"Come with me," I invited the students. "I have a surprise for you."
Murmuring with curiosity, they followed. I gestured for them to gather around the scarred and stained dining table.
"I assigned you a hard task. You not only rose to the occasion, but you threw in your own flourishes that made it more than a success. You worked together, and you played off each other's strengths. I'm proud of your progress, and I'm proud of you. So, let me add to the festivities a little." I produced the bag of money that Bunny had collected from Headman Flink. "Here's our reward. We get half, since I'm teaching you and Bunny is my support staff. But the rest should rightly be divided between all of you."
I dumped the shining stream of silver out onto the table top. The coins bounced and jingled and rolled around the wooden table top. When the last one vibrated to a ringing halt, I could have heard a fly cough in the big room. I looked up at my students. To my amazement, all of them were staring at me with expressions ranging from dismay to horror.
"What's the matter?" I asked.
"We can't accept this, Master Skeeve," Tolk said.
"We don't deserve it," Bee added. "If it wasn't for you, we'd have fallen on our faces a bunch of times."
"But you didn't," I assured him. "All you needed was a little confidence. I did very little. It was your efforts. Take it."
"No!" they protested in unison, the Pervects loudest of all.
"Why not?" Bunny asked. She sorted the money into neat piles, a large one for us and small ones for each of them. "You earned it."
"We can't accept any money from you," Jinetta said, almost desperately. I was puzzled: a Pervect refusing to take money?
"It's apprentice wages," I said calmly. "Less than I'd accept for such a task, even at your level of experience. If you were my partners, you'd be entitled to equal shares. You did a good job. You should participate in the reward."
"No," Melvine said, crossing his little arms. "We won't accept it. Not a copper piece. Not a wooden nickel."
"Are you sure?" I asked.
"We can't," Pologne insisted, her yellow eyes large with alarm. "Really. All we want from you is an education. Nothing else. And we'll have to ask you to take that as our final word."
They nodded in unison. I shrugged.
They seemed to be more in accord than they had been at any time before, appearing to have achieved a mutual understanding on the long walk home.
"Well, if that's what you want," I said, "but I promise you would still get the same education from me whether you accept this reward or not."
"No!" Tolk said. "You can't force us to take it."
"Force you?" Freezia snorted. "You wanted to take it. I could see it in your eyes."
"That's not true," the Canidian howled. "How about you? Perverts are greedy. Everyone knows it. Why don't you just take your shares? You know you want to."
"You liar," Jinetta said. "And that's Pervect!"
"In your dreams! Eating food that smells like garbage. That's perverted!"
"Yeah, you're such hypocrites," Melvine sneered. "Slurping down purple worms then it's 'oh, dear, look at that bug! It might crawl on me!'"
"You should talk, Mr. Fearless," Bee said. "What was with you when we first got to Humulus? You're the most powerful of us after Master Skeeve, and you kept bawling like, well, a baby!"
"I had Manticore nightmares as a kid, okay?" Melvine snarled.
"Back off him," Pologne said, her voice rising to a shriek. "Where were you when we were working on containing that beast? Running away yourself?"
Bee's face went pale under its freckles. "With respect, ma'am, I was following Master Skeeve's orders."
"You mean, because you couldn't do magik, right? Spellfree freak!"
I opened my mouth to say that Aahz had been without his magik for a few years, that he was no less formidable without it, but that wouldn't have made Pologne respect him or Bee any more than she did.
"You were sure buddying up with him before," Freezia said scornfully.
"How dare you suggest I'd make friends with a Klahd?"
"Hey," I protested.
In the blink of an eye, the good mood had been shattered. I didn't know how I had managed to ruin it, but the camaraderie had evaporated the moment I had emptied those coins out on the table. Distrust ran wild throughout the class, even between the Pervects.
"What is going on here?" Bunny asked. "Ten minutes ago you were friends. What happened."
They all turned to us, as if caught in the act.
"Oh, nothing," Pologne said, too brightly.
"Look at the time!" Jinetta said hastily. "Dinner soon! We'll go out and get supplies. I hope they still have some fresh sgarnwalds in the market at this hour, don't you, Freezia?"
"Let me pitch in," Melvine insisted, digging in his pocket for coins.
"And me, too," Tolk said. Bee opened his threadbare belt pouch and produced a couple of coppers, which he placed in Jinetta's palm.
"It's only right," Freezia explained to me and Bunny. "Whenever I stay with friends I always buy groceries. I almost never eat up their food. And we know what you like, too. It'll be good. I promise. Bye!"
Before I could reply, the three Pervects disappeared.
"Something is up," Bunny said. She turned to the three male students. "What is going on?"
"Nothing," Melvine said hastily. "Boy, I could sure use a nap." He vanished, the displaced air BAMFing behind him.
"Gotta go walk myself," Tolk added. He scampered out of the door.
"I, uh," Bee began then turned and quick-marched after the Canidian without finishing his sentence.
Bunny, Gleep and I were left alone in the big room.
"Something strange is going on here," Bunny said.
"I think they're just tired," I replied. "Don't be so suspicious."
Bunny narrowed an eye. "You're too trusting. Tolk was right: Pervects never turn down free money. That's more than strange."
I sighed. "They're not all the same as Aahz. I found that out when I was on Perv. Maybe there is some code among MIP students not to take gifts from their teacher. Probably one of Professor Maguffin's rules. They're always quoting him."
"I don't know," Bunny said, tapping her foot on the floor impatiently. "I'm going to keep my eye on them. All of them."
"Gleep!" Gleep announced.
"Yes," I agreed, patting my pet on the head. "Me, too."
If I had thought the dinner at which I made them switch main courses was awkward, this one deserved a medal for going above and beyond the call of gut-twisting, in more ways than one. Almost as if they wanted to taunt the others, the Pervects, who sat together at one end of the big table, made a point of serving their food in small bites, making sure to give everyone a good look at each slimy, purple pseudopod dripping off the spoon. As promised, the food they brought back for the rest of us was fine, even delicious, though it was harder to enjoy with the nauseating whiff of Pervish cooking overwhelming us.
Melvine sat sniveling to himself during the entire meal. "Nobody likes me. I wring myself dry for them, and they make fun of me! I'm going to run away and go home."
I thought he was expressing the unspoken sentiments of the whole group fairly well.
"You're all selling yourselves and each other short," I said. "You just proved what I've been trying to tell you all along: the best thing you can do is learn to work together. You find one another's strengths and supplement them. That's true whether you're trying to survive in a wilderness situation or in a high-powered company. My associates and I couldn't be beaten because no one could drive a wedge between us. When you're busy cutting each other's throats, then it's easier for someone to sneak up on YOU."
"That's too simple," Tolk said. He remained civil to Bunny and me, though he growled whenever the others glanced his way.
"It's more complicated than it sounds," I said. "There are a lot of factors beyond a person's talents you have to take into consideration. Climate. Uh, personal phob
ias." That got a wince out of Melvine. I regretted hurting his feelings, but it was a valid statement. "Experience. Inclination. Willingness. You can be the greatest magician in the world, but if you won't get out there and try, you might as well have no magik at all."
"Hmmph," Pologne snorted.
"Look," I said. "We've all been through a lot in the last few days. I don't know about you, but I need a break. Everyone just enjoy themselves this evening. We'll start on some more exercises in the morning. All right?"
"Yes, sir," Bee muttered, not raising his eyes from his plate.
The others murmured their assent. I threw an exasperated glance at Bunny, who shook her head.
After the dishes were washed, I retreated to my study and hoped they'd take advantage of my absence to argue it all out and make peace. I set up an experiment with a couple of strange metallic elements I'd come across in a Bazaar trick shop, but I couldn't concentrate on it. I found I was straining to listen to what was going on in the rest of the inn. Except for the music and voices from Bunny's PDA in the next room, I heard nothing but furtive footsteps on the upper floor.
One tentative set tiptoed down the stairs, coming toward my study.
"Hey, Freezia, do you want to watch Sink or Swim with me?" Bunny called out.
"Uh, no, thanks, Bunny," the dainty Pervect said, almost in a gasp. I heard her feet patter back up the stairs to her room. I heard the murmur of hasty conversation above, then silence. No cheerful conversation, no joshing, no mutual admiration society. The rooms on the upper floor might as well have been vacant, except for the almost-visible waves of distrust that radiated out of them.
I pushed aside my experiment and sank my head into my hands.
What had I done wrong? I pored over the memory of the day over and over again, but I could recall nothing that seemed even remotely like criticism or an insult. I'd lived with a Pervect for years, so I thought I knew their thresholds of intolerance, which in Aahz's case mainly had to do with me being stupid. If I did something wrong out of innocence, he was pretty good about it; if I did something inane, he would flatten me for knowing better and not thinking. I had thought about the gesture of sharing the reward, all the way back from Humulus. Was I too late? Should I have divided up the spoils sooner? Had I been too cheap? Were they looking for a larger percentage of the take? They certainly had earned it. Now they were adamantly against taking any money at all.
I had run into a situation like this on Perv, when I had inadvertantly offended a friend named Edvik by offering him cash as a tip in thanks for services rendered instead of as a gift between equals. It took some fancy talking to straighten things out, the results of which got me into so much trouble that I had been ejected from the dimension permanently as persona non grata.
That was it, I told myself. I might be their teacher, but courtesy needed to extend in both directions. I promised that I would be more careful about my students' pride in the future.
Chapter Fourteen
"Is anybody happy?"
G. Bush
"It's like this," Bee explained for the eighth time as he pointed out the obstacle course he had designed in the inn's courtyard out of chairs, fire irons, a few pots, heaps of books and stones. "You concentrate on walking a perfectly smooth road, and when you've got it in your head, you think 'Can't trip.' Get it? 'Cantrip.'" He grinned at her. "You can't trip. But you say 'spoo.'"
"I get it," Jinetta said, studying her nails. She picked a fragment of scale off her cuticle then polished her fingertips against her blouse. "In fact, I got it the first time you said it, over a week ago, and every time since then. This is beginner stuff."
Bee reddened. "It came in awful handy in Humulus, Tolk said."
"I'm sure to a Canidian it looks very impressive."
"Look, how about you try it yourself?" Bee asked, very politely. I gave him points for keeping his temper. Jinetta was doing her best to provoke him into an outburst. "I'll help you all I can."
"Well, that's a fly-leg's worth of meat at a banquet," Jinetta observed.
"I didn't know Pervects ate flies," Bee said, but he kept his voice low. Jinetta snarled. One point to Bee.
Tolk wasn't faring much better with Pologne. She hadn't wanted to work with him, but she declared she wasn't going to work with Melvine. Tolk wasn't thrilled with the pairing, either. I ordered them to cooperate or go home.
"How do I know she's any good at teaching?" he asked.
"How do I know you could possibly understand anything I taught?" she countered.
After sitting and staring at one another for half an hour, Tolk started demonstrating a healing technique. Out of sheer boredom Pologne began to listen to him, but she nitpicked at everything he said.
"Don't you mean close the wound?" she asked. "'Seal' the wound sounds like you're just covering it over."
"I went through an eight-year apprenticeship to learn this," Tolk growled. "Words aren't as important as deeds."
"Professor Maguffin would wash your mouth out with soup for saying something like that," Pologne spat.
"Soup? I love soup!"
"Weirdo!"
"Pervert!"
I left them alone, hoping that they would eventually gain some kind of understanding, but I doubted it. They had frozen up, and nothing I did seemed to make an impression.
Melvine and Freezia had gotten into mutual snits over his whirlwind spell, and were shrieking at each other from opposite ends of the courtyard. That had started over technique. It seemed that one of Melvine's gestures was an obscenity on Perv. I didn't know that there was a symbol for sex with multiple small animals.
I was fed up with all of them. I had sat up all night trying to figure out a way to break the ice again, and now I was too tired to do anything but supervise. Once in a while I made the rounds, offering encouragement and breaking up petty arguments, but I spent most of the time in the shade on the sidelines, sipping a glass of wine. On purpose, I had not brought the bottle outside with me. It was too tempting to get soused out of sheer frustration. I'd hinted that I'd like to know what had changed the group from teammates into bitter rivals in the matter of seconds, but they all pretended they had no idea what I was talking about.
"Cantrip!" Jinetta shouted as she hopped up onto Bee's obstacle course for the fourth time. I felt the magik in the overhead force line surge slightly. Everyone turned her way as she sauntered seemingly over thin air. Her body stretched and contracted as her feet touched down lightly, but her head stayed at the same level. "Voila!"
"Hey, pretty good," Bee said grudgingly.
"It was very good," Jinetta insisted. "It only took me four tries." She glanced at me. "All right, my turn." She went to pick up her buttermilk-colored briefcase.
"Something useful," Bee said, looking over her shoulder. "Not like how to change the color of my nails."
Jinetta glared at him. "This IS useful, you hayseed. It's really easy." She opened her snap case and began to dig through it. "You only need a piece of paper big enough to wrap around your hand." She pulled out a spiral-bound notebook.
A loud jingle attracted all of us. I glanced down as Jinetta removed the pad and stared down at a leather bag underneath.
"I smell money," Tolk exclaimed. He trotted over to sniff as Jinetta opened the bag and poured the contents into her hand. I recognized them at the same time as everyone else.
"Those are from Humulus," Melvine said.
"No!" Jinetta protested. "It couldn't be."
"It is," Tolk insisted, sticking his wet black nose right into her palm. "It's got the same scent as the money we got from Master Flink."
The tall Pervect looked outraged.
"Who put this in my bag?"
"Well, since it locks by magik," Bee said, "I'm gonna have to assume it was you."
"You, Jinetta?" Freezia looked aghast. So did Pologne.
"You must have made a separate deal with Skeeve for pay," Tolk said. "Behind our backs!"
I sprang up.
; "Hold it right there," I said, advancing on them.
"Just didn't want to be seen accepting money in front of us, huh?" Melvine smirked. "So much for keeping it a teacher-student relationship."
"Melvine!" I warned.
The Cupy looked up at me in horror. "It wasn't me, Teach. I swear. I didn't do it. Ask Long Tall Sally, here. Looks like she did."
"How dare you?" Jinetta gasped, reaching for him, nails out. He threw up a wall of fire, and she recoiled. "I did NOT put it in here. I didn't touch that money! Someone else must have sneaked it into my briefcase!"
"Yeah, sure."
Jinetta whipped a knuckle-sized globe out of her bag. "Take that back, Cupy!"
Melvine fanned out his fingers. "You make me, Pervert!"
Bunny started to get up from her spot on the grass. I waved a hand to keep her from getting into the line of fire. Gleep automatically moved to protect her.
"Don't you threaten my friend!" Freezia shrieked, pointing a finger already beginning to generate sparks. Melvine cringed behind his wall of flame.
"Maybe she stole the money!" Tolk said, his brown eyes wide.
"You idiot! Her father owns the biggest carriage company on Perv," Pologne snapped.
"Who are you calling an idiot?" Bee asked. "You Pervects think you're so smart."
"We are smart, Klahd!"
I thrust myself in between them, feeling my eyebrows crisping from Melvine's spell. I dampened it with a heavy blanket of magik. "Stop it! I did not pay Jinetta anything. I didn't pay any of you anything. You turned me down, remember? Remember?"
Reluctantly, the six of them muttered, "Yes."
"Good," I said, firmly. "Now, go back to your exercise. You're making good progress. Keep it up."
"Will you swear to that?" Melvine asked.
I spun to face him. "Swear I didn't pay any of you or make a secret deal for compensation? Yes. I swear it."
His baby face seemed to crumple with disappointment. "Well, those coins are from Humulus, aren't they?"
"Bunny," I called. "Would you mind checking the strongbox and see if any of our reward money is missing?"
Class Dis-M.Y.T.H.ed Page 13