The Unfortunate Story of Roddy Mayhem, Julie Steimle [i can read book club TXT] 📗

seemed about my age. Hair the color of sooty mud. Greenish eyes and a bit of an olivish tan. He had a Mediterranean feel—kind of like a gypsy to be honest. And his imps were these peevish crooked looking things—with weird bulgy bellies and sharp eyes. They were not fat, but they clearly ate well enough that I knew this guy was not a goody-goody. He said nothing as he watched us, his eyes mostly tracking Tom with recognition.

“That should be your bed,” Tom said. Then he pointed to the closet. “And that should be yours also. You can put your suitcase in there and leave things for later. Everyone has got a common shower and all that. We can now show Spastic where his room is.”

My roommate smothered a snort upon hearing Spastic’s name. His imps were now shouting rude things to say to us. Tom glanced his way, his orange eyes wan as he said, “We can hear what you are thinking, you know.”

Rolling his eyes, my roommate replied, “So?”

Tom smiled—though this was not his usual manic grin, but a dangerous kind of smile not unlike Dervish’s grins. It gave me chills. It reminded me I never wanted Tom as an enemy.

But Tom led the way out into the hall. He said to us, a little under his breath, “You will want to explore the school ASAP. Find your sanctuary. I repeat, you will want to find your sanctuary. Kids like that give ghoulies a bad name.”

I didn’t like the sound of that.

But Tom met my gaze meaningfully. “Again, remember, they put me with a werewolf because no one else wanted to room with him.”

I wasn’t sure what he meant by that, but Tom explained. “Beware the ghoulie no one wants to room with.”

He then led us to Spastic’s room.

Though there were signs of another person living there, the other occupant wasn’t in the room. Tom pointed to the empty bed and dresser then performed a backflip and landed on the desk in the back of the room. He sat matter-of-factly in the center and spoke as if he had not done anything out of the ordinary. “Ok, so here’s the deal. School is not easy for half-imps like us. I am not going to lie about that.”

Spastic and I stared at him. Not that Tom had not said this already, but I didn’t like how he was saying it.

“But what you got to do is mostly get yourself a safe place to study, away from all the imp noise. You buddy up with someone you can trust,” Tom said. He nodded firmly. “I was lucky—” then he stared off into space as if really contemplating it. “Yeah… I was really lucky. I met a guy who was psychic, kinda, who hated lies and didn’t care I was half imp. You gotta find a friend like that.”

Spastic and I exchanged looks, wondering if there were kids like that at Gulinger now.

“He doesn’t have to be psychic or anything,” Tom added. “Just not a creep like your roommate.” He pointed to me.

I moaned.

“I’m sorry about that, by the way.” Tom shrugged. “Morgan Butler was always a little creep, but there is nothing I can do about him right now. You’re going to have to deal with him yourself.”

Tom knew the guy’s name. I wondered now how many of the kids at the school he knew from when he was there.

“But anyway,” Tom said, hopping off the desk. “You guys should put stuff away and then go back down to Mr. Wilderman’s office for your class schedules… though I do think they might test you all before they do that. Sorry about that. The good thing is, they will let you test separately from the others to reduce imp distraction.”

Tom then strode out the door without another word. I had a feeling that was the last we would see from him for a while. He didn’t seem the sentimental type for good-byes.

I gave Spastic one meaningful look as he stared with wide eyes at his new room, then I went back to my new place. An imp had to start somewhere.

On the Wrong Foot

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eight

 

 

“So, you related to that guy?” my new roommate asked as soon as I came back into the room.

I shook my head. “Just barely met him yesterday.”

The guy snorted. He then said, “What’s your name?” His imps were cackling like they were anticipating a huge feast. I didn’t like that.

“Roddy,” I said. “Roddy Mayhem.”

He snorted. “What kind of name is that?”

I stared dryly as I said, “An imp one.”

But from the look in his eye and the sneers from his imps, I knew Tom was one hundred percent right about this Morgan Buttman guy. He was a creep.

Yet Morgan stuck out his hand and said, “I’m Morgan Butler. One-Seventy IQ. Top of my class. Telekinetic.”

That was a weird introduction. What did I care about his IQ? However, to be civil, I shook his hand.

“So, are all half-imps as butt-ugly as you and that kid?” he asked, sneering.

Lifting my chin, I peered back at him as I let go, a thousand biting comments behind my teeth—and one slipped out. “No. Sometimes they are as hideous as you.”

His eyes went from mocking to sharp and cold. “What did you say?”

I rolled my eyes, going back to my stuff.

The next moment my things, including my suitcase, rose off the ground as if lifted by a gust of wind. I stared. The dude wasn’t just a telekinetic, he was a powerful one. However, I looked to his imps and said, “Pinch him.”

And so they did.

“OW!” he cried out. They had pinched hard, enjoying it. And all my things dropped heavily to the ground.

I walked over to pick them up.

But I felt myself get lifted next, like he would throw me. I immediately went immaterial—whipping his mental grip right off me.

“Where did you go!” he shouted into the air, eyes widening.

I hopped over the bed, floated up to the ceiling and then decided to sit on the ceiling upside down like Spastic and Tom did all the time. I wasn’t all that comfortable being upside down as I preferred to do things the human way, but it was the only way to get out of reach and think.

Ok, so the guy I was sharing a room with was a strong telekinetic creep who thought he was smart. Honestly, he was making me feel nostalgic for Dervish. But unfortunately, I was stuck with him. Tom said I had to make it work. I wondered how. Could we start over and play nice? Or did I have to play dirty so he knew I wouldn’t put up with it. In dealing with Dervish, it never paid to retaliate—and this guy had the same nastiness as Dervish.

Becoming visible while still on the ceiling, I said, “Look. I don’t want to fight. I just came here to go to school. We got off on the wrong foot and—”

He tried to use his telekinesis to pull me off the ceiling, but as my weight was like a bubble at that moment, I merely floated with a bounce toward my bed. It didn’t bother me a bit.

So he mentally threw things at me.

Swearing, I shouted for the imps to toss him off his bed and stomp on him.

“Yagh!” He whomped straight onto the ground—and he screamed. “The imp is attacking me!”

At first no one responded, though the next second some guys ran in. And—well—it looked bad. Things had stopped flying the moment Buttman had hit the ground and I was floating still—bobbing a bit near the ceiling, if truth be told. The newcomers stared up at me, aghast with real horror.

“It was self-defense,” I said, landing on the bed with both feet and real weight.

“Yeah, right!” one of them snapped, a lanky kind of guy with nothing remarkable about him. His imps were boringly normal. Their shouts were definitely human-like.

“Liar!” the other guy (a curly haired dude who looked like he was a blonde kind of cupid, only grown, and needed a toga to finish the image) practically snarled. His imps were also normal.

Morgan Buttman crawled to his feet and pointed at me. “You’re nothing but a devil. Look at his horns!”

I capped my hands on my horns, realizing they were poking out.

The other two pulled back, horrified.

“And look at his face!” Morgan snapped. “Those eyes! Why did they even let him in this school?”

The other two agreed, following the manipulation of that Buttman. I had seen that kind of talk before. Buttman wasn’t just a creep—he was creepy mean.

“Oh! I forgot one more thing!” Tom marched back into the room. He then stared at the chaos while also taking in the gaping stares of the normie boys. “Did I miss something?”

“A battle,” I said with a grumble.

“He attacked me!” Buttman said.

Tom raised his eyebrows then moaned. “Morgan Buttface—”

I choked on a laugh.

“It’s Butler!” Morgan shouted, his face dark red.

“Whatever Jeeves,” Tom said. He looked to me. “You two have to get along. Mr. Wilderman said you are stuck with each other. And no one wants to room with you because you overuse your telekinesis. But we don’t have any more rooms for everyone else. I’d be happier for Roddy to have a better roommate, but unfortunately for him, no cool werewolves are around anymore.”

“Oh, shut up,” Morgan spat back with such an ugly sneer at Tom. “No one cares what you think.”

But Tom laughed right back at him, clearly not taking Morgan as any sort of authority on him or anyone. He turned to me. “Hey, I was thinking of showing you around the neighborhood. There’s this really cool Italian place around the corner that you might be interested in.”

“Can we do that?” I asked Tom, glancing at the other boys who looked scandalized. “Just leave the school?”

Crookedly grinning, Tom replied, “Can indicates capacity. And we are most certainly able.”

I stared at him. Tom really did not follow rules. I liked it.

“Ok.”

“What?” one of the boys protested.

“I’m telling Mr. Wilderman!” Buttman shouted.

“Have fun with that,” Tom said. We were about to walk out the door when Tom grabbed my suitcase full of stuff and shoved it so it was stuck inside the wall. He looked to me. “For safe keeping.”

I nodded, agreeing. Buttman clearly would destroy anything of mine just out of his hate for Tom. I had realized then that Morgan hated me because he hated Tom.

Spastic was just outside the door, peering in anxiously as he waited. His eyes were wide on me.

“How did you know to come back?” I asked Tom once we were out the room.

Tom shrugged as we three strolled down the hallway. “I didn’t know. I was hungry and I thought you’d like to try some New York pizza.”

I wondered about that. He didn’t seem to quite be telling the entire truth.

We stopped by the girls’ floor and picked up Piranha and Wispy, who despite being intimidated by Tom, were not averse to pizza.

“Here’s the thing,” Tom said once we were at a table and were waiting our order to arrive, “Gulinger is full of all sorts of characters. And you four need to establish early a good rapport with the other students.”

“Is that what you