School Nathaniel Hardman (the best ebook reader for android txt) 📖

Through the pumping adrenaline, Jeremiah finally realized that some of the thrashing was actually Lori pulling on his arm, saying, “It’s not him! Honey, stop! It’s not him!” He squinted down. It was Mr. Downs, Suzy’s English teacher.

The doors burst open, and three guards came rushing in.

The darkness saved Jeremiah and Lori, as coming in from the bright hallway, the guards were momentarily blind. Lori grabbed Jeremiah’s arm and hauled him up off of Mr. Downs. Jeremiah followed Lori’s lead, feeling utterly lost.

Lori bolted to the large potted plant in the corner of the room. The guards saw the movement, but Mr. Downs jumped up then, shouting, and they went for him.

As the guards passed, Jeremiah and Lori ran out from behind the plant toward the door. Someone yelled, “Weru!” and Jeremiah saw the room brighten in his periphery.

Skidding around the doorway into the hallway, Jeremiah looked frantically for a weapon. He saw the long-handled lamps ensconced at regular intervals along the wall and ripped one out.

He heard the running footsteps and reacted instinctively, sensing the guard rushing through the doorway behind him. He swung the lamp like a baseball bat, and it connected solidly with the guard’s face.

Jeremiah stared in horror as the guard fell back. Part of him wanted to make sure he was okay or call for a doctor or something, but Lori was already running down the hallway toward the stairs, wand in hand. He turned and sprinted after her.

Tuynomosh was angry. He was rattled and embarrassed, too, but he was ANGRY.

He had seen the Earth man coming at him over the bed, and in his confusion and fear, he had reacted on instinct, shouting the first spell that had come to mind, the spell that he had been using so much recently. Not the best defensive spell, surely, but switching the man would have done the job. He just hadn’t noticed which end of the wand he was holding.

Now here he was on Uoshn, surrounded by gaping Earth children in a moonlit schoolroom. And he was wand-less. He growled at the children, showing them his teeth, and they shrank back.

This building would be sitting in the place of his castle, which meant that the courtyard was nearby, with the hundred-year wand. Perhaps it was time, he mused. He had not fed it the root, had not taught it the switching spell, but he could. First, he needed to speak with Boshk. Then he was going back to Earth to teach those intruders a long, painful lesson.

FORTY FOUR

Jeff sped up when they got to the bridge. The gate on the other side had been opened, and he hoped that meant the others had taken out the guards. But if it didn’t mean that, and the big wand tree was still being guarded, he’d want some speed to run the guards down. After all, their only weapon was Suzy’s little wand, and he doubted they’d be winning any duels with that.

They rocketed through the gate and into the courtyard, which was thankfully empty. He slowed down as they rounded the corner of the school. Nacho was standing there, holding one of the aliens’ shields, and he waved.

Jeff braked, harder than intended, and they skidded to a stop. “Sorry,” he said, to Suzy’s scowl.

“Next time, I’m driving,” she said, getting out and slamming the door behind her.

“We got all of them!” Nacho said, practically bouncing, as Jeff came out. He tagged along with the siblings, babbling, as they approached the tree.

“The ones guarding this tree were the hardest. They had some spells that you wouldn’t BELIEVE! Everything started going black and cold; Mr. Humpfreys and Peter and Shen all actually started turning to ice before Zoey managed to knock one of them out.”

“And then, when we finally got all of them locked in the closets, we realized some of them had already gotten out through the ceiling, so everyone with a wand is inside now, trying to find them. But man,” he shook his head, “You wouldn’t BELIEVE those guards around this tree. Anyway, you should probably hurry up and pick this thing before one of the guards gets out and stops you.”

“That’s what we’re doing,” Suzy said. She had brought the tusk-like root with them out of the car, and now she began digging into it with her fingers, scooping out moist clumps of the dark mulch and dropping them into the circle of bare dirt surrounding the tree.

“Get all of it,” Jeff said unnecessarily as Suzy stretched her arm into the root, scraping with her fingers for the very last scraps. She handed the empty shell to Nacho.

Jeff looked at the pile of mulch on the ground. So did Suzy. “This is going to sting like heck getting that into the ground,” Jeff observed.

“Yep,” Suzy agreed grimly. “Here,” She scooped up a big handful and held it out to Jeff. “Take this and put it in on the other side. It’ll probably help it to absorb faster if we spread it out more.”

Jeff carried the mulch to the other side of the tree, knelt, and cringing, began kneading the damp pile into the soil.

“Yuoshr SWITCH,” he began, then yelped and jerked his hand back. “Jeez, that was fast,” he looked past the tree at Suzy, who was poised, hand over the dirt, looking like she was about to stick her hand into a piranha tank.

She glanced up at Jeff and grimaced. “Just do it quick,” she said, then, jaw clenched, she plunged her hands into the ground, churning the dirt frantically as she began chanting, then shouting, then whine-screeching, “Yuoshr SWITCH!”

Maybe it’ll be busy attacking her, Jeff thought. He took a breath and dug in once more. For a second, he felt nothing, and he grinned. Then the probing roots