Cauldrons and Kittens

by R K Dreaming

  “Jeeves?” said Percy in astonishment. Mr Bramble and Jeeves usually got along so well. “Did you two argue?”

  “Of course not,” said Mr Bramble, and tottered off to tend to his birds.

  “Wait!” said Percy, suddenly remembering. “Mr Bramble, I’ve left that letter to my mother on top of the table in the hallway. Do you think you could send it off with a pigeon?”

  Birds had a great affinity for Mr Bramble. He nodded happily and wandered away, humming quietly to himself.

  Percy ran to school, arriving a little late, as was her habit, to the gargantuan, grand old building which was home to Humble High School. It looked a cross between a stately home and a palace and stood at the center of a large swathe of greenery, not unlike a pristinely manicured park.

  Her first lesson on Mondays was always Math, which Percy did not get along with, especially since the Three Bees — Queen Bee Bella, and her two sidekicks Blanche and Barbie — three succubae, were in this class with Percy.

  Since the Beauty Pageant showdown a week ago, Blanche and Barbie had not been shy about letting Percy and everyone else in school know how displeased they were with Percy for exposing Queen Bee Bella’s role in the death of a judge. Bella had been taken away by the Eldritch Council and had not reappeared at school since.

  So when Percy turned up to the Math classroom, she was shocked to see Bella sitting in her usual place between Blanche and Barbie. The icy blond succubus sneered at Percy’s look of astonishment, and said, “Guess who is back, bitches?”

  Blanche and Barbie sniggered.

  Percy should have known. Blanche might have the vindictiveness to launch the poster campaign, but she lacked the interest and stamina to carry it through unless Bella was cracking the whip.

  Percy marched right up to them and dumped all of the crumpled up posters she’d found on top of their heads, including the ones that had been in her kitchen bin.

  The Three Bees screamed and jumped up from their chairs, shaking bits of crap off their hair. The class roared with laughter.

  “I think these belong to you,” said Percy.

  “We don’t know what you’re talking about,” screeched Blanche.

  And yet when a Humble boy picked up a scrunched up poster that had rolled over to him, and flattened it to reveal the picture of Percy, none of the Three Bees looked surprised.

  “Snitch,” Bella hissed.

  The boy laughed. “Snitches get stiches,” he read off the poster, and added contemptuously, “Snitch witch.”

  The smile disappeared off the Three Bees’ faces. The boy might have thought calling Percy a witch was an insult, but to Meek, being called a witch was nothing less than a compliment.

  “Ha!” said Percy. “Damn right I am.”

  “You wish,” said Bella, who knew full well that Percy was a mere Meek.

  She turned to the boy and snapped, “Are you just going to sit there or are you going to throw those posters in the bin?”

  The boy jumped up to obey the Queen Bee’s command.

  Percy returned to her seat at the back of the class where she sat all alone. The teacher hurried in looking like something a moody cat had dragged in.

  Nan followed him into the room, and handed him a note. Percy watched curiously, and then was surprised when Nan came over to the back of the classroom and sat down next to her.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  “I’ve switched some of my classes around so that we can to be together,” whispered Nan.

  Percy raised her eyebrows, and looked towards the pocket when Nan kept her wand concealed. “And they just agreed, did they?”

  Nan blushed a little. “It was just a harmless little charm,” she insisted.

  Percy felt like throwing her arms around Nan, but managed to restrain herself. Monday mornings were looking much better already. And now that she had Nan to explain the equations to her, Math suddenly became decidedly less painful.

  Percy’s next lessons were English Language followed by English literature, both of which Nan had also got herself added into, to Percy’s great delight.

  The teacher for these classes was Mrs Delancey, a thin, frazzled looking woman with large spectacles and enormous blue eyes, who was pretty in a frail, absent-minded kind of way.

  They found her slumped over her desk, her face in her hands. The class filed in and took their seats, but Mrs Delancey didn’t bother to look up, a fact which horrified Nan.

  The class bustled and talked amongst themselves, some of the students whispering and giggling that Mrs Delancey had given up on life at last.

  Nan’s hand had been in the air for several minutes, but Mrs Delancey had not taken any notice at all, so Nan finally gave up and demanded, “Mrs Delancey? Are you going to give us any work?”

  Students at the nearby table shot Nan a poisonous look, and Nan looked defiantly back at them.

  Mrs Delancey finally took her face out of her hands. She looked at Nan with confusion, as if vaguely aware that Nan was not one of her usual students in this class. But she did not ask what Nan was doing there.

  She fumbled around looking at the various books on top of her desk, grabbed the nearest one, and read the title.

  She said to Nan, “Why don’t you get the copies of Romeo and Juliet out of the cupboard and hand them out? And you can all just… just read them!”

  Nan did as she was told, but was beginning to look like she was regretting transferring into this particular class.

  When she sat back down, she said to Percy, “Is she always like this?”

  Percy shrugged. “Something must have happened. She usually tries really hard, even when that lot over there aren’t listening.”

  She looked darkly towards where a bunch of boys had started playing piggy in the middle with a copy of Romeo and Juliet, tossing it over the head of another boy who was trying his very best to read and kept hissing at them to stop.

  “Gits,” she added, under her breath.

  One of those boys had come into the class with a cup of boiling hot takeaway coffee last week and accidentally-on-purpose spilled it all over Percy’s shoes.

  Coffee boy spotted Percy glowering at him, and a grin spread over his face. “Snitch witch,” he said with a leer, and watched to see if she would rise to the bait.

  Percy rolled her eyes. “Dimwit,” she said, and turned her back to him.

  “Snitch bitch,” the boy said under his breath.

  When Nan turned to glare at him, he said pugnaciously, “Yeah, you heard me. What are you going to do about it?”

  “Not worth it,” Percy said to Nan.

  She was a little surprised to see that Nan’s hand had gone into her wand pocket. Her brows rose a little incredulously, and Nan blushed, and removed her hand quickly.

  “Sometimes I just wish I could,” she said.

  “Cherub!” Percy said in astonishment. “That’s just the kind of thing Lucy would say.”

  “No, he wouldn’t,” said Nan. “He’d just go ahead and do it.”

  “So would I,” said Percy with a gleam in her eyes. “Imagine the fun! I’d make his nose swell, and his mouth drool, and his eyes roll about like he really was a dimwit. Or maybe I’d turn his tongue into a slug.” She cackled, and even Nan laughed.

  “You wouldn’t. Not to a Humble.”

  “Yeah, maybe not.”

  “It’s too bad the conclave had to wipe everyone’s minds at the end of the pageant,” said Nan glumly. “Or it’s Bella they’d be hating.”

  This was true. Some Humble students had witnessed Bella confess her crimes, but afterwards their minds had been wiped to make them forget the existence of magic, and they had been left confused about what had really taken place. Blanche and Barbie had taken advantage, filling that gap with their own version of events.

  Mrs Delancey spent the rest of the lesson slumped face-forward on her desk as if she was sleeping, and woke with occasional sudden starts to look furtively under her desk, and the
n went back to sleep again.

  Nan glowered at her intermittently, and seemed relieved when the lesson was over.

  When class was over, Percy spent the morning break in the library office with Lucifer, enjoying some hot tea and more of the floating Bubblicious Bubbles of liquid chocolate from Flaffiness Emporium.

  Lucifer had set them free, and they floated around the room, which meant they had to run around catching them before they could eat them.

  Percy discovered to her delight that each one was filled with a different flavor of happiness. Her favorite was a kind of delightful joy that made her skin tingle all over like she was being hit with drops of cool refreshing mist on a hot summer’s day. She squealed with laughter every time she got one.

  “Lucifer, where did you get these?” she demanded. She looked at him suspiciously. “Did you go back to Magicwild Market after you promised us you wouldn’t?”

  “After midnight,” he said, belching on a bubble. “So technically it wasn’t the same day. Where is that Cherub of yours?”

  “She’s trying to find a friend of hers,” said Percy.

  Nan had hurried off, saying that she wanted to check the toilets in case Shara Greyshale was hiding in one. Apparently Shara’s mom did not like Shara missing school, and Nan had been sure that Shara would be back this morning. Yet Shara had not been in English class.

  A timid knock came on Lucifer’s office door, which made the two of them whirl around guiltily and stare at it. Percy knocked the bubble Lucifer was holding out of his hand, and it floated away to join the others.

  The door opened and Mrs Delancey popped her head in. She had a hopeful little smile on her face, which vanished when she saw Percy inside with Lucifer.

  “Oh!” she said to him. “Sorry, I didn’t know you were busy. I made you some macaroons.” She was holding up a little Tupperware box, but now she looked embarrassed about it.

  Percy and Lucifer were standing side-by-side very still, hoping that Mrs Delancey wouldn’t glance up towards the ceiling where all of the Bubblicious Bubbles were floating.

  And so of course, this was the very thing that she did. She frowned. “Balloons?” she asked.

  Percy and Lucifer looked at each other out of the sides of their eyes and burst into laughter.

  Mrs Delancey’s cheeks went red, as if she thought they were laughing at her.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb,” she said very quickly and left, shutting the door behind her.

  And then she opened it again and said, “Sorry, I’ve forgotten the macaroons!”

  She leaned down and put them on the floor next at the door, looked very embarrassed while she was doing it, and quickly left.

  Percy and Lucifer looked at each other and burst into laughter again. Percy hoped that Mrs Delancey was long gone and had not heard this.

  “I think she has a crush on you,” said Percy.

  But Lucifer was not listening. He had picked up the Tupperware off the floor, and was inspecting one of the macaroons. With a suspicious look on his face, he bit into it.

  His eyes popped open wide. “Delicious!” he exclaimed. “Come over here Percy, and tell me what this white stuff is! It’s delectable.”

  Percy rolled her eyes. “Coconut flakes,” she said. “Haven’t you had coconut before?”

  Lucifer had not, and insisted that Percy spend the rest of the break showing him on the office computer all of the delicious food items he might like to try. By the time break was over, Lucifer had finished every macaroon in the box.

  After break came English Literature with Mrs Delancey again, who shot Percy a very hurt look when Percy came into the classroom. This made Percy feel a bit awkward.

  When Mrs Delancey told them that they should continue reading Romeo and Juliet, Nan got a mutinous look on her face.

  “If she does this next lesson,” Nan said, “I am going to complain!”

  “She’s just having a bad day,” Percy reasoned. “She’ll be back to normal soon. She’s usually not bad.”

  This however proved to not be true. After lunch, Percy was in Double Science, enjoying it much more than usual now that Nan was with her, when a kid hurried in late.

  No sooner had he sat down at his desk than he started to whisper to the friend sat beside him. Despite the teacher telling them off, the boys soon resumed their whispering, and then the whisper spread around the class.

  Something was wrong with Mrs Delancey, came the word. Something bad. This created a sense of excitement in the students, who couldn’t stop fidgeting all lesson until it was finally over.

  “I knew something was wrong with her,” complained Nan as they filed out of Double Science. “Why bother coming in to school if she wasn’t feeling well?”

  “You want to walk home together?” asked Percy. “I can wait in the library for you. Lucifer won’t mind.”

  “I bet he’s skived off early and gone home,” warned Nan.

  Nan hurried off to Business Studies, her last lesson of the day, which Percy did not take.

  Percy figured that if Lucifer wasn’t around to hang out with, she might as well get some homework done, much as the thought annoyed her.

  She had discovered that teachers were very particular about homework, and the first time that she had not done it she had been threatened with detention. The idea of being in school for one moment longer than she needed to be was stupefyingly boring, and so Percy figured it was better to hand in something terrible than to hand in nothing at all.

  As Percy made her way towards the library, she came across a group of ten or so students milling around a staircase. Even more curiously, the staircase had been blocked off with a length of rope across its width, and a stand on the bottom of it carried a notice saying the area was off-limits.

  The shifty eyes and the furtive whispers of the gathered students piqued Percy’s curiosity. One of the girls was Nilgun Shafak, a strikingly pretty Humble girl, who Percy knew a little.

  Nilgun, whose leg was in a cast from knee to ankle, was sitting in her wheelchair. She was surrounded by her many friends, who all looked suspiciously at Percy when Percy went to join them.

  Nilgun however smiled, and said to Percy jokingly, “Have you come to investigate?”

  Percy asked “What’s going on?”

  “We heard it’s Mrs Delancey,” said Nilgun. “Something is wrong with her. The headmistress came by ten minutes ago and she had the police with her!”

  Hearing this, Percy, who had still been intending to go to the library, faltered.

  Headmistress Glory had warned Percy that wherever Lucifer went, trouble followed. And Mrs Delancey definitely had taken an interest in Lucifer.

  Ducking under the tape, Percy ran up the stairs. Nilgun cheered behind her. “Go Percy! Tell us what you find!”

  Percy climbed all the way up to the fifth floor where Mrs Delancey’s classroom was located. The classroom was in one of the many odd little towers that the old school building had, and when Percy got to it, she was surprised to find Shara Greyshale waiting outside of the classroom door. Nobody else was in sight.

  Percy hurried over to Shara. “What’s going on?” she enquired.

  She had kept her voice low as she had a feeling Headmistress Glory and the police officers must be somewhere nearby. The last thing she wanted to do was to alert the headmistress to her presence here.

  Headmistress Glory would take one look at Percy and know immediately that the only reason Percy was here was because she was worried that Lucifer might have something to do with whatever had happened to Mrs Delancey. This was the last thing that Percy wanted, since poor Lucifer probably had nothing to do with this at all.

  It wasn’t his fault if trouble followed him around everywhere, especially since all he was trying to do was have fun and live a little.

  Shara shook her head. “I’m not supposed to talk about it. And you’re not supposed to be here.”

  “Where have you been anyway?” asked Percy. “Nan’s been
looking for you. She’s worried.”

  Shara blushed a little, putting a hint of color into her pale greyish cheeks. “I didn’t much feel like coming to class this morning. Mum made me come to school, but I’ve been out behind the groundskeeper’s shed.”

  “Hiding out, huh?” said Percy sympathetically.

  Shara looked miserable. Percy might not have noticed if she hadn’t been looking out for it, since the finfolk girl had a face that was sometimes very difficult to read.

  “Is your brother okay?” asked Percy.

  Shara shot her a horrified look. “How do know? What have you heard?”

  Percy remembered Nan saying not to say anything, and bit her lip. She was always slipping up with stuff like this. Nan would not be pleased.

  “Nan was really worried about you yesterday. She said he was unwell. She made me promise not to tell anyone, and I won’t.”

  Shara looked a little mollified. She shrugged. “He’s in hospital.” She sighed deeply and looked down at her hands, and Percy had the horrible feeling that she was trying not to cry.

  Percy didn’t know what else to do, so she put her arm around Shara’s shoulder. The finfolk girl looked surprised. Her bottom lip trembled.

  Then she swallowed hard, and said, “I suppose it could be worse. I suppose he could be dead like Mrs Delancey.”

  3. A Cloud Of Doom

  Another death in the school! The second one in three weeks since Lucifer had been here. Percy was horrified. She didn’t know what to say.

  She stared at Shara for a minute, and then said, “I don’t think you were supposed to tell me that.”

  Shara shrugged. “You were going to find out soon anyway. Everyone is.”

  Percy peered past Shara’s shoulder to the windows of the classroom door. Through the glass she could see that classroom inside was empty.

  “Where are Headmistress Glory and the police?” she asked.

  Shara pointed towards the stairs. “They had to go down a few levels to get access to the first floor roof. Mrs Delancey jumped out the window and landed on it.”

  Percy’s eyes went wide. “She jumped herself?” she asked, wanting to make sure.