Peanut Goes to School

Chapter Four

The sun felt hot on his head and shoulders as he crossed the asphalt expanse toward the other two boys, and he burned with energy.

He also had plenty of time to think things over, just as he had when Andrew had tried to punch him at morning recess.

What am I going to do? What should I do?

Maybe those were two separate things.

Other questions occurred to him. What would Dad do? Or Uncle Graydon, or Hugh? Or Mom?

Trying to figure that out was much trickier than trying to hold on to a cloaking spell. They were all very different people, which meant they might make very different choices from each other.

Maybe that meant there was more than one right way to deal with something, and maybe . . . more than one wrong way to deal with something too.

To be sure he dealt with this in the right way, he might have to grow up some more. His dragon side liked that idea and tried to push to get bigger, but he managed to stay in control of that for now. Eventually his dragon side would win and he would go through another growth spurt, but he could postpone it for a while.

The only thing he knew for sure was that dealing with cows was easy compared to dealing with Andrew and the tools. As Hugh had said about the cows (or hunting any other kind of prey), take only what you need, kill them quick and don’t let them suffer.

When he reached the stairwell the other boys straightened from the railing and started over to him, both walking with a bit of a swagger and darting glances at each other.

Were they egging each other on? Where had Brad gone?

Giving the area outside the playground one last glance, Liam jogged lightly down the bare, concrete steps in the stairwell. There was nothing at the bottom of the stairs except for a few dried leaves, and a metal, locked door that led into the school building.

Nobody would be able to see what happened down here, unless Hugh or one of the other guards flew directly overhead, which they might choose to do, but he hoped not. He wanted to figure this out on his own.

Turning, he put the concrete wall at his back and looked up at the other two boys who stood at the top of the stairs. Then the predator in him went quiet and waited.

Come on, he thought. I was fast earlier, and that surprised you, but I’m just a first grader and you guys are third graders. There’s only one of me, while there’s two of you.

Andrew and Joel must have arrived at the same conclusion, because after exchanging a grin, they bounded down the stairs after him.

Okay, then. He got ready.

Andrew said, “How’s your back? I heard you fell down earlier and got a boo-boo.”

Joel snickered.

“Maybe you’ll fall down again someday soon,” said Andrew. The expression in his eyes had turned hectic, and he looked excited. “Maybe you’ll get more than just a boo-boo. Maybe you’ll lose some real blood.”

Anger flared, bright and hot like the summer sun. Liam leaped at the other two boys, and before they could do anything, he shoved them against the wall, one hand around each of their throats. Shock bolted over their faces, as they slapped and kicked him.

He was too mad to really feel the blows. Leaning his weight on his arms, he held them pinned in place, and he felt the flutter of their pulses in his hands.

“I don’t know why you need to bully other kids,” he said. He thought of the teacher’s books he had read that morning and some of the potential causes for disruptive behavior. “Maybe you’re going through a rough time, or maybe you’re just plain nasty. I don’t like any of you, so I don’t really care.”

Andrew hit at Liam again. “You’re making a serious mistake,” he growled. “There are three of us and only one of you, and I will hurt you bad for this.”

Liam’s anger burst into outright rage. Leaning harder on his hands, he stuck his face into Andrew’s and hissed.

Heat boiled out of his mouth, along with a lick of flame. It startled him so badly he stopped doing it.

Did I just breathe fire in my human form?

The other two boys quit struggling and stared. Andrew breathed, “What kind of Wyr are you?”

“Uh,” said Joel. Tears ran down his cheeks. “Uh, uh, uh. I never meant any of it. Swear to God. He made me do it.” He jerked his head toward Andrew.

Liam started to feel bad that he made someone else cry, but he forced himself to toughen up. None of them had gone easy on Perrin, or, he suspected, Marika either.

“Swear you’ll stop,” Liam told him. “Leave Perrin and Marika alone. Don’t pick on anybody else, ever again.”

“I swear,” said Joel.

Letting him go, Liam wiped his hand on his shorts. As Joel raced up the stairs, Liam turned his attention to Andrew, whom he still held pinned.

He told the other boy, “You can try hitting me in the back again or hurting me some other way, but I know to watch out for you now, and anything you try is only going to make me mad. If you don’t stop hurting people, I’ll come find you. I’ll hunt you down. That’s what I’m made for, hunting things. And when I find you, I’ll pound your face into the sidewalk.”

Joel had gone red, but Andrew’s face turned chalk white. His eyes darting around the stairwell, he whispered uncertainly, “You wouldn’t dare.”

“I can start now, if you want,” said Liam.

Moving too fast for the other boy to stop him, he flipped Andrew around. Bracing one hand at the back of the other boy’s head, he pushed Andrew’s face hard against the concrete wall.

Andrew cried out, “Okay, okay—I believe you! I swear, I’ll stop! I’ll stop!”

Breathing hard, Liam listened closely to what Andrew said. Like his ability to identify a person’s nature, his truthsense wasn’t very well developed yet, but he could still hear the ring of truth in the other boy’s voice.

The thing was, Liam still didn’t believe him. He thought Joel would probably keep his word, but Andrew seemed different from Brad and Joel. There was something wrong with Andrew, something really bad that ran deep. He might stop for a while until he stopped believing that he would get caught, but sooner or later Liam thought he would hurt somebody again, because he liked hurting people too much.

But Liam wasn’t old enough to fix anything like that. The only thing he could do was scare Andrew badly enough to make sure that future stayed far away.

Leaning forward to put his lips near Andrew’s ear, he tried another hiss. Heat boiled out between his lips again and singed the ends of the other boy’s hair. Crying out, Andrew cringed against the wall.

That would have to do. Satisfied, he let him go, and Andrew bolted for the stairs.

Turning to follow the other boy, Liam climbed the stairs, and as he looked up he discovered Marika hanging over the railing and staring down at him. She wore a solemn expression, and her gray eyes were huge.

He reached the top stair and sat down, stretching his legs out and looking at them. He had collected a couple of bruises on his shins where the other boys had kicked him. They would fade quickly enough, hopefully before the end of the day.

The angry energy was leaving him. He felt his dragon side straining to get bigger again, and this time he had to struggle to stay in control. After not having much of an appetite for a couple of meals, he felt hollow and empty. He wanted some meat, but he wouldn’t get a snack until after school, so he resigned himself to feeling hungry for a few hours.

Marika came to sit beside him. She tucked sleek black hair behind one pointed ear, as she said, “That was hella awesome. Excuse my French.”

His cheeks warmed. “They needed to be stopped.”

“Yeah, I know, or one of these days, they were going to hurt somebody really bad.” She studied him for a moment. “You did a good thing. And dude, you breathed fire!”

“I guess I did, didn’t I?” He gave Marika a sidelong smile. She smiled back. On impulse, he said, “Hey, would you like to be my girlfriend for a couple of days?”

A startled wash of color stained her pale cheeks. She stared at him. “Only for a couple of days?”

He had forgotten—she didn’t know who he really was, or anything about him. “Or maybe a week. It’s kind of hard to explain,” he told her. “I’m not going to be a kid for very long, so I can’t make any long-term commitments.”

She laughed. “You really are strange, you know that? What kind of Wyr breathes fire?”

There was a pebble stuck in the sole of his shoe, and he reached down to pick at it. “My kind, I guess.”

“Seriously, are you keeping it a secret?”

As he opened his mouth to tell her he didn’t know if it was a secret or not, a tall, strange girl ran up to them. She was one of the older kids. She asked, “Are you Liam Giovanni?”

He nodded.

“Mrs. Teaberry said to tell you to come into the classroom now.”

Disappointed, he glanced at Marika, who might or might not be his girlfriend. “But recess isn’t over yet.”

The strange girl lifted one shoulder. “Not my problem. Teacher wants to talk to you.”

Sighing, he stood, and Marika did too. She grinned at him. “Yes.”

It took him a moment to realize what she meant. Then happiness made him grin back. “Really?”

“Yes, weirdo. Really. See you later.” She punched him lightly on the shoulder and took off.

He said to the strange girl, “I’m dating an older woman now.”

Not bothering with a verbal reply, the strange girl curled a nostril at him before she took off too.

Cheerfully, Liam made his way back to the classroom. It was funny how everything had been so strange at the beginning of the day, but he knew where he was going now, and the hallways and the classrooms seemed familiar.

When he walked into his classroom, it was empty except for Mrs. Teaberry, who was in one corner stacking plastic tubs filled with supplies on top of each other.

He asked, “You wanted to talk to me?”

Straightening, she turned to face him, and the lines on her face didn’t look friendly at all. “Yes, I did,” she said. “We have two issues we need to settle. First, you need to know that liars won’t do very well in my class. They won’t do very well at all.”

His cheerfulness faded into confusion. More than a little disturbed, he cocked his head. “Are you talking about me?”

Looking exasperated, she said, “Of course I am. Surely you haven’t forgotten that you claimed to have read my entire bookshelf in a matter of minutes.”

Clenching his hands, he said through his teeth, “But I did.”

She pointed at him. “You need to tell the truth right now and admit you were lying.”

His mouth dropped open, and he stared at her. “You want me to do what?”

“You have to change your behavior, or I promise you, you’re going to have a very tough first year, which leads me to the second issue we need to address. I heard you have a cell phone, and you were taking phone calls during morning recess. That’s against school policy, and you’ll have to give it up.” She walked toward him, holding out her hand.

His mind flashed back to earlier, when Andrew and Joel had been watching him with such satisfied smiles, while Brad had disappeared from sight. Marika had said his phone would get him into trouble, and it looked like the other boys had made sure of it.

As Mrs. Teaberry approached, he backed away. “I can’t. I’m supposed to keep my phone with me at all times.”

“Unacceptable. Give it to me right now.” She wiggled her fingers at him demandingly.

Shaking his head, he said again, “I can’t.”

Her expression turned incredulous and angry. “You’re in big trouble, young man. This is my classroom, and in here, other rules don’t apply. You do as I tell you. Hand it over.”

Nobody had ever said such a thing to him before. And anyway, he didn’t believe it. Dad’s rules applied everywhere.

His body turned very hot, then cold. This felt completely unlike what had happened with the other boys. With them, he had acted on instinct, a certain amount of predatory cunning and on snippets he had heard about how the sentinels handled problems, but Mrs. Teaberry was an adult and his teacher.

He was supposed to mind her, but he also couldn’t go against the safety rules. Starting to tremble, he shook his head. “No.”

Mrs. Teaberry’s eyes flashed. Lunging forward, she grabbed him by the shoulder.

Shocked, Liam tried to twist away, but her grip on him was too strong. “If you won’t give it to me,” Mrs. Teaberry said, “I’ll just have to take it.”

She rammed one hand into his pocket, searching for the phone. He struggled against her hold. “Stop—you can’t do that. I’m supposed to keep it with me.”

Her fingers dug into his shoulder like claws, and she shook him. “Everybody always thinks the rules don’t apply to them,” she snapped. “But they do. They apply to you too, mister.”

He couldn’t let her take the phone, and she was hurting him. She was scaring him too. He couldn’t call Hugh. He had turned his phone off. He couldn’t call Mom or Dad, either.

Feeling invaded and trapped, he felt his fingers change and his teeth lengthen into fangs. He rounded on Mrs. Teaberry with a snarl.

She recoiled from him. Almost immediately, she straightened until she stood very erect. Her tight mouth bit out words. “Don’t you dare bite me, you little animal.”

Trembling more violently than ever, he swiped at his face as he looked at her hands. She clenched his phone in one fist.

Breathing hard, he angled out his jaw and said, “Give it back.”

Astonishment took over her expression. She shook the phone at him. “I said you can’t have it in school.”

Growling, he walked toward her. She retreated until her back came up against a wall. Dimly, he was aware that his face was still not right. He had too many teeth, and they felt sharp against his tongue. When he held out one hand, palm up, he saw that it was tipped with long, sharp talons.

Cautiously, her eyes wide, Mrs. Teaberry set the phone in his palm.

As he turned it on, he thought about calling Hugh, because he wanted to see a friendly face as soon as possible. Then he thought about calling Mom, because he needed her to love on him and tell him everything was going to be okay.

But really, he had screwed up in so many ways that day, the only thing to do was to take it straight to the top.

He pressed rapid-dial number two.

Dad answered before the first ring had ended. “What’s going on, Liam?”

Taking a deep breath, he said, “Can you come pick me up? I think I’m about to get expelled.”