that a lot of the adults were waving at her as we passed by even then. Students were already there too. Mostly four-year Intras goofing off with friends they hadn’t seen for a month. Ultras have better things to do than walk the Park. Only time you see an Ultra in the Park is when they’re searching for a teacher or walking to get somewhere else.

  Most of the other student hangouts are in East Section.

  The Pools are literally these huge Olympic-size swimming pools, complete with diving boards and slides and other lawyer nightmares that no normal school would ever let you near without a bible size stack of papers to sign. I’d been swimming before, but wasn’t good at it, still ain’t, and don’t particularly like it. Geomancer and all—floating ain’t my thing. Unless my P.E. or Survival teacher made me get in, I tried to stay out of them.

  Do admit to hanging around to check out the girls in their swimsuits though. Asa Kayode is a pain in the ass but damn if that girl in a bikini with her fine brown skin and taunt long body couldn’t make Prince Henry speak up every time I walked by her. That’s the Pools for you, guys catching a look and hydromancers and cryomancers fighting for water space. The kids at the Pools are called Water Pissers. Or just Pissers.

  Near the road in, to the west of the Pools, you have the Hall, which has games inside. Pool—the other kind, skeet-ball, table-hockey, bowling alley or two, even a few arcade games from the 80s and 90s. Sundays they’d set up big speakers and play music for everyone to dance to or just chill out. Hall kids are called Kids, some in-joke from before my time I think. I admit to spending time at the Hall. Not as much as you’d think though.

  The Hall’s full of a lot of Intra slackers who don’t give a crap about learning the Mancy best they can or what rank they have in their class or year. All us Ultras cared—even me—so free time wasn’t something to waste on a thirty-year-old Pacman machine. You get over that, and even then . . . Ultra walking into the Hall is going to get some dirty looks from jealous Intras. Can’t blame them. If I’d been Intra, I’d have been beating some Ultra brains in for being smug assholes. It ended up the other way around and instead it was me walking into the Hall and taking those dirty looks, daring a brave bully to step up.

  Above the Pools you got the Gym. Call them Rats. Obvious enough on that one? I liked the Gym in my time. Has two stories actually, and a basement. That count as a story? Anyway, first story is basketball courts or volleyball depending on the need. Basketball ain’t my game. Guess why? Fucking short. So funny.

  Second story is gymnastic junk: racquetball, handball, stuff like that. Basement is weights and weight machines. Spent time there alright. Started at a scrappy hundred pounds and by four-year graduation passed by one-sixty. And you wonder why a charmer like me gets the girls? Only annoying part about the Gym is that the corpusmancers treated the place like a church. About every seventh mancer is a corpusmancer . . . that’s a lot of religion to have to deal with.

  Above the Gym you have the Field. Which is a field. Fucking deep. Kids there don’t even have a special name; collectively they were ‘the Rest’. The Field is neutral ground. The Belgium of the Asylum. Oh, just like Belgium it got invaded sometimes too. Start a world war by Asylum standards. But mostly everyone just chose their huddle and sat on the grass. Intras at least.

  Above the Field is the Mound. The Mound is a mound. Again, fucking deep. Hills, rocks, trees. The Mound is Ultra territory. Unless you’re an Ultra or your boyfriend is an Ultra, best stay off the Mound.

  Even then, bringing an Intra up there is bad form. Doesn’t mean it ain’t done though. I did it. Easy way to get yourself a shallow girlfriend. Even had a name for it. Intra Poaching. Bringing in the pretty Intras in exchange for trips to hang on the Mound. If the Asylum had itself a forest ranger or an ye oldie sheriff, my ass would have been on the Most Wanted list. Me and Robin Hood. He shot arrows. I break child safety locks.

  Every school’s got itself the top spot on campus to hang. Most, it was jocks and cheerleaders and rich kids or just plain kids that had a cool vibe to them. At the Asylum, it’s all combined up in the Mancy. Chance again. For some reason, the Ultra Vires were ‘beyond the powers’ as the name suggests. That made Ultras the cool kids—the ones who got the special attention from the faculty and got the Mound to hang out on. Rising above the rest of the place, looking down on the Parkers, Water Pissers, Kids, Rats, the Stuffers—that’s Cafeteria kids, forgot to mention that first time around—and the Rest on the Field.

  Fourteen-year-old-me wasn’t thinking about all that as he and Ceinwyn Dale exited from the Park. He didn’t even know the Mound existed. To him, the Park was kind of nice. Trees, birds, squirrels, fish ponds. My old school didn’t have fish ponds. I’d hoped the fish ponds were proof the place wouldn’t remain boringly normal.

  I was thinking about Ultras though. Special powers beyond normal mancers. That’s what Ceinwyn Dale said. Hell yeah, I wanted it. Even with the extra three years it would cost me. Sign me up. Send me spam. Totally worth it. Exiting the Park, fourteen-year-old-me endeavored to kick ass on the test they were throwing his way.

  The Park is separated from Top by the horseshoe road, at the time packed with people.

  “If you try anything, I’ll find you,” Ceinwyn Dale told me with a certain don’t-try-it look in her eyes.

  “What I do? I’m being good. I didn’t even try to break that bridge back there. Could have, but I didn’t.”

  She gave me an eye-see-you hand gesture.

  Okay, confession time. I’d been trying to break that bridge. Trying to break things with my feeble Mancy efforts became about the only thing that kept my mind away from nicotine. All through the Park my fingers shook, my head flashed little screws of pain. Around and around the rising edge we go. Wonderful thing detoxing, you should try it sometime.

  Buses were dropping kids off about one every fifteen minutes. Staring out on the students mingling, on the teachers and employees trying to exert some control, I commented, “That’s a lot of people.”

  Ceinwyn Dale nodded. “The majority held off until the last day but some have already checked in early, and others will be like you and stay through the break.”

  “Of course.”

  “Pents through Heps get their own rooms and keep them their three years, while four-year students move into their new dorms with a randomized class near thirty. We try to break them up year to year so they meet new people.” In the thick of it now, some of the boredom had faded from the explanations.

  “And Ultra assholes?”

  The smile twitched. “Same class for seven years.”

  “Way to ruin the new car smell, Miss Dale.”

  “Are you so sure you’ll be an Ultra, King Henry?”

  “I can pass any test you got.”

  “It doesn’t work that way. Like most of life . . . you either are or
you are not.”

  “You are.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you think I are.”

  “I’ve been wrong before . . .”

  “Do I got to break a bus axle to prove it to you?”

  “And on we go.”

  As soon as they spotted Ceinwyn Dale, with me trailing behind, we had about two-hundred eyes locked on us. Lucky I don’t give a crap or I might have burst into flame from the attention. Lucky Valentine Ward wasn’t there or I might have burst into flame anyway.

  One plus about being with Ceinwyn Dale is people make space for you. If there was ever any doubt in fourteen-year-old-me’s mind that she was a high up badass, one-hundred teenagers being elsewhere killed it. It’s not like she didn’t get waves or nods, but an undercurrent of respect ran through the air quicker than any anima manipulation I’ve ever seen.

  Me? I got who-the-bleep-is-the-ten-year-old? faces. Didn’t help that I was one of the few in uniform like a good little fellow or that wearing a uniform unbuttoned and hanging out is considered disrespectful to your Mancy discipline. Think I cared even when I found out? Think I tucked that bitch in? You already know me so well . . .

  We made it into Top.

  If Center is the rotting heart of the Asylum then Top is the decaying brain. It’s got the Administration building in the middle, then behind it is the parking garage for all the cars and buses and stuff the students ain’t allowed to see, the very back of the school proper, though the actual grounds extend for acres, if not miles. To the right of Admin, you got the Ultra dorms. That’s right—little shits get their own hill and their own building too. And you thought jocks and cheerleaders were bad?

  Normal dorms for the Intras are made utilitarian—that evil education again making me with the big words—since they got to pump a lot more bodies inside them. Ultra dorms are two stories. First story has four dorms, communal to fit up to thirty, I’ll save them for a bit later when fourteen-year-old-me gets to them.

  Top floor is for the Pents to Heps. They get their own rooms. Figure an even hundred of them. The rooms ain’t big but being able to study on your own without Robin White singing gospel songs ten feet away from you? Fucking heaven. Having your own bathroom and kitchen? Fucking whatever’s better than heaven.

  Left of the Admin is the Library. Big building, lots of books. I know you’re thinking, ‘oh he never saw that place’ but I did as far as anima studies went. Valentine Ward was always in there, so was her best friend Miranda Daniels and a friend of mine, Raj Malik. Raj had a thing for Miranda. Had a thing . . . look at me with the past tense. He still has a thing for her.

  Love . . . like I understand it. Kids in the Library get called the usual—bookworms or Worms. Save for Valentine Ward, who was named Boomworm by yours truly, and the name just stuck. Amazing chick, the best one I’ve ever met.

  Next to the Library are the graduate Ultra classrooms. I don’t think I ever stepped inside the Artificer classroom but the one time, first day of my Pent year. See, I was the only Artificer the whole time I was at the Asylum. One just before me, two just after me. But me . . . all alone. Me and my mentor Plutarch got us some one-on-one, Yoda and Luke Skywalker shit going. Don’t think Luke ever called Yoda a fucktard, but the little green bastard probably deserved it.

  And that’s it . . . that’s the Asylum. Welcome for the stay.

  Damn, I’m glad I’m done describing all that stuff. Buy a map if you still can’t figure it out. Let’s get on to my testing. Think I have enough time tonight to finish this . . . Ceinwyn wasting my time with this . . . Plutarch coming up with the idea . . . You better be grateful, you little assholes.

  [CLICK]

  Testing . . . what a disappointment it turned out to be. I expect you’re sensing a pattern here.

  Is there such a thing as perfectly insane? If there is, the Asylum bottles the stuff. I’ve heard psychopathic serial killers are often the last ones you expect—this knowledge came from television which means it has to be true. The nice, quiet one. That’s the Asylum. The whole place. The nice, quiet, perfectly insane one that tried far too hard.

  The Admin building is like a giant principal’s office. Secretaries typing at computers, kids going up to the Scheduling Room to pick up their dorm number—a teacher here, a janitor there. Eventually I’d find out the place also had offices, meeting rooms, and a chamber where the Elemental Learning Council met to deal with business, both Asylum business and greater Mancy business. School and Government all in one. No problems going to be popping up out of that one. Commie bullshit.

  The Testing Room is also there. Since most Singles didn’t know any more about the Asylum than I did, they were hounded to the place by the Ultra grads who drew the short end of the sticks. This means there was a line of about fifty kids when Ceinwyn Dale and I pulled up.

  Another great thing about being with Ceinwyn Dale: she doesn’t believe in lines. Or maybe she does in a general they-must-exist kind of way, but she doesn’t think they have anything to do with her.

  It felt good.

  Petty, I know, but think about it: skipping a long line like that only happens a few times in most people’s life, and every time it does, how do you feel? Right . . . completely awesome. You could make a religion based out of nothing but line skipping. We’ll call the religion Hollywood. So back up off fourteen-year-old-me.

  My Bi year Theory of Anima teacher, Audrey Foster, guarded the door. An aeromancer like Ceinwyn Dale, but not an Ultra, she believed in lines. In class, to teach us about anima currents and flows, she’d set up these big glass tubes that connected to each other with these breakers, then she would pump in air or water or sand to make whatever point she was looking to drill into our heads. She was in her mid-twenties back then. Long black hair, tight brown eyes. Had a thing for whimsical airy dresses. In the summer, when the classrooms would get hot . . .

  You know what? For once, I’m going to keep my mouth shut.

  So yeah, she’s pretty. Bit of a hard case with some jealousy issues that she’s not an Ultra though. Chance ruining more lives than just mine. She gave Ceinwyn Dale a do-not-cross-go glare. Ceinwyn Dale smiled back. The smile was way scarier. It said, ‘I-eat-my-young.’

  “Miss Foster, so good to see you taking an active interest in recruiting for once,” the smile said aloud.

  “And so nice to see you returned and actually staying at the school for more than a single day, Miss Dale, and with another student—very productive,” the glare returned.

  For most mancers it’s another discipline that grates on you. Pyromancers and hydromancers as the classic example. But for aeromancers, they get on with everyone but other aeromancers. Must have made Ultra class uncomfortable for them. You could probably blame the stick up Miranda Daniels’ ass from Pent through Hep on that, if you didn’t know she had the stick implanted in an exhausting surgical procedure when she turned twelve.

  “If you’ll move to the side and out of the way, I’m in a bit of a hurry.”

  Miss Foster gritted out a smile. It wasn’t so much scary as pressured—the smile of a person caught between holding up a mountain and holding up the sky. “There’s a line and I’d like to be fair to everyone.”

  Another kid got let through. A girl, red hair. No idea who she was beyond that. My school politics were not her school politics I guess and our path never crossed again. An invisible face in my story. Or maybe the paths did cross and I don’t remember. Lots of Intra faces are fuzzy, Intra names even worse. Yet the redhead girl—if I could find her—would probably know exactly who I am. That’s always bugged me, especially as I’ve gotten to be an adult and away from the place, but I guess all schools are like that.

  “Audrey, would you please grow up?”

  Miss Foster wasn’t quite ready for it though. “He’s already in his colors, Ceinwyn—it doesn’t seem pressing. Perhaps you can leave him in line. No need to spoil him.”

  “Yeah, no reason to spoil me, Ceinwyn,” I didn’t help. Helping h
as never been my best quality.

  “You’ll call her ‘Miss Dale,’ young man.” Audrey Foster probably wouldn’t have been one of my favorite teachers if it wasn’t for those dresses and . . . um . . . oh, nevermind.

  “Come on, Miss Frosty, trying to teach manners when you’re all butthurt over letting another teacher do what they need to do?” There’s me and my first impressions again.

  “He has a point, Aubrey,” Ceinwyn Dale said. “Besides, if I left him with you, then you would have to listen to him.”

  “Fucking right.”

  Miss Foster looked at me with pure disgust. Can’t say she’s the last woman to look at me that way either. “Fine. But only this once. Next time it’s by the rules, Ceinwyn. We have to be examples for the children.”

  Yeah, think of the children.

  I got ushered into the Testing Room, getting myself a glare from one aeromancer and a smile from the other. Like bitches in heat I tell ya. That phrase work in this situation? Whatever. Probably doesn’t help that there’s no such thing as a male aeromancer. I know . . . it’s weird. Just one of those odd tics of the Mancy.

  The inside of the Testing Room wasn’t what I expected. No needles. No kids sitting at desks with number two pencils. No kids staring at targets neither. No kids at all. Just me, Ceinwyn Dale, and the Head of Testing, standing in a cluttered room with a door marked EXIT on the other side of me. Come, escape while you still can.

  The Head of Testing is a nerd. Glasses, brown hair, shirt with an anime character on it that was probably a guy but didn’t look like it. Nothing professional about him. Nerd. Pure nerd. He checked out a checklist, filling in some info as we walked up. “And what’s your name?”