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

did?” Piranha asked, eyeing him sharply.

“Nope!” Tom said grinning. “I came in causing trouble from the get-go. I mean, I would have burned the place down if it hadn’t been for my buddy Matt. But you guys can’t burn the place down. Create your sanctuary. Try to avoid fights.” He looked to me.

“He attacked first,” I said, defensively.

Tom nodded. “No doubt. Morgan Buttface is one of those guys. He’s also a big fat liar, so don’t trust a word that comes out of his mouth. The thing is, you need to be friendly to others. Be willing to make friends with even the freakiest of freaks. Jerks like Buttface will bury themselves. But get out of his way. Dodging is better than retaliating.”

Dodging. It then occurred to me that Tom really was more like that. He was an artful dodger.

“Anyway,” Tom said as the pizza arrived, “After lunch, you four need to go back to the office for testing. Then you get your schedules, and then you really meet your classmates.”

I nodded. So did the others, though Wispy whispered, “But what if we fail those tests?”

Tom smiled kindly on her. “Don’t worry about it. The test isn’t for you. It is just a formality for them so they can feel they did their educational duty in placing you in a class level you need to start at. If you haven’t had any school, they can’t expect you to know what you haven’t learned.”

But she colored, blushing in embarrassment.

Laughing, Tom said, “Really. Don’t worry about it. It doesn’t matter what the score it. Just take a breath and say to yourself, ‘I am starting here, and tomorrow I will be smarter.’ It works for me.”

Piranha’s expression lifted.

But I murmured, “But the imps say you are a genius.”

To that, Tom cackled even more—so much that the other patrons of the restaurant stared at us. He replied, “Technically yes. One-eighty IQ supposedly on some stupid test. But in class I was always in the lowest level because I could not focus due to imp noise. And I’m afraid you will be battling the same thing.”

We all frowned because that was what we were afraid of.

“Get your sanctuary,” Tom said again, pointing to me in particular. “That’s where you study and do your real learning. The classroom stuff is just for show and learning how to get on in a crowd. It makes the teachers feel productive.”

Piranha delivered him a wry look.

“The thing is,” Tom said as he took a piece of pizza, “Don’t let others think it is ok to look down on you. Most people are at Gulinger because they can’t make it in the real world.”

We all gazed at him wearily, about to object as we were making it find in the real world before he showed up.

But Tom laughed and said, “Yeah, right. Stealing from cars and making deals with the Unseelie Court—that’s not real world. Real world is being respected by ordinary humans—or at least not feared by them; having a stable job with a steady legal income, and friends that are your friends because they actually like you and not because they want to use you.”

“And you live in the real world, Mr. CIA—I’m not Trouble?” Piranha snorted back.

Tom met her gaze, his grin crooking up though it was with respect. “I dance on the border.”

Piranha rolled her eyes.

“I’ve got real friends,” Tom said, gazing at her in particular, but also at the rest of us. “And I have a purpose to my life.”

Chills rippled through us. A purpose to life. Was there one? Tom seemed to think so.

“So anyway,” Tom gesture to our pizzas. “Eat up!”

 

We returned to the school, full in belly and in thoughts. Tom delivered us to the testing room, gave us some last bits of advice and then said his goodbyes.

“You’ll come back and visit, right?” Spastic asked, watching as Tom walked through the closed office door.

Tom said on the other side, his voice muffled, “Not frequently, kid. I’ve got work, and you’ve got to make your own life.”

He then strolled off.

Mr. Wilderman eyed us for a moment. Then he gestured for us to take a booth for testing. I noticed another kid in there. He was sitting with headphones on, listening to a test while looking at a computer screen. Our own tests were going to be taken the same way.

We each took a seat, trying to ignore the shouts of our imps telling us to run or to sabotage the computers so we didn’t have to take the test. All of our imps told us to run away, but I knew none of us were about to back down from this chance to change our lives. Just watching Tom, we knew that it was possible to become not only capable people in the world, but even accepted by others. We knew Tom had not lied to us. We had seen the proof.

I put the test headphones on then listened to the instructions, following the directions. And with a glance to the others, who looked just as nervous as I felt, I started the test.

Ok, first off, I had never taken a test before… But I hated that one. It was hard. The questions were impossible. And the math—honestly, I had never done more than simple addition and subtraction. There had never been a need. My reading was ok. But the questions afterward were just… Ugh. You know. And peeking to the others, I knew they were facing the same thing as me. And when it was all over, I felt like I had run a marathon on my head.

We got our scores almost immediately.

All of us failed. Abysmally.

Mr. Wilderman peered at our scores in silence, eyed us in more silence and his imps screamed for him to call us dunderheads and to curse Tom for strapping him with us. However, what he chose to say was… how can I put it? Merciful.

“Ok, so none of you have had any education, I take it.”

We all nodded, feeling stupid.

But he said, “And yet you all can read.”

We all nodded again, heads lifting a little, sharing looks.

He nodded to himself, thinking. After a moment and a number of deliberating breaths he said to us all, “OK. I have to put you all in a class—but none of you are up to grade level. I think it would not be appropriate to put you into your actual education level, as that might cause a degree of unneeded mockery.”

We agreed, nodding.

“So this is what we are going to do.” He went to his computer and inputted in our schedules. “You will attend class with your age group. I will inform your teachers that you will mainly be observing their lessons, but you will have separate assignments for your level. You will join the afternoon tutoring group in free study hour for math, history, and science, and I will supervise your extra English lessons until I can get a suitable teacher to take over.”

The computer printer then came to life, printing off the schedules for us. Once they were out, he handed them to each of us.

Meeting our gazes, his eyes mostly tracing to Spastic who was growing antsy just standing there as the headmaster moved so slowly, Mr. Wilderman said, “How you conduct yourselves among your classmates is a more important matter. I don’t want you all going all Tom Brown on everyone…” And then he colored, realizing he had said a phrase he had used with the other students but we (who were just like Tom) had seen as something to be admired. “What I mean to say is, don’t lose control and go wild on your classmates if they are not entirely welcoming. Kids are kids—and that means they can be jerks.”

I stared the most, surprised he thought that was ok.

He gazed directly at me and said, “Your fight with Morgan Butler is on the records. He said you started it, but I doubt that as Morgan is also a compulsive liar.”

I breathed easy, hearing that.

“But then so was Tom,” Mr. Wilderman added. He fixed his gaze on all of us as he said, “Try not to get into fights. Your job is to avoid them—even if it means you do that stupid Tom thing and walk through the wall or floor. Ok?”

Surprised, we all nodded. And we immediately liked him.

Mr. Wilderman let us go back to our rooms. Spastic and I walked with Piranha and Wispy to their floor first, both of us deciding to delay our return to the ‘war zone’.

“So, a sanctuary…” Piranha murmured as we entered their sparse living space. They basically had nothing to prove that they lived there except for a few uniforms hanging in the closet. “An Unseelie Gang hideaway.”

I shook my head vigorously. “No. No Unseelie Gang, Piranha. I’d rather go to Hell or Valhalla than be in another Unseelie Gang.”

She lifted her eyebrows at me.

“What is Valhalla?” Wispy asked me.

“Oh… the Viking heaven,” I said grinning. “It’s in the Thor comic books. The Valkyries are supposed to bring the souls of the warriors to Valhalla where they will spend the afterlife. I kinda thought it was cool.”

They looked at me like I had read way too many comic books.

“I like that,” Piranha said smiling. “Valhalla it is.”

They then joined us upstairs where I needed to fetch my things out of the wall. When I got to the room, I noticed my bed had been upended and everything that was not in my suitcase was covered in ink. All four of us stared at the damage.

“Is it possible your roommate is a demon?” Piranha asked me.

I moaned, wishing it was that simple. I could make war on a demon. “No. Just a big-headed telekinetic.”

Someone overheard me outside in the hall and laughed. I wondered at what. The mess or what I had said. Their imps weren’t that informative.

The others helped me put my bed upright, but we did not bother with the blankets or sheets. In fact, we just tore them off and dumped them on Mr. Buttman’s bed. I never really had blankets anyway. I had a sleeping bag—or rather had. I realized that I had left it under the pier. There was no way I could fetch it now. The imps would not get it for me, unless…

“Hey, fetch my sleeping bag and bring it right here.” I pointed to my roommate’s bed.

Ok, so this was not playing nice. But Morgan Buttman asked for it. And though I know I had promised Tom and Mr. Wilderman and all, I was sick of being the brunt of a bully’s mean prank. Besides, Piranha and Wispy were smiling at me—and so was Spastic. They thought it was brilliant.

“I want my stuff too,” Piranha said to the imps. “Bring them right here also.” Pointing to the bed.

“Mine too!” Wispy gleefully piped up.

“Mine also!” Spastic cackled.

I took off my soiled blankets and chucked them out into the hallway. The four of us then fetched my suitcase out from the wall and sat together in the room waiting our things.

Morgan walked in right then. His eyes took in all our orange eyes and he paled. His eyes especially raked over Wispy’s horns and Piranha’s silver and blue waxed hair and piercings. But then he said, “Girls can’t be in here. That’s against the school rules. Mr. Wilderman will—”

“Hear about it?” Piranha piped up with that superior mocking look in her eyes. “Sure he will. And he will also dismiss whatever you say because he told us that you are a compulsive liar.”

Morgan’s face went red. His imps were shouting all sorts of curse words for him to choose from. He voiced a string of five then said the rudest thing of all—“No one wants you here!”

We bristled.

“Get off my bed!” he shouted at Spastic and Piranha.

They shrugged, hopping off. But both of them were smiling, eyes shining at me. They could feel what I could. Our things were coming.

“Get