by Wesley King
Eldon shot another arrow directly between a fake troll’s eyes.
“After that, Eldon just showed up at Arnwell and demanded that he be trained. When the last trainer saw the anger in his eyes, he made the first and only exception to the rule. Eldon is the first Sword from the Under Earth who wasn’t chosen, and he’s also the greatest Sword alive.”
Eldon finished the course again, sweeping his cloak around and tucking the sword into its sheath in one perfect motion.
“Can’t he just be a Monster Crusher?” I whispered.
Lee laughed. “The Monster Crushers have to be from the surface world. Those are the rules. But I would keep him close.” He glanced at me, casually brushing that thick black hair out of his eyes. I felt like I was cheating on Liam just looking at him, which was ridiculous for at least ten reasons. It was lucky Shal wasn’t here…she might have literally melted.
“I know you didn’t ask for this, Laura. None of us Monster Crushers do—but we all answer the call anyway, including you, by the way. It’s not fair that the others blame you for finding the elevator. But you’re here, and I’ll do whatever I can to help you.”
“Thanks,” I said. “It might be nice to have at least one friend.”
He smiled. “Better than none.”
“Laura!” Eldon called, stalking back to the front of the course. “Start again.”
I groaned and stood up. “Is he always this fun?”
Lee snorted. “This is him in a good mood.”
I just shook my head and started for the first batch of logs, feeling my legs burn as I leaped over them. I was just running over the last one when I caught my foot hard and stumbled forward, crashing into the ground. My cheek smashed against the stone.
I lay there for a moment, dazed, and Eldon appeared beside me.
“Do you know what’s happening right now?” he asked.
I sighed deeply. “I’m being killed by goblins.”
“Exactly. Now get up and stay on your feet.”
“Do I have to?”
“Yes.”
I pushed myself up—ignoring the usual muted laughs around the courtyard—and started jogging toward the barriers.
“You know, you think you’d be nicer to the Monster Crusher,” I grumbled.
“I’m being very nice,” Eldon said. “I’m trying to keep you alive.”
—
I finally collapsed into my bed hours later, my entire body aching and throbbing. I hadn’t exercised that much in ever.
As I lay in bed, I thought about Lee’s words: you don’t live long in this job. Why would I possibly want to take it when those deadly warriors were being killed? I didn’t have a chance against trolls and giants and sea creatures. I couldn’t even run the Way.
But what choice did I have? Even now there were Swords watching my house from the woods to make sure goblins didn’t swarm into my backyard. If they wanted to, the Swords could just abduct me and bring me to Arnwell to train anyway. And there was no way to move from Riverfield without telling my parents everything, which apparently was a very, very bad idea. It was official: I was stuck with the world’s worst job.
As I started to doze off, something equally perturbing came to mind: Allison Black. I’d completely forgotten about our confrontation at school today. I had a feeling she hadn’t, which meant I was in for a rough day tomorrow. But really, what could she do? Sure, she’d have fat jokes and ugly jokes and clothes jokes lined up for me, but I wasn’t too worried. Those were a breeze.
I rolled over, sneaking a quick glance at my alarm clock. It was already four in the morning. I sighed and closed my eyes. Apparently Monster Crushers didn’t get a lot of sleep. I was out almost instantly, but my dreams were nothing but yellow eyes and teeth.
Chapter Fifteen
As I had kind of guessed, my days of avoiding Allison Black’s attention were over. I’d called her out in front of her friends, and I was now officially a target.
I’d also broken my own rule number one for bullied people: never draw attention to yourself. Let’s just say I looked a little dishevelled. I’d slept in so late that I’d had no time for a shower, which of course meant my chestnut hair was matted and greasy. Add to that no makeup—not even my usual dab of blush—and an old yellow long-sleeve shirt I’d thrown on that had probably fit better four years ago, and I might as well have been wearing a Kick Me sign on my back.
In fairness, I had spent much of my night running—okay, mostly walking—through an obstacle course and generally being mocked for my lack of physical fitness, but I couldn’t really explain that to Allison. As it was, she had plenty of material.
“I didn’t know the filthy-hobo look was in,” she’d said to her friends that morning when she walked by—just loud enough for me to hear it.
The seagulls enjoyed that one. Later in the hall outside of class she’d shielded her eyes and complained that the sun was so bright today. Portia used to like that one too.
This was definitely an unfortunate change, but I was taking it pretty well. When you have seven years of practice, those jokes just bounce off of you. Portia had spent entire days commenting on my wardrobe and size. And here I had Shal and Mia to talk to, so I was actually starting to think that I was going to get off easy. I was wrong. Geography was last period, and I spent most of it admiring Liam as he answered every single question while the other students snickered. Maybe he didn’t have Lee’s muscles or tanned skin or gentle brown eyes, but he still had…well, I don’t know what it was. His hair was parted today, just off the middle, and held down with what smelled like hair spray. I just sniffed it when I walked by…that’s all. Combined with those awkwardly perched glasses and a T-shirt that said Science Is Cool, he was pretty much a walking public service announcement for what nerds looked like. But I couldn’t help it. I just smiled whenever I looked at him.
I was in love with a spectacled ocean plant.
Ms. Haddock was currently discussing European countries. She seemed fascinated with the subject and tried to sneak it in wherever possible, though I’m pretty sure it wasn’t in the curriculum.
“Let’s have a little competition,” Ms. Haddock said, as if this would be greeted by raucous applause. The whole class just stared at her. “Everyone line up at the front,” she continued eagerly, rolling up the world map. “It’ll be like a spelling bee. If you get your question wrong, you sit down and cheer for everyone else.”
Dead silence.
“The winner,” she said meaningfully, “will get a gift certificate for two to the movies.”
Well, it wasn’t much, but provide a prize of any sort and people tend to get more excited. There were a few movies I wanted to see. The only problem was that I would have to stand in front of the class after being called a filthy hobo all day. Super.
So we all lined up at the front—Shal and Mia on either side of me—and the competition began. They started dropping like flies.
“What’s the capital of Germany?” Ms. Haddock asked Tim.
He paused. “Europe?”
Oh boy. This was going to be a short competition.
“What language do they speak in the Netherlands?”
Ashley frowned. “Netherlandish?”
I really wanted to groan. Shal went out on the capital of Norway—she declined to try—while Mia got by on the language of Portugal.
“Name a country on Germany’s eastern border,” Ms. Haddock asked me.
I’m actually kind of a geography buff. I always wanted to travel, so I spent a lot of time looking at maps. A by-product of hating where you live, I guess. Same reason I like space so much. They both sounded a lot better than Newcastle. Everywhere did.
“Poland,” I said confidently.
She smiled and rolled on.
Soon it was the fifth round, and there were only four of us left: Mia, a guy named Blake, Liam, and myself. Liam was currently standing only one boy away from me. I think I was sweating. I definitely felt flushed. Mia was up.
“What country contains the city of Budapest?”
Mia fidgeted. I could tell she was not comfortable standing in front of the class. Way too much attention for Mia Mouse. “Romania?” she guessed.
“Sorry,” Ms. Haddock said, “Hungary.”
The words were barely out of her mouth before Mia was sitting again.
“Okay, Laura,” Ms. Haddock said, turning to me. “This is a tricky one. Name one of the two official languages they speak in Belgium.”
Crap. That was a tricky one. I could see Allison whispering something to Ashley about me. They were both quietly giggling. Focus.
“French,” I said.
“Excellent,” Ms. Haddock said. “Very impressive, Laura.”
I beamed. Hey, it was the first compliment I’d gotten all day.
Blake went out, and all of a sudden I was standing right next to Liam. Well, there was like a half-metre gap, but it was close. I could smell that hair spray again. It was like a spring meadow mixed with chemicals. I felt my skin tingling. What was wrong with me?
He nailed his question—big surprise—and so the finals were set.
Ms. Haddock stood up in excitement. “Okay, if Laura gets it wrong, Liam still has to answer his correctly. If she gets it right, and he’s wrong, Laura wins.”
I shot just the tiniest glance at Liam. His eyes were really blue up close. Focus!
“Laura, what is the northernmost country in Europe?”
By a stroke of luck, I had a thing for the Scandinavian countries. They always seemed really beautiful and empty, which was good for avoiding bullies. “Norway.”
“Correct!”
Liam looked at me in surprise, and I felt my cheeks burning. Thankfully Allison was looking away, whispering with Carl. Ms. Haddock turned to Liam.
“What is the newest country in Europe?”
Hmm. Even I wasn’t sure about that one. I had a guess, but I could see Liam was completely stumped. He shifted from foot to foot and frowned and rubbed his forehead.
“Liam?” Ms. Haddock asked politely.
He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“Kosovo,” she said. “Very tough. Great competition. But of course we can only have one winner, and that is Laura. Give her a round of applause.”
There were some smattered claps, and I smiled shyly. And then Liam shook my hand and said congratulations. Why was my hand so clammy? I really blushed this time and muttered “thanks” and barely managed to take the movie certificate from Ms. Haddock without floating out of the classroom. I sat down feeling pretty great.
“Someone has a crush,” Allison whispered behind me.
Uh-oh.
—
“I’m sure she’ll forget about it soon,” Shal said on the way home from school.
I wasn’t that keen to walk home from school again after yesterday, but Eldon had assured me that the Swords were now watching the entire area, so I figured it was pretty safe. It was also very hard to explain why I didn’t want to walk when Shal, Mia, and even my mom all wanted me to. So I just agreed and decided to walk really fast when I got to Raven’s End.
“She doesn’t forget about that stuff usually—” Mia started.
“Mia!” Shal cut in. “Not helping.”
I sighed. “I guess she was going to figure it out eventually. I’ll just try not to react and hopefully she’ll assume she was wrong. Unless you want to tell Carl you love him?” I said, looking at Shal. “That might distract her—”
“No,” Shal said firmly.
“Worth a shot,” I muttered.
We were walking down Main Street again, and I noticed that a lot of the older people who hung out in the coffee shops and restaurants were huddled together around newspapers. In fact it seemed people were talking in hushed voices everywhere I looked.
“What’s going on?” I wondered.
Mia glanced at me. “I heard the teachers talking about it on the way out. They found the hiker.”
“Was he alive…”
Mia shook her head. “Apparently he’d been attacked by something.”
I felt my stomach twist. I had a pretty good idea what had done it. Which meant the monsters were not only hunting me—they were attacking anyone else who got in their way. And that meant all of Riverfield was now in danger. There was no going back.
“Could be a bear or something,” Shal said. “Or wolves.”
“Yeah,” I murmured, “maybe.”
Shal grimaced. “Let’s talk about something else. That freaks me out.”
“Not Liam,” I said.
“Or Carl,” Mia added.
Shal paused and looked at us. “Well, that’s all I got.”
I just laughed and shook my head. “You’re impossible. What are you guys doing this weekend?”
Shal shrugged. “Same thing as usual. Hanging out at my house eating ice cream and listening to my mom talk about parties and how much cooler she was when she was our age.”
“It’s the best,” Mia muttered. “But my dad won’t let me have people over.”
“I can,” I said. “I’ve got lots of room. Do you want to come over on Saturday?”
As soon as I said it, I sort of remembered that there was a rattling magic door in my closet and a bunch of heavily armed warriors guarding the house. But I was too late.
“Sweet,” Shal said happily. “I can tell my mom I’m going out!”
“And we won’t have to listen to her stories,” Mia agreed, looking very relieved.
“Exactly,” I said hesitantly.
As long as I got them out before ten-thirty when the rattling usually started, it should be fine. I would just have to keep a close eye on the clock. I could even pop into Derwin and tell Eldon I’d be a little late because I was having my friends over.
I pictured his face. He’d love that.
“Awesome,” Shal said as we stopped in front of her house. “See ya, girls.”
She scampered inside and Mia and I continued on to her house.
“That hiker,” Mia said, glancing at me, “I think they said it was up by Raven’s End.”
“That doesn’t surprise me,” I muttered.
“Make sure you stay out of those woods,” she said worriedly.
I snorted. “Trust me—I will.”
—
I didn’t have any homework, so I spent the evening helping Stache finish the painting in the main floor hallway. We were painting it white to cover up the old faded yellow colour and the many splintering cracks in the plaster that he’d had to fill. I actually liked painting with my dad. He’d pretend to splash me or push me into the wall, and then I’d paint the back of his shirt when he wasn’t looking.
We had briefly discussed the hiker incident, but he had just said the same thing as Mia: stay out of the woods until they found the animal and got rid of it. We left it at that.
I’d always been much closer to my dad. Along with his big hands and big bones, I’d also gotten more of his interests: working around the house, sports, old historical fiction novels. When I was a kid we used to pretend to box and sword fight while my mom fussed about me wearing jeans and T-shirts instead of dresses. Don’t get me wrong. I love my mom, but I think she was kind of hoping for a daughter she could dress up and shop with and do her hair. Instead she got me: a jeans-wearing Monster Crusher.
When my dad finished the last corner, he put his arm around me.
“This place is gonna be something,” he said proudly.
“It’s something, all right,” I replied.
He glanced at me. “You liking it here, Laurabell? You know, besides the bats?”
(P.S. My dad calls me Laurabell when no one else is around.)
“It’s not bad. It still looks like a haunted house, and I don’t want to know how many spiders are in the basement I refuse to go into, but other than that, it’s coming around.”
“Good,” he said, patting my shoulder. “I think I’m going to go start on the—”
“Get some sleep, Stache,” I cut in.
He seemed to think about that. “All right. See you tomorrow, Laurabell.”
“Good night.”
I headed up to my room as well, figuring I’d take a shower and clean some of the paint off my cheeks before I went through the panel. I was just grabbing a towel from the linen closet when I heard my cellphone beep. There was a text message from Shal:
If you need to talk give me a call. I’m up.
I frowned. That could not be good. I tried to think what could be wrong. I glanced at my computer, and on a hunch, I sat down and checked my profile. No.
There I was, tagged on a Photoshopped picture. Instead of his mother, Liam had his arm around me. Well, my face on his mother’s body. The words Lovers=Gross were written over our legs in big red font. Liam was tagged in it too.
He was going to see this. He was going to be embarrassed, and he was never going to even look at me again. I felt sick. I actually thought I might puke.
In the corner, for all the world to see, it said: posted by Allison Black.
I quickly shut my laptop, lay down on my bed, and cried.
—
I went through the panel late. Eldon was waiting in the courtyard with his arms folded across his muscular chest. He did not look happy.
“We need to maximize your time,” he said sternly. “We don’t have much of it.”
“Sorry,” I muttered.
He just glared at me and gestured to the Way. “Get started.”
It was even worse than the day before. By the fourth time through I was walking, and Eldon disgustedly told me to sit down and take a break. Lee must have been back in Canada tonight because he wasn’t in the courtyard. The crimson-haired girl was there though, and when I glanced at her, she just shook her head and went inside.