Welf seethed, but kept his mouth closed. It probably hurt like hell.
“You want to shake hands again?” I asked. “Or . . . like . . . bump butts or cross swords or something else homoerotic?”
“All. You. Had. To. Do. Was. Tell. Me. Not. Punch. Me,” Welf hissed through a barely moving jaw.
I shrugged at him, hands out at my sides. “I let my instincts get the best of me.”
“Fuck. You. Foul. Mouth.”
“You need me to get you one of those tongue talking robots Stephen Hawking has? If your mommy and daddy can’t buy you one, that is?”
Hope put a hand on Welf’s shoulder to keep him from engaging with me. “That’s enough, Foul Mouth.”
“Got a lot more to say.”
Hope ignored me. “For those of you who aren’t aware of what happened a few days ago, Catherine Hayes and a few of the Blackjacks led Heinrich’s little sister Victoria away from her class, into a bathroom, and assaulted her. Victoria is fine other than a few scratches, but it didn’t end there. Catherine took a picture of a bloody Victoria and put it on Heinrich’s door yesterday morning. He took matters to Mr. Root and Catherine was punished with a stay in the Holding Room.
“The Foul Mouth then took it upon himself to punch Heinrich so Heinrich wouldn’t be exposed to any further harassment . . . save the Foul Mouth’s own.”
“You left out the part about me finding Vicky and stealing Slush to get her treated and taking her back to her class, all while Heinrich was none the wiser,” I pointed out.
“It. Wasn’t. Your. Place,” Welf accused.
I shrugged again. These things just happen. All up to Fate. “Yeah, places . . . you had getting played like a fiddle covered and forcing Vicky into a Root grilling when she didn’t want it, got it. Stupid me! Thinking about what place your sister wanted instead of the place you wanted, Welf.”
“It was handled!” Welf yelled and then shrieked, holding his jaw.
“Was it handled, Hope?” I asked.
“Teresa and Mary were waiting to abduct Heinrich,” Hope admitted to the class. “They had a stolen needle with some sort of knockout agent in it. After we dealt with them, we injected half in each and left them snoozing in the hallway where they planned to attack Heinrich.”
The Giant Fucking Needle!
Does everyone have one of those things?
“Three or four hours at that dosage,” I gave my expert opinion.
“Exuberance aside,” Val finally entered the conversation, as always trying to mediate Welf/Foul Mouth disputes, “everything seems resolved. Catherine is in the Holding Room. Vicky is fine. So why are we all here?”
Welf stood up so that all eyes would be on him, especially Boomworm’s. “Having my sister attacked like this has opened my eyes,” he said, still slowly but not one word at a time. It also had the hallmark perfect pronunciation of a Heinrich Welf pre-practiced speech. “For four years we have been protected by the older Ultras. All the while the Three Queens did whatever they wanted to their own class and to the Intras at this school. We no longer have an older group of Ultras to perform this duty, which is why I believe it is our responsibility to take it up. We need to protect the other Ultras from the Three Queens.”
“How?” Estefan Ramirez asked, nervous.
“Being vigilant,” Welf said, “taking every Ultra student aside and telling them that they should inform us if the Three Queens cause problems. Spread ourselves out on the Mound during the day so we can keep an eye on things.”
“What about Ultra ’08?” Miranda asked. “Leo could help us.”
Welf nodded. “We’ll need a meeting.”
“Sabine already knows,” I said, “she’s the one who fixed up Vicky.”
Welf barely kept back a snarl. “I’ll need to thank her too then,” he said too politely.
“You do that, you classist piece of shit.”
“What is your—”
“Only fucking Ultras. That’s who you want to protect.”
“We’re only thirty people, Foul Mouth!” Welf growled before again holding his jaw. “If the Three Queens want to focus on playing with Intras, then fine; they’ll cry a bit, they’ll graduate. They’ll go to some mundane college and have a happy life . . . good riddance.”
I looked to Val and waved at Welf like it explained everything that needed to be said.
She winced, but still tried to find middle ground, “We won’t be the only ones watching. The teachers will too and it is the Ultras who will be in contact with the Queens more often than not.”
“Hold up,” Pocket said.
And everyone shut up and listened to him intently.
I’ve been giving you the mainline conversation kiddies, but as with anything with Ultra Class ’09, there were about five different things happening at once. Arguments, agreements, and jokes flew all over the place. Too much for me to catch it all; way too much for me to remember and relate years after the fact.
“You punched Welf so you could be sent to the Holding Room, right, dude?” Pocket asked me.
“Yeah.”
“And you talked to Catherine?”
“ . . . Yeah.”
Silence.
“What?” I asked them.
“What did she say?” Welf hissed.
“Oh . . . you killed my father, my name is Inigo Montoya, prepare to die, that kind of stuff.”
“I haven’t given a single slight to her in my entire life!” Welf complained. “Other than defeating her at the Winter War and then, why me and not all of us?”
“Maybe she had a great grandmother at Auschwitz?” I guessed.
“I am not a Nazi!”
“Hope, your boyfriend needs to go to bed before he throws a little boy fit. Make sure to give him a handjob before you tuck him in or he’ll wake up with a tummy ache.”
Now it was Welf who turned to Boomworm, waving his hand at me like it explained everything. Val nodded at him and turned to me. “This is serious! You need to tell us what happened.”
“I failed,” I admitted with a defeated sigh.
More silence.
Thirty people being silent. Has some weight to it.
“I tried to scare her . . . you can’t scare her,” I eventually rambled. “We could all take turns cutting her fingers off and she’d just laugh through it, turn it all around on us, get the teachers to expel us. That’s how she does it. The Lady won’t—probably—I mean, she won’t even expel Catherine so . . . just cuz she has fucking family. Everyone has fucking family.”
“Maybe we can befriend her,” kinda-sorta Taylabel suddenly spoke up.
Hope was displeased at this pronouncement. “Keep your crazy to yourself.”
“I am not crazy!” Isabel yelled. “Neither are the Three Queens. They’re just mancers like all of us . . . they’re different! We all have differences; we just need to try to understand them! To know them.”
Welf and Hope both glared as a couple. “She beat my sister just to distract me,” he pointed out. “I have no wish to understand her. By all means, do try. But if you get burned or cut or punched then you can do it on your own. They want to be ruffians? They want to act like animals? Then I will stop them with civility. So will those I’ve formed relationships with at this school. We will watch out for the unfortunate. We will guide the younger Ultras as is our duty as graduate students.”
“Anyone feel like they’re listening to Mao complain about Stalin?” I asked the whole class. “No? Just me?”
“Foul Mouth—”
“Yeah, yeah. But really, you should just be happy I didn’t go back to the Nazi thing with another Hitler joke.”
Welf turned to meet gazes with the leaders in the class. Debra, Val, Curt, Pocket, and Naomi mostly. “Shall we vote?”
“My younger brother just started as a Single,” Naomi said, “I’m for it.”
Curt nodded. “My crew has the Hall covered.”
“Corpusmancers can have the Gym,” Jason put in.
“No!” I yelled. “It . . . this is a bad idea.”
“A minute ago you wanted to guard every student at the school,” Hope reminded me.
“I’m a conflicted little snowflake?”
“If not this, then—”
“I’ve been thinking about this all day,” I explained. “If we do what Welf wants then we’ll just open up the game board. Every single Ultra at the school will be a target to distract us and we’ll be putting out fires all over the place. That’s the wrong way to go about it. Catherine ain’t interested in the other Ultras. She’s only got one year left and she has one target in mind, a target she’s hinted at wanting to take out since our Winter War match in Bi.”
Everyone turned to Welf.
“What are you saying?” he grumbled defensively. “Leave me to die alone?”
I shook my head. “Nah. She wants me too, after the Holding Room. So you ain’t gonna be alone.”
Welf snarled my way. “I’d rather die alone.”
“We need to make ourselves the targets. You and me as the bull’s-eye, Welf, and the rest of the class around us. That’s how we keep everyone safe. You’re a brother, right? You know the trick?”
His snarl deepened. “I didn’t have rednecks for parents.”
But Pocket nodded and he wasn’t the only one. “He’s on to something.”
“You do this to me every time we take a vote, Foul Mouth!” Welf complained.
“Yeah, it’s about the only thing more fun than punching you.”
Pocket grabbed my shoulder. “What’s the plan then? How do we make ourselves the target?”
“Been thinking about that all day too,” I admitted.
“And are we giving them swirlies or stuffing them in a locker, El Rey?” Jesus asked with his own version of a canine grin.
“Like I said, that won’t work. But something the Lady said . . . and what Isabel said—” I tried to ignore Isabel’s preening at the praise “—they’re the Three Queens now. But not always. They have family. They have pasts. We can leverage that.”
“Damn it!” Welf yelled at the heavens, like they had a single chance at stopping me. “Not another one of his stupid plans!”
[CLICK]
It took until Sunday for my plan to come together.
I’d given Welf and his Old Mancy kids—plus Vicky’s talented spectro-poster skills—the task of setting up the final display. Display . . . more like a shrine. Just not to the Virgin Mary. The Mary included in the shrine was very much not a virgin judging by all the rumors from the many poor, heartbroken fuckers she’d left in her wake.
That’s right, that was my plan.
A shrine of devotion lauding good works and sparkling personalities.
To Catherine Hayes, Teresa Garcia, and Mary O’Connell.
I was killing them with kindness.
Snarky, tongue-in-cheek, fuck-you-evil-bitches-and-your-evil-rep kindness.
Only I let Welf put it all together.
So he’d stop bitching about me pushing him out of the loop.
And so I would have time to see if Raj’s testicles shrunk if you stuck him in the Cafeteria freezer for a few hours.
Priorities—who got ‘em?
This fuckin’ guy!
We waited until breakfast was being served to sneak into the kitchens. Every one of the ladies was busy by that time, be it the ones responsible for cooking the food or those responsible for plating or those taking orders from the other students. They were up front and distracted, while my group was in the back where they stored the frozen food.
Even the hallway was cold, but inside the freezers it was Fortress of Solitude levels of freeze your ass cheeks off. Raj had paused at the opening, “Can’t we just lie and say I did it?”
“You want us to lie?” I asked.
His morals fought with the fact that he’d have to strip naked in a few seconds and be locked in a freezer for possibly hours. “Yes.”
“Am I a good influence or what?” I slapped him on the back. “But seriously? There’s betting involved, you have to do it.”
“I can keep my turban?”
“You can keep your turban.”
“You have no hidden camera on you?”
“I do not.”
Raj glanced suspiciously at Pocket and Jesus. “Or you?”
Jesus sighed and handed over a disposable. “Keep it safe, I have pictures of . . . certain activities on there.”
“Anyone I know?” I asked.
Jesus wiggled his eyebrows, but stayed silent.
“You dog, you! Why can’t you be more like him, Pocket? Just admit you’re sneaking a girl into your apartment and it’s over, man.”
Pocket blushed and also stayed silent.
The minutes ticked away after Raj entered the freezer.
“They shriveled yet?” I asked occasionally.
“I’ll tell you when they are!” Raj called back.
“Could take a picture as proof,” Jesus teased.
“I most certainly will not!” Raj screeched at the idea.
“Maybe we should’ve gotten Ronaldo to do it,” Pocket pointed out.
“Wouldn’t have been as funny,” I decided.
Jesus nodded. “Hope would’ve been best.”
“Then she’d have killed us after we let her out,” Pocket rebutted.
We all thought on this fact.
“Still not shriveled the least,” Raj called out. “My beard is getting frosty though . . . and other hair . . . locations.”
[CLICK]
I left Raj for Pocket and Jesus to take care of after another hour waiting around. I’d lost my place in the betting pool by then anyway and I needed to check and make sure Welf hadn’t screwed up the job, like he had a habit of doing.
At every possible opportunity.
I ran into Naomi inside the Cafeteria hallway. She smiled at me. “Ready for tonight?”
“Bottle of wine, a picnic basket, and the whole roof of the Admin Building just for you and me,” I told her.
She squealed in delight before slapping a quick kiss on my cheek. “Saw the display, looks amazing!”
“Going there now, want to come with?” I asked.
But Naomi shook her head. “Have a meeting with the Future Teachers Club.”
“You still on that?” I teased.
“I have to appease my father somehow. I found him crying on my apartment doorstep when he found out about us. Someone who’s very naughty let it slip to him.”
“Don’t see why he should be crying. I’m gonna be a perfect gentleman tonight.”
Naomi laughed my way. “You better not.”
Best day ever! I decided after another kiss on the cheek prior to Naomi running off for her meeting. And to think I was buried in the dirt going slowly insane a few days ago . . .
[CLICK]
It was ten feet tall with pink and gold as the main colors. At the top, pulsating spectro-neon letters read: SUPPORT YOUR SCHOOL QUEENS. Under the title were all manner of pictures and pasted news articles and even a few video setups repeating over and over. A section each for Teresa, Mary, and Catherine. Constructing it had taken some work, but Vicky and Miranda were both on the Art Club, Miranda even had a key that granted access to Miss Greenbrier’s supply room. Though it took some work on my part to convince the Ginger Nemesis to be a team player.
The iPads with the videos all came from various Admin workers who needed to keep a better eye on the things. Raj had made me mark each one with the name of the owner just so we could be sure in our ability to return them. Raj and Miranda really should get together. Been five years . . . needs to happen already. For real. Carmel-skinned redheaded babies, man.
Estefan and the other electromancers said the batteries were supercharged and would go for days with the anima-laced juice they’d hit them with. As Acting Club members, Robin White and Rick Brown cut up the videos and got them ready. As for what was in the videos . . . some file digging by Val, Hope,
and Welf—all Admin interns—and some late night thievery by Miles and Eva, our Shadeshifters, got us all the family information we’d ever need on the Three Queens. Promising to make-out with Isabel for five minutes—I wore her down from straight sex and would be bringing a stop watch when I gave my payment, hopefully I don’t throw up—got me a trip to an Admin office with complete Internet access—accompanied by Isabel facechanged to be Audrey Foster—where we would be talking about ‘wedding plans.’
The parents of the Three Queens had gladly spilled the beans and told all manners of stories when they found out about Teresa, Mary, and Catherine winning a Most Popular Student award. After that, we had the Library group backup those stories with more research and . . . here we were.
Here we are.
Six years of the Three Queens making themselves feared and now I’d turned them into mommy and daddy’s little girls in one Sunday afternoon.
Welf came over to where I sat on a bench, watching Vicky and Hope put up the last touches on the shrine. “Think it will work?” he asked.
“It would piss me off.”
“I suppose I should remember that.”
“Mom’s dead. Sisters are gone. Dad works too much. Good luck trying it.”
Welf stayed standing there for a moment, not talking but not moving off either.
“You don’t want to shake again, right?”
He barely concealed a grimace. Eventually he asked what was bugging him, “Did you find out why she hates me?”
“Nope,” I lied.
“So it’s just . . . that I’m rich. Same reason you do.”
“I don’t hate you because you’re rich, Welf. I hate you because you’re an asshole.”
He took the hint and went back to get his sister and girlfriend. They left, not wanting to be around when Mary and Teresa heard about it. Catherine would be locked in the Holding Room.
Or not.
When she sat down next to me on the bench I flinched like a complete bitch. “The hell?” I screeched.
“Noon to 10PM only,” Catherine explained with a wide smile. “The Lady is such a forgiving soul.”
“Crap . . .”
She ignored me for a long time, watching the videos as they looped for each girl. Teresa in school plays. Mary as a flower girl at a cousin’s wedding. Catherine . . . a normal childhood. Mostly. Despite the fact she was adopted. Before that adoption . . . well, I don’t think it was very fun for her.
The Foul Mouth and the Mancy Martial Artist (The King Henry Tapes Book 5) Page 55