"That's not fair! I'm telling my auntie on you!"
"So what?" I said. "I'll tell your auntie on YOU."
The rosy cheeks paled.
"Fine," he snarled, and vanished.
After a nice normal lunch and a relaxing bath, I set up some exercises in the courtyard for the students to practice basic levitation and traction spells. I had dropped back to Sear and brought one of the tiny red creatures with me to Klah. In exchange for a large supply of fresh water, the little creature agreed to run around the stableyard and dodge spells for the afternoon. I was monitoring the situation closely so it didn't get hurt by the clumsy maneuvers of my students, but I didn't have to worry. Most of them couldn't or wouldn't hit him. Only Tolk had made a successful attempt so far, clapping the Sear into an invisible cup of force. I had made the mistake of praising the simplicity of his spell. His smug scorn of the others had finally prompted me to send him out to take a walk on his own until he regained proportion. After Bee he was the weakest magikally.
I wondered how it was, watching Melvine and Jinetta having yet another argument about how much power to use for a simple levitation spell, that Aahz had never wanted to rip my head off for being an obstreperous pain. On the other hand, perhaps sometimes Aahz DID want to rip my head off He had never done it. In retrospect, I admired his restraint. Melvine reminded me a lot of myself in the early days, when Gar-kin was trying to hammer the basics of candle-lighting and feather-levitation into me. I whined a lot, too, preferring to complain instead of putting in the grunt work. To complicate things, Melvine had tons more magikal potential than I ever did. He had already proved he was capable of misusing it. I was afraid he would get the others hurt or killed if he got careless at the wrong moment. I had to counteract his cockiness somehow. It didn't help that the Pervects put him on the defensive. They had their own insecurities.
"Don't overthink it," I cautioned Jinetta for about the millionth time, as we went over a practice exercise in the yard at the inn. "Just use a whisker of power. The process doesn't have to have a fancy name. Just do it."
The little Sear dashed up and back in front of Jinetta like a duck in a shooting gallery. The tall Pervect dithered until I thought I was going to go insane from frustration.
Her friends offered endless advice.
"How about a Haley's Capture Spell?" said Pologne.
"No! That's for non-physical images. Just work up a Sticky-Floor Charm," Freezia suggested.
"I keep telling you, that's an indoor spell."
"Quiet," I said. "You're confusing her. Let her work it out."
"But I can't," Jinetta said. "What if I get it wrong? What if when I throw it he runs out of reach?"
I groaned. "Just throw something at him. He won't even leave the yard. Your intent is to capture him. Improvise. Don't overdo it."
"But our professor said there's one ideal spell for every situation," Jinetta complained, also for about the millionth time.
"That's right," Freezia said. "He hammered it into us: 'one problem, one perfect solution.'"
I was starting to dislike their professor, and I'd never met him. "And what happens if the problem gets worse while you're trying to figure out what that perfect solution is?"
"Then I need to choose a different spell," Jinetta said. "Magik's not for wimps, you know. I can do it. I just haven't figured out the right one yet."
"There isn't just one right answer to any problem," I said. Inspiration dawned, and I could hardly keep myself from grinning. I threw up a hand, and the Sear stopped running back and forth. "I'll prove it. Class dismissed. See you at dinner."
Chapter Nine
"One man's feast is another man's toxic dump."
I rearranged seating at the broad, rough-hewn wooden rectangular dinner table, setting a seemingly random pattern of boy-girl-boy-girl all the way around along the big wooden benches. I wanted plenty of elbow room in between the students in case things got messy. With the Pervects' help, Bunny served dinner. As before, the Pervects supplied all the food, though they prepared only their own courses. Bunny made the rest. Normally we shared cooking duties. She and I had agreed that for the duration I wouldn't have to cook, in order to maintain my high status as Lord High Professor, a position above such 'menial' tasks.
What I could only describe as 'mixed' aromas came from the kitchen as Bee and Tolk served the food: three bowls of noisome wriggling goo for the Pervects; Klahdish food for three of us; a bowl of pale gray, faintly moldy-smelling cereal for Melvine; and raw green meat for Tolk. Even after years of living with Aahz, it was hard to look at or smell Pervish food, but the others' preferred choices didn't look that much better to me. I'd tapped one of the massive kegs in the cellar, since beer was one of the few things we could all agree on, and floated two huge foaming pitchers to the table.
"Terrific!" I said cheerfully as I invited everyone to sit down. "Everything looks good. Thanks, Bunny."
"A pleasure, Skeeve," Bunny smiled. She shimmied onto the bench at the head of the table next to me.
"Smells terrific, ma'am," Bee said.
"Thank you!" The beam Bunny bestowed upon the skinny corporal made him blush out to his prominent ears. Hastily, he took his place.
"And now," I began as everyone picked up his or her cutlery, "before you eat, I want everyone to pick up his or her bowl, and hand it to the person on your left."
"What????" they demanded.
"Just do it," I said. "As your tutor in practical magik, I want you to take Tolk's food, and hand yours to Melvine." Trying not to grin wickedly, I politely handed my plate to Bunny, who passed her steaming bowl of broccabbage and brined meat to Tolk. I accepted a bowl of writhing purple goo. "Everyone got some? Now, eat up!"
"No way!" Melvine whined, pushing the struggling entree as far away from him as he could. "I want my mush!"
"Not tonight," I said. "What you get tonight is in that bowl, and only in that bowl."
"No!" he howled, beginning to pound on the table with his fists. "I want my mush! I want my mush!"
"Melvine," I said ominously, "do you want me to go get your aunt?"
He looked up at me, his lower lip stuck out, tantrum forgotten. "No-ooo."
"Then try it," I said. "You might like it. You never know."
He wrinkled up his little pug nose. "It's icky!
Privately, I agreed with him. I would rather eat my bowl than what was in it, but I had a plan for getting around the 'ugh' factor. I was happy to offer clues to the students to achieve the same end for themselves.
"If you can't stand it in that form, change it in some way. You know plenty of magik. Something in what you learned in Elemental School ought to work. Give it a try."
"Well—" The big baby poked at the creepy-crawlies with a spoon. "But they stink."
"True," I agreed. "Try deodorizing them. Or change the smell. Pour gravy on them. Freeze them. Cover them in cheese dip. I don't care. Just as long as, by the end of the meal, the contents of that dish are in your stomach."
"Ewwwwwwwww." Melvine might protest, but he was intelligent enough to know I meant business. He couldn't outstubborn me as long as I held the ultimate trump card: Markie. He crouched down at eye level to the purple creatures to study them.
"You're not eating," I observed.
"Gimme a minute!"
I glanced at the Pervects. They didn't look any happier than Melvine. I knew Pervects could eat anything that didn't eat them first, but I guessed that the girls had lived such sheltered lives that they had never tried off-dimension food. The prospect was clearly bringing them to the extreme edge of nausea. I had to enjoy the look on Pologne's face as she picked unhappily at the bowl of mush.