Chapter 13: Administration

Miraculously, I made it all the way to PE before something went horribly wrong.

Miss Lina was the cheerleading coach and didn't understand why people might not be as flexible as someone who had been a cheerleading coach for forty years, or a century, or however long it had been. She was one of those women who bakes their skin until it looks like leather, and then soaks that leather in vitamin E until it glints like gold under the gym lights.

For all I knew, she might be like a McDonald's burger and just never visibly age again, having gone ahead and front-loaded it all on purpose.

Also, there was the Botox.

She looked down at my dogged attempts at situps without any visible expression on her hide-bound face. No pity, nothing human at all.

“I want four more!” she demanded.

My abs burned. I could give her my breakfast, if she wanted, but four more was probably off the table.

I sort of twitched in a vaguely upward direction.

Then I heard my pig screaming.

"Up!"

I tried to gasp, but I didn't have enough breath for it, and I definitely didn't have enough abs for it. I collapsed back, breaking into a coughing fit, but there wasn't time. Miss Lina was standing on my toes. I jerked my foot back. Her eyebrows did not go up.

I rolled over onto my hands and knees and shakily stood up. My pig's screams were getting louder.

No, I thought. No, this is the worst possible time.

But I was already moving, slowly, toward the door.

"What's she doing?" The voice had an undercurrent of laughter in it. Monica.

"I think she's going to throw up," said another voice. I didn't know Monica's friends; I'd never cared to find out.

"She did, like, three push-ups," said another.

"And six sit-ups," finished Monica.

There are kindergarteners buffer than I am. I get it.

I still threw open the hall door with a level of drama appropriate to someone who could actually do something about the situation.

My piggy had a collar on. That had apparently been Elsie's contribution, too.

"Mr. Oinkers," read the security guard, who was currently pinning my pig to the ground in the corner where the floor meets the cinderblock wall. "Property of... Miss Maxine Holloway?"

I gave a little wave. "Present. Please don't hurt my pig."

I could hear the buzz of my classmates pick up, like the susurrus of an ocean wave cresting. It would come down soon enough.

"Miss Holloway, you are not allowed to have pets on school grounds!" said the security guard, still pushing my pig against the wall but no longer hard enough to panic him. Or maybe he just trusted me that much.

Best piggie.

"Pigs are smart, and I biked here," I lied. They are smart, and I did bike here, but he wasn't at my house when I left, and he couldn't have followed me.

They didn't need to know that.

“Do you have a leash?”

“He’s trained. Up, Mr. Oinkers,” I said. He wasn’t trained, but I knew—I knew he understood me.

The bond between us was a bit hard to understand. He’d get even smarter, and he’d know some of the things I knew, and in exchange I’d have his security around my soul.

He might not have understood English before, I wasn’t sure.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

He did now.

He shoved once with his shoulder and got all four legs under him—more than I’d have managed, with a full-grown adult leaning on me. Then he opened his mouth just enough to show the teeth he hadn’t been using.

And sneezed.

“Good piggie,” I praised him.

“This is very serious, Miss Holloway,” said the security guard.

“Not at all,” said Mrs. Scarlett Humphrey, clacking up the hall in sensible pumps. “Dogs have followed students to school on occasion, Michael, and we hardly penalized students for that. This handsome fellow just happened to be smart enough to open the door—who’s a good piggie?”

She scritched his head. I hadn’t realized she liked pigs.

He collapsed onto his side, pointing his legs back toward his tail and throwing his head back to give her full access to all his itches.

Michael rocked back onto his feet and stood easily. I’d never had a problem with him. He eats garlic bread by the platter on garlic bread days (spaghetti days) and we’ve shared a grin at one another’s plates before, but that’s about it.

“So, how you want to handle this, Ms. H?” he asked.

“She can’t go home,” she said regretfully. “Yet.” she rounded on the gym doors, where Mrs. Lina, plus students, were rubbernecking. “Back to class, children,” she said, ignoring the other teacher’s behavior. “Nothing to see here. Maxine—you’d better have your pig come to the office with me. Michael?”

He fell into step beside her, and Mr. Oinkers rolled to his feet and trotted beside me, chuffing happily at his cleverness in finding where I was. I ruffled the thick fur on his forehead.

“From what I know of her situation, the easiest solution would be to reach out to her social worker and get permission for her to walk her pet home on her own recognizance, after school. We can improvise a leash—don’t look at me that way Michael, I know where you grew up, you’ll make do—and tether him out back. Lots of clover, he’ll be fine.”

I nodded. “I’ll walk him back.” To Elsie’s. “After school.”

The principle’s aide came out to meet us, smart phone in hand. “This your animal?” he asked me for confirmation, but didn’t seem too bothered. He snapped a quick picture. “That’s going up on the wall,” he told me in confidence. “Pig in the school.”

I grinned. It wasn’t a real grin, but it was good enough. I was going to hear about this for the rest of the school year. So, two weeks.

“Got proof of ownership, vet records, something your parents can fax me?” he asked.

“Sorry, probably not. He’s got the tags though.”

He glanced at the tag. “Yep, your name’s on him. Good enough for me. Sign …” he riffled through a stack of papers. “Here. I wrote this up a few years ago for someone’s boxer.”

It was a basic barebones ‘the school will assume temporary care for the below-mentioned animal, and will call animal control if he is not removed from school grounds by end of business.’

“Does my signature even count?”

“It shows that we told you what we were doing,” he said. “You aren’t liable for anything, if that’s what you mean.”

“And you’re having to call Ms. Randall?”

“Well.” he looked uncomfortable. My social worker suffered from an excess of personality. “We can, unless you’re just walking your animal home after school. In which case we don’t actually have to. Would you like me to?”

I shook my head more forcefully than I’d intended. I was going to be seeing a lot of her in the coming weeks as it was.

Mr. Oinkers was thrilled to be back outside, but didn’t like the rope much. For all that he’d protested, Michael had whipped up a quick harness consisting of two loops at the end of a rope that fit pretty well, and tied Mr. Oinkers off under a tree behind the school.

“You’re not afraid he’ll run away?” asked Michael, observant.

“No. He’s smarter than half my classmates.”

“No kidding.” His voice was dry.

My hoodie was in my locker, so I signed behind my back instead, looking intently at Mrs. Scarlett Humpfrey. “Thank you,” in dark curling letters, with pig ears around it. I shoved the thought along the line of attention and into her awareness, and she tripped slightly.

When she turned back, her face was a bit grim. “One more moment of your time, Maxine,” she requested.

Michael left us to it.

“That,” she said sharply, “Hurt.”

I didn’t understand.

“If you feel resistance, don’t push through it,” she said firmly.

I hadn’t known I had. She could tell.

She breathed out and pinched the bridge of her nose.

“I am very impressed that you picked up that technique,” she said, at length. Her hand flickered through the same spell, perhaps four times faster. I felt a dull throbbing pressure around my temples, but didn’t see anything.

“Witches can resist spells,” she told me. “Now, let me in.”

“I don’t know how.”

“Think about something other than what I’m doing.”

I thought about Mr. Oinkers’s scruff.

I abruptly saw myself surrounded by an aura. It was candy-cane striped, red with veins of white swirling around it. It was about a hand’s width out from my skin.

“You have a bit more oomph than you’re aware,” she said quietly. “So: when interacting with other humans, do not push past resistance. You, apparently, can, but—”

“—It’s rude.”

She nodded approvingly.

Her spell dropped. “As uses for that spell go, however—I am glad to see you’ve chosen something benign.”

“I’m one of the good guys, remember?”

I think so, anyway.