“Students, line up with your backs to the water,” she boomed. “Experts, take twenty paces and face the students.”
Everyone moved to the requested locations. “Experts, prepare your defenses.”
The experts held up rusty shields that looked to be similar to what the Quillitary might use if attacked.
“Where’d they get those?” Alex whispered to Samheed.
“Stole them, maybe?” Samheed guessed. “Or just made them in some class.”
“Stole them? How?”
“I’m not saying anybody stole them,” Samheed said impatiently. “I just figured somebody went invisible in the middle of the night to the Quillitary yard, made the shields invisible too, and snagged them. It’s more likely we just made them here, though.”
Florence cast a withering look at the two boys. “Students! Prepare to fire. Five rounds!”
Alex hurriedly pulled five newly created weapons from his pocket and stood ready. “How would anybody be able to get out of here, anyway?” he whispered again as Florence walked down the row to inspect the weapons. “Just open the gate?”
“Nah,” Samheed said. “That wouldn’t work. It’s locked from the outside.”
“What, then?”
“I don’t know.” Samheed sounded irritated. “Why are you asking me? I wouldn’t know anything about it.” He glanced uneasily around.
“Quiet!” thundered Florence. “Students, fire five rounds on the count of three.”
Alex bit his lip and prepared his first origami dragon. When Florence called out, “Three!” Alex whispered to the dragon. “Attack enemy one.”
He tossed the dragon a little too hard in his excitement. It stumbled in the air and got caught in a nosedive, unable to recover. It hit the ground, exploded into a small fire, and fizzled. “Blast it,” Alex muttered, as Samheed’s dragon hit its mark.
“There’s art in the toss, Alex,” Florence said.
Alex tried again as small explosions could be heard up and down the lawn, some hitting their marks, others missing quite horribly. His second try worked better, but still fell short of the expert twenty paces away. “Blast it!” Alex said again.
He gave up on origami and instead pulled out a splatterpaint brush. Holding on to the handle, he drew his arm back over his head and, with all his force, snapped his wrist, sending a shower of brown paint toward the expert across from him. When it hit its mark, the paint spread across the expert’s shield and crept over her arm, and within seconds the woman’s entire body was encased in a magical mold of splatterpaint. Indeed she quite looked like she was coated in a crisp chocolate shell, good enough to eat.
“Yes!” Alex cried out. The expert across from him stood frozen in place. Alex looked down the row as students tossed, pointed, and spoke artfully at the willing adults. He watched Lani project resounding words of destruction at her partner, and slowly the adult’s face grew fearful. He began to sob, and soon he turned and ran away toward the jungle.
While Samheed offered random stage-direction orders, causing his partner to run this way and that, banging into other adults and knocking over Alex’s stiff chocolaty partner, Meghan pulled out her piccolo and caused her partner to fall asleep. And so it went, all the way down the line.
Soon Florence clapped her hands. The sound was like thunder. All effects of the spells vanished immediately, and the experts got up from the ground or came back to their positions, good-natured grins on their faces. “Not bad, not bad,” Florence said. “For the first time, anyway. We’ll do a few more rounds. This time, students, please assist the other students around you once you have successfully rendered your expert defenseless. We are a team, and working together yields the greatest rewards with the least amount of energy.” The statue glanced up and down both rows. “Try different spells this time,” she said.
Lani pulled a handful of paper clips from her pocket. Meghan put her piccolo away and positioned herself to do a fire step. Samheed withdrew a long black ink pen from his vest, and Alex rolled a small ball of sculpting clay between his thumb and forefinger, ready to try his very own creation. At Florence’s go they all attacked and, more confident now, all succeeded within the first three attempts. The experts were immobilized.
“We’re amazing,” Meghan said proudly, as her partner ran off shouting, his feet growing unbearably warm.
“Yes!” Alex said. His clay had formed handcuffs and bolted the wrists and ankles of his opponent to the ground.
“Not bad at all,” said Lani as her partner wriggled to get loose from the scatterclips, which had gone right through the shield and pinned the expert’s clothing to a nearby tree. “You know, there are lethal ways to use lots of these ordinary spells,” she whispered to Samheed, who was next to her. “I’ve been reading about them.”
“I wish we could start learning them now,” Samheed said impatiently, as Florence released the spells and once again the experts returned.
“Very good,” Florence said. “One more round and we’ll dismiss for the day. At our next class I want you all to return with magic spells of your own design. Nothing lethal, remember.” She paused and gave the students a weighty look. “We’ll save those for another time.”
Samheed’s stomach flipped with anticipation.
The Mostly Secret Hallway
After weeks of intensive warrior training, Alex was so exhausted that he fell into a deep sleep immediately after dinner. It was late at night when he awoke with a start, drenched in sweat. He had been dreaming again, that same dream about Aaron, but, as always, it turned nightmarish at the end when Alex looked back at his brother. Each time he dreamed it, Aaron transformed into the High Priest Justine, who cackled evilly and came at him with a rusted trident. Alex always woke up just before the high priest skewered him.