Any Other Name by Ela Bambust

Author:Ela Bambust
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ela Bambust
Published: 2022-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

A Quiet Education

The rest of the week was remarkably light on magic, everything considered. There was a lot of theory, which made sense in that “read the manual before turning on the oven” kind of way, but Emily found that he and many others in the class were eager to try a more practical approach. There was at least one mention of ‘skipping the tutorial’ whatever that meant, and on more than one occasion, a teacher had to pause class to talk someone down, in one case, quite literally so —Dennis had managed to float himself to the ceiling, his short legs waving excitedly.

So Emily focused on what he could and couldn’t do. Trying to figure out exactly how his ability to move things with his mind —telekinesis, Lady Lalonde had stressed —worked, how precise he could and couldn’t be. Telepathy, his ability to talk to Jenna in his mind, was something else they worked on when the two of them weren’t actively in class or doing homework. For now, they were limited to thinking words out loud, although the teachers had stressed that this kind of communication could become very quick and elaborate, sending back and forth ideas at the speed of thought.

Instead, Emily and Jenna did their best to stay out of trouble, of course. Tempting as it was to join Jenna in thinking jokes about their teachers, it took only a particular kind of stern look to get Emily to shut down. One look in particular from one teacher in particular made him particularly uncomfortable.

“There’s always one,” Simon groaned as they laid on the grass, looking at the sky. It was a nice day, probably one of the last nice days before winter and its many variations on the theme of ‘grey and rainy’ reared their ugly heads. “There’s always that one teacher who seems to wake up every morning and go ‘you know what? I’m going to make these kids wish school never existed!’ ” Miming with hand-puppets, Simon made a play of the whole conversation. “ ‘But teacher!’ ” he added in a high-pitched voice, “ ‘I love learning!’ ‘Well not anymore you little—’’’

“You’re exaggerating,” Sarah said, her hair splayed out like a crown around her head. “Van Zant is just uptight.”

“That’s one word for it,” Simon said. “Every time he looks like he’s about to fling a book at us for not paying enough attention during geography, I see Jonathan shrink a little bit. Look at him, he’s like, three feet shorter than this morning!” Right. They were all out here, without Warlocks. He was Jonathan again.

Sarah and Simon looked at him, and he felt a blush coming on. It was true that ‘Mister Case Van Zant’ seemed to have taken a particular dislike to him, and that he had not been very good at avoiding the man’s ire. “Hey,” he mumbled, “I didn’t get any shorter.” He propped himself up on his elbows to give them both a half-hearted glare.

“And a good thing too, tiny,” Simon chuckled, then ruffled his hair.

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