The Miscreant

by Brock Deskins

“Thanks, Toby.”

  “We’re all loaded. Grab the bar and help me pull this thing.”

  The cart was a long but narrow wagon with a steering shaft jutting out of the front and coming to a T-shape. Garran took a position on the left while Toby gripped the bar on the right and pushed.

  The cart and contents clattered noisily as Garran and Toby pulled it through the grove and across the grounds. The pipes were tin but lined with lead, so while they were not as heavy as iron or bronze, they were far from light. Garran worked up a sweat before they were halfway to the dorms. Toby stopped abruptly and searched the area ahead as if he expected assassins to leap from the bushes.

  “What’s wrong?” Garran asked.

  “Bruno likes to loiter around this area. Watch yourself and be ready to run if it gets ugly.”

  “Who’s Bruno?”

  “Bruno’s a big, mean cuss who seems to go out of his way to make my life hell. I don’t know if he thinks I’m a threat to his position, or if he just gets off on bullying the simple folk.”

  Garran kept a wary eye out as they proceeded with caution. He could not understand why someone would hassle Toby. He was certainly odd, but he was as friendly and harmless a fellow as Garran had ever met. Toby spotted something, dropped the steering handle, and stepped away from the wagon. Garran twisted his head left and right, searching for the source of danger. He was not sure what he was looking for: perhaps another gardener who did not like that Toby was in charge despite his title being largely honorific. The last thing he expected was Toby’s nemesis being a large gander.

  “Been lying in wait for me, have ya?” Toby shouted at the huge bird as it waddled out of the pond and onto the path. The gander honked and flapped its big wings in reply. “So you admit to spreading those rumors! Well, come on then. Bring whatcha got!”

  Bruno took up the challenge, pumped his wings, and charged, honking a battle cry. Toby roared and ran at Bruno, his arms waving in a parody of the enormous bird. The gander leapt into the air, propelled up and forward by its mighty wings. The two collided in a mass of feathers, swinging fists, and flapping wings. Bruno clipped Toby just below his left eye with a solid roundhouse and nearly achieved an early knockout.

  The human staggered back, shook off the blow, and brought his arms up to deflect the follow-up shot. Bruno launched a flurry of jabs with his beak, and it was all Toby could do to keep his head bobbing and weaving out of its path. The gardener managed to grab Bruno’s left wing with both hands and trap the bird’s head beneath his arm. He whipped his head down and took a bite at Bruno’s back. The gander honked, flailed madly, and broke away. Toby tried to kick him in the tail feathers as he retreated, missed, and fell onto his back. Bruno honked out a final taunt before retreating to the safety of the pond, waggling his tail feathers in what Garran was certain was a rude gesture.

  Toby rolled onto his feet and spit out a mouthful of feathers and down. “I’m two for five! You’re slippin’, ya big, ornery bastard!”

  Garran watched the spectacle unfold to its conclusion in disbelief. “Toby, are you aware of precisely how insane you are?”

  Toby flashed his lunatic grin and bobbed his head. “Yeah!”

  The two groundskeepers arrived at Garran’s dorm several minutes later without having to battle any of the other wildlife. Most of the students were at breakfast, so the building was mostly vacant. Garran preferred to skip meals whenever he could since it was much easier to get drunk on an empty stomach.

  Toby looked at the drainpipe attached to the wall and ascending to the gutter running along the eaves. “I don’t see nothing wrong with the drain.”

  “It’s more of a modification than a repair,” Garran explained.

  Toby shrugged. “Suit yourself. I’ll be on the roof cleaning the gutters. We’ll replace some pipe this afternoon.”

  Garran propped the ladder against the side of the building while Toby went inside to take the stairs to the roof. He grabbed a hacksaw, climbed just outside of the second floor window to his dorm room, and began sawing on the drainpipe. The outer tin was thin, and the inner lead soft, but it still took a good twenty minutes to make the two cuts. Garran removed a six-inch section of pipe and slid a T-coupler in place. He attached another piece of pipe to the T-shape and added an elbow to the end, which he pressed against the glass and soldered the entire addition into place.

  He climbed back down the ladder, sat at the drain’s open end, and sipped at his bottle of booze while he waited for his dormmates to return. Garran spotted them through the hedge skirting the building a short time later. He gave them a few minutes to get to the room before lying on the ground and pressing his ear to the drainpipe’s opening.

  As he had hoped, the section of pipe he added transferred the sound of their voices through the glass and down the tube. The sound was muffled and echoey, but he could make out most of the conversation, which sounded as if it were a continuance of a previous discussion. His hunch had been correct, and his outlandish behavior had pushed them right where he wanted them to go. Garran smiled at his success and how easy it was to prod people to move in the direction he needed them. It was much like a shepherd goading sheep.

  CHAPTER 2

  Aniston lay awake ticking off the minutes as he stared at the ceiling lost in the room’s darkness. It was an effort, but he dared not fall asleep. Classes resumed in the morning, and his dorm could not afford to lose precious study time because of Garran Holt’s deliberately destructive nature.

  His plan was a rather brutal one, but Garran had left him and his dormmates little choice. Garran had shown he was immune to reason, and Martin had all but given his go-ahead to do whatever they felt was necessary. Aniston did not look forward to what they were going to do; few if any of them really did, but Garran was like an undisciplined dog, and the only solution was to beat him until he learned his place in the pack. Besides, he owed Garran for the headbutt that nearly broke his nose and humiliated him.

  Two hours passed after the mandatory lights out before he slid out of his bunk and nudged Steven, who slept in the next bunk over. Steven startled a bit, sat up, and looked side to side before his brain kicked in and reminded him of the plan. He grabbed the bar of soap tucked in a thick stocking from beneath his mattress and quietly woke the student next to him.

  Within a minute, the entire dorm was up, each gripping a bar of soap wrapped in a towel or sock or boot dropped in a pillowcase, and crept toward Garran’s bunk. Even in the dark, the smell of alcohol radiating from his breath made him easy to find. Where he managed to procure a seemingly endless supply was anyone’s guess.

  Wielding their makeshift bludgeons, the students surrounded Garran’s bed and began swinging. It was a brutal beating, and Garran was not the only one struck. Unable to see much in the dark, more than a few attackers cried out when an errant blow struck their arm or shoulder when two or more of them tried to occupy the same space at the same time.

  “Stop!” Aniston called out and turned up the wick on an oil lantern. “What the hell?”

  Aniston grabbed the edge of Garran’s blanket and pulled it away, revealing the stuffed backpack and rolled up clothes beneath.

  “You girls looking for me?” Garran asked from the open doorway.

  “Get him!” Aniston ordered.

  The dorm roared a battle cry and charged the form silhouetted in the doorway. Garran kicked over a bucket of liquid floor polish, spilling it into the room. The leading edge of the mob hit the slick and crashed to the floor, the trailing members tumbling over them. They desperately tried to scramble forward, but the slick floor and their wild flailing made getting to their feet almost impossible. Some tried to crawl forward on their hands and knees, intent on enacting their punishment.

  Garran grabbed the gaff propped against the doorframe that Toby used to clear away fallen branches and debris from the many small ponds dotting the grounds. He used the hook to snare the nearest body, drag him into the hall, and then beat him with a stout cudgel
until he either stopped moving or curled up into a fetal position and showed no further desire to continue the fight.

  ***

  When Martin first heard the commotion, he smiled, pleased that Garran was getting what he deserved. But when several different voices began crying in pain, he knew something had gone terribly wrong. He lurched for the door and pulled, but it refused to budge. He twisted the lock, but it just turned uselessly in his fingers and failed to retract the bolt. He heaved on the handle, pounded against the door with his fists, and shouted, to no avail.

  ***

  Once Garran had five members of his dorm huddling in the hall either unconscious or beaten into submission, the rest of the students lay in the slick or propped themselves on their hands and knees and glared their hatred. Garran turned up the lamp affixed to the wall near the doorway.

  “Gentlemen, we need to figure out a better solution to our mutual problem.”

  Aniston glared up from where he was huddling in the hallway, recovering some of his courage. “Go to hell, Holt! Our only problem is you. You won this night, but you can’t watch your back all the time. We’ll catch you off guard eventually.”

  Garran shrugged. “You will, eventually, but then what? You win one of what will surely be many battles, but you will lose the war. You cannot win against me.”

  “Yes we will!”

  “No, you won’t and here’s why. The only way to change me is to kill me. Who amongst you is willing to take it that far?” Garran held up a hand to forestall any answers. “Don’t answer yet. You are all pissed, and most of you think you are capable of killing me right now, but when you cool down and think about it, you know you won’t.”

  “Don’t be too sure,” Aniston said, his voice thick with hate.

  “How many people have you killed, Aniston?” Garran cast his gaze over those in the room. “Who here has taken a life? No one? There is one person here, probably in the entire school, discounting a few faculty members, who know what it is like to kill, and that person is me. When raiders attacked my work crew, I slaughtered at least a score of them without thinking, and I don’t think much about it now. That’s what you are dealing with when you challenge me.”

  Aniston pushed himself off the floor and sat against the wall. “What the hell do you expect us to do then? You said yourself that you won’t change, and we can’t live with the punishments we get because of you!”

  “The solution is obvious.”

  “God finally smites you for your sinful ways?”

  “That would work and will likely happen one day, but I think His patience is far greater than ours. No, my solution is simple and mortal. I need my own room.”

  Aniston shook his head and scowled. “Only prefects get their own rooms.”

  Garran smiled. “Exactly.”

  “What? You are not a prefect, you idiot, and prefects are always third or fourth-year students.”

  “There is nothing in the rules saying a first-year student cannot be a prefect. You just need to elect me to replace Martin.”

  “You actually read the handbook?”

  “I skimmed over the parts that might be useful to me.”

  “It won’t work. First of all, Martin would have to be removed, and a prefect is only removed voluntarily, he graduates, or is fired for disciplinary reasons. Martin is a tool, but he’s too uptight to break the rules, and he’s good at his job.”

  “You leave Martin to me. All you have to do is get the other first-year dorms to vote for me.”

  “Why would they do that? Not only does our dorm’s punishment keep them from extra duty, a prefect leads us in passing our hands-on exams. That’s why prefects are always senior students. They have experience.”

  “Look, I know I’m a slob, I have an abrasive personality, and I’m probably developing a drinking problem…and a drug problem…and I have deep trust issues with women that probably lie at the heart of most of my issues. But when I told Martin I was going to be the best damn field agent this school ever produced, I wasn’t bragging and it wasn’t delusions of grandeur. The fact is that I was born to do this. Other than my near-mystical ability to chemically abuse my body beyond what would kill most mortal men, I am a fantastic agent. Talk to the other dorms, and I’ll prove it to all of you. Not only will we pass the practical exams, we’ll beat every house as well.”

  “No first year has ever beaten the third- and fourth-year houses,” Aniston said.

  “No first year has ever been a prefect either. This is the year of firsts for all of us.”

  “How long is this plan of yours going to take? We can’t spend months doing extra duty while you make promises that probably won’t ever bear fruit.”

  “It won’t take long. All you have to do is make sure I pass inspection until I can prove to all the dorms that I am the best choice for prefect.”

  “You can’t do that until our first practical exam, and that is not until the end of the first semester! You expect us to clean your area and iron your uniform for the next three or four months? This all sounds like a scam just to get us to do your work.”

  “Professor Lyndon is going to spring a surprise exam on us at the end of the first week. When I ace that exam, it will show all of you that I can do what I say I can.”

  Aniston gave Garran a dubious look. “How do you know there is an exam this week? The dean keeps all the syllabuses locked in his office.”

  Garran grinned. “What’s the best way to break into a constabulary?”

  Aniston thought a moment. “You could disguise yourself as a member of the watch or sneak in through a window or unguarded door.”

  “Wrong. The easiest way to get into the constabulary’s office is to get arrested.”

  Aniston’s eyes widened. “You got sent to the dean’s office on purpose? You planned that?”

  “I plan everything. Now, you all might want to get this mess cleaned up before inspection, and I’ll need a clean uniform for the morning. Someone might also want to let Martin out of his room before he hurts himself.” Garran heard a muffled cry from Martin’s room followed by the dull thud of his body hitting the ground below his bedroom window. “Never mind.”

  ***

  Martin favored his left leg and kept his left arm tucked close to his body as he went down the line inspecting the dorm. He spent twice as long inspecting Garran as he did the previous three students combine. Garran’s bunk was made, its corners creased at the proper angle and pulled taut, and neither it nor his uniform showed a single wrinkle.

  “Well, whatever happened last night seems to have made some positive improvements, Holt. I’m even going to forgive your…arousal since your floor is the best-looking one in the house. If you show this much improvement in your attitude, you might actually make it another year, assuming you can pass your exams.”

  Garran smiled. “This is just the beginning of the changes I’ll be making in the days to come.” He glanced at Martin’s injured leg. “Are you all right? You seem to have developed a limp.”

  “I had a little problem with my door last night. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”

  “Sorry, I’m grounds maintenance not building maintenance.”

  The prefect pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes. “Right.” He walked to the doorway and turned. “Congratulations, your dorm is not on extra duty tonight.”

  Garran waited until Martin left the room. “See, problem solved.”

  “It is far from solved, Holt,” Aniston said. “We are not going to clean up after you forever, so you had best come through on your promises, or we will get rid of you one way or another.”

  “God only require a little faith and patience, and who are we to need anything more? Trust me, gentlemen, it’s all done but for the doing.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Despite his successful inspection, today brought with it a sense of foreboding. It was the first day of class, and Garran was unsure what to expect. Other than his reading and very ba
sic arithmetic lessons he had received as punishment and recompense back in Wooder’s Bend, he had no experience with any kind of formal education. It obviously required numerous books, which were currently testing the quality of his satchel’s seams.

  Those desiring positions in the Ministry of Diplomacy committed themselves to four years of intense study. Garran could not fathom what could possibly require such a length of time to learn. By the end of the day, which consisted primarily of orientation, he was certain that it was not nearly enough.

  There were five major languages spoken throughout the land and seven minor tongues and dialects. Those who moved on to become field agents after their second year were required to speak, read, and write three of the primary languages fluently and have a mastery of their history and culture. Agents also had to have a passing spoken familiarity with at least three of the minor languages. That alone would take a lifetime in Garran’s estimation. On top of that, there was mathematics, chemistry, combatives, and intelligence gathering. Garran started to have doubts about his success. It was a unique feeling and very unsettling. Becoming an agent required uncompromising academic achievement, and none of his shenanigans could solve that problem. For the first time in his life, Garran realized that he might actually have to apply himself. Such a prospect did not fill him with confidence.

  Classes began in full force the second day. The amount of information thrown at the students was staggering. Garran now understood why his classmates fought their extra duty with such vehemence. Losing two hours of study time in the evening was a slow academic death, and he did not have a fraction of their educational experience.

  Today also marked their first combatives class. The second-year students were filing out as the first years took their place in the covered arena. They all took a seat on the bleachers set above and just outside the sand-covered floor. Moments after everyone took their places, a man crossed the arena floor and stood before the seated crowd.

  “My name is Commander Fitzgerald or Commander Fitz if it pleases you. It is my job to teach you two very basic things: how to kill and how to keep others from killing you. It sounds simple enough, right? Let me assure you, it is one of the more mentally and physically demanding classes in this school. If you think mathematics and learning Urqan is tough, think of trying to learn that stuff while someone is doing their best to bash your brains in.”