Class Dis-Mythed

Chapter Eight

By midmorning, all twelve of the objects lay on the spit of land overlooking the sea. The students looked at me expectantly. I gave them a smile of approval.

"Congratulations," I said. "You finished with over an hour to spare. Now, all you have to do is assemble this gizmo. It's pretty straightforward. The pieces slot together. Be careful. It opens outward under its own power."

"What's it do?" Melvine asked.

"You'll find out when you're done."

"All right," Jinetta said, tapping her hands together delicately. "Shall we try Obadiah's Assembly Spell?"

"Let's," Pologne agreed. The three Pervects put their hands together. A few of the parts twirled in place and began to slide toward one another, then drooped to a halt.

"Oh, I told you that was an indoor spell!" Freezia said. "There's too much interference out here. We have to find the right process. An outdoor process."

"Of course," Pologne said. She took out her small globe. "Let's see, there are enchantments for puzzle pieces, broken pieces, crazy paving—which one shall we use?"

I groaned. "You don't have to use a fixed process. Improvise. There are six of you. Come up with something new."

"But Professor Maguffin said—"

"Raspberries to Professor Maguffin," Melvine sneered. "I don't want to be here all day."

"We can do this without magik," Bee said. He started arranging things on the ground. "See, there's a triangular slot, and here's a peg that's the same shape."

"No, we can do it with magik," Jinetta insisted. "All we need to do is find the right spell. Freezia, what do you think?"

"I can't recall anything from Spellcrafting 501 that covered a situation like this."

"Maybe there wasn't one," Tolk said. "Look look look, let's just put the pieces together by hand."

"If you insist," Jinetta said, clearly distressed at having to think outside the box or, rather, classroom. "It still feels wrong?

"I found a flat tab and a flat slot," Melvine exclaimed. "Yeah!" He pushed them together, and they clicked satisfyingly.

"But what about this thing?" Pologne asked Bee, flapping the sheet. "It hasn't got pegs."

"No, but it's got symbols printed on it. See here? There's an arrow, and there's a circle. Look for parts marked the same way."

I began to understand why Guido had prized this shy country boy. He was a born organizer. With the Pervects balking all the way, he began to get the class working in the same direction.

It wasn't going to be easy or a one-man operation. I had scoured the Bazaar for a device that had to be levitated while it was being assembled. Until all the pieces were in place it couldn't be balanced on the single pole that supported it, and it could not be put together upside down. Once Bee figured that out he suggested politely that the more adept magicians use the last vestiges of power they were carrying to help support the incomplete device.

"I think this goes here," Melvine said, pushing the narrow blue fork into a slot. "It's a tight fit, but I can get it."

"Stop that," Jinetta ordered Melvine. "You're going to break that!"

"No, I'm not!" Melvine insisted. He pushed harder. The fork snapped. He glared at the Pervect. "See what you made me do?"

"What I made you do?" Jinetta echoed. "You did it."

"No, I didn't," Melvine said. "Didn't you see, Skeeve? She distracted me, and the piece broke!"

"You know who he reminds me of?" Pologne said to Freezia. "Carmellanga."

Freezia grinned. "Yes, I see. Here, Melvine, you can put this piece in for me."

She handed him a huge white spring. It packed substantial magikal power because it had to fling open the large yellow canvas. Melvine took it from her and ducked underneath the edge.

"Do you see a double-slot under here anywhere? Ugh! It's a tight fit. Umph—" he grunted.

Delicately, Freezia flicked her fingers.

The spring rebounded, sending the small Cupy hurtling end over end off the edge of the cliff. He landed in the sea about ten feet below us.

"Aagh! Salt water!" Melvine levitated out of the water and headed for the Pervects with blood in his eye. "Why did you do that?"

"Us?" Jinetta asked innocently, regarding the dripping Cupy. "Why do you think we did anything?"

"You," he turned angrily to me. "How come you didn't tell me this thing was dangerous?"

Pologne raised her recorder ball and invoked it.

My voice rattled out, "Be careful. It opens outward under its own power."

Melvine gave me a fierce look and flew about a hundred feet away from us to dry out and sulk. The Pervects shared a sly look among themselves.

"Uh, who is Carmellanga?" I asked.

"Oh, she was a girl in our sorority," Jinetta said casually. "Always blaming other people for the things she did herself. She was just careless, and she never liked to take responsibility."

"Lazy," Freezia added. "I never had patience with her. One day we just let her hoist herself on her own petard. The housemother caught her cheating on her thesis, and she had no one to blame but herself. Like you said, though, we don't have time to let nature take its course."

"That's it for me," Jinetta said apologetically as the large yellow sail sagged down onto her head. "I'm out of power."

"I've got a little more," Bee said. "Tell me what to do."

"Push the magik up under here," the tallest Pervect said, poking at the canvas from underneath. "Hurry! It's falling over. No, up. Up!"

"Where does this thing go?" Freezia demanded, holding a green box.

"Up under there," Tolk said, pointing with his nose to a spot inside the top of the sail. Both of his forepaws were occupied keeping the struts from collapsing.

"I see. I can't reach it!"

"I can," Melvine said. The box rose from Freezia's fingers, and just slotted into place before Melvine's hands dropped. "I'm tapped."

"That's the last piece," Pologne said with satisfaction. They all stepped back to admire their handiwork. "But what's it do?"

"It's a shade-caster," I said. "I told you that the natives are desperate for ways to get out of the sun. It's for them."

"Why should we give it to them when they stole all of our things?" Freezia asked with a toss of her head.

"Do you want your stuff back?" I asked. "Then trade this to them."

They looked skeptical until the red dots began surging up out of the ground under the shadow of the yellow sail. I invoked the activator, and the shadow spread out twice as far in every direction. More and more Sear natives popped up, cooing audibly as they enjoyed the opacity that shielded them from the pounding sunlight. Then I deactivated it.

The Sears let out a surprised squeak, retreating into the center, chasing the shrinking shadow. The yellow canvas umbrella collapsed until it was nothing but a palm-sized dot.

The red spots sank into the sandy soil. Soon, things began to pop up like bizarre mushrooms. Pologne's backpack was the first to reappear. Tolk's collar came up next, followed by an upheaval that revealed a heap of standard army issue items.

"Well, there's my axe and fire-starter kit," Bee exclaimed. He thought about it for a moment. "I was kind of fine without them, I guess."

Freezia's and Jinetta's packs returned very close to the supporting member, as if the Sears were hinting they would like the umbrella opened again.

"Not until I see MY stuff," Melvine said, folding his arms.

A flask, a yo-yo, a couple of books with lurid covers, a travel pillow, a box of candy popped up, as did a silky fragment of cloth. Melvine grabbed for them and began to stuff them in the concealed pockets of his overall. A pair of purple panties emerged next.

"Oops, that's mine, too," Melvine said, diving for it. His face scarlet, he put them away. I raised my eyebrows, but Melvine wouldn't meet my gaze. I made a mental note of it. Those panties looked suspiciously like one of Bunny's that I had frequently seen drying on our clothesline.

"Mission accomplished," I said. "Let's go home."

As soon as we returned to the inn, I took Melvine aside by the ear.

"Ow! Hey, what's your problem!"

"About those panties," I said in a low voice. "If those ARE yours, fine. But if they do belong to someone else, they had better be back where they belong in one second flat."

"You're accusing me of stealing?" Melvine whined defensively.

"I'm not accusing you of anything. I'm putting a hypothetical situation to you. And hypothetically, the next time anything belonging to anyone goes missing, you're out the door whether it's your fault or not."

"That's not fair! I'm telling my auntie on you!"

"So what?" I said. "I'll tell your auntie on YOU."

The rosy cheeks paled.

"Fine," he snarled, and vanished.

After a nice normal lunch and a relaxing bath, I set up some exercises in the courtyard for the students to practice basic levitation and traction spells. I had dropped back to Sear and brought one of the tiny red creatures with me to Klah. In exchange for a large supply of fresh water, the little creature agreed to run around the stableyard and dodge spells for the afternoon. I was monitoring the situation closely so it didn't get hurt by the clumsy maneuvers of my students, but I didn't have to worry. Most of them couldn't or wouldn't hit him. Only Tolk had made a successful attempt so far, clapping the Sear into an invisible cup of force. I had made the mistake of praising the simplicity of his spell. His smug scorn of the others had finally prompted me to send him out to take a walk on his own until he regained proportion. After Bee he was the weakest magikally.

I wondered how it was, watching Melvine and Jinetta having yet another argument about how much power to use for a simple levitation spell, that Aahz had never wanted to rip my head off for being an obstreperous pain. On the other hand, perhaps sometimes Aahz DID want to rip my head off He had never done it. In retrospect, I admired his restraint. Melvine reminded me a lot of myself in the early days, when Gar-kin was trying to hammer the basics of candle-lighting and feather-levitation into me. I whined a lot, too, preferring to complain instead of putting in the grunt work. To complicate things, Melvine had tons more magikal potential than I ever did. He had already proved he was capable of misusing it. I was afraid he would get the others hurt or killed if he got careless at the wrong moment. I had to counteract his cockiness somehow. It didn't help that the Pervects put him on the defensive. They had their own insecurities.

"Don't overthink it," I cautioned Jinetta for about the millionth time, as we went over a practice exercise in the yard at the inn. "Just use a whisker of power. The process doesn't have to have a fancy name. Just do it."

The little Sear dashed up and back in front of Jinetta like a duck in a shooting gallery. The tall Pervect dithered until I thought I was going to go insane from frustration.

Her friends offered endless advice.

"How about a Haley's Capture Spell?" said Pologne.

"No! That's for non-physical images. Just work up a Sticky-Floor Charm," Freezia suggested.

"I keep telling you, that's an indoor spell."

"Quiet," I said. "You're confusing her. Let her work it out."

"But I can't," Jinetta said. "What if I get it wrong? What if when I throw it he runs out of reach?"

I groaned. "Just throw something at him. He won't even leave the yard. Your intent is to capture him. Improvise. Don't overdo it."

"But our professor said there's one ideal spell for every situation," Jinetta complained, also for about the millionth time.

"That's right," Freezia said. "He hammered it into us: 'one problem, one perfect solution.'"

I was starting to dislike their professor, and I'd never met him. "And what happens if the problem gets worse while you're trying to figure out what that perfect solution is?"

"Then I need to choose a different spell," Jinetta said. "Magik's not for wimps, you know. I can do it. I just haven't figured out the right one yet."

"There isn't just one right answer to any problem," I said. Inspiration dawned, and I could hardly keep myself from grinning. I threw up a hand, and the Sear stopped running back and forth. "I'll prove it. Class dismissed. See you at dinner."