Great Plains High School AU: Chapter Three
Every time that Lynie tried to shift her mind and focus on her exercises, she caught herself thinking about Ryin King instead. Why did she care so much about his death? Despite having a few classes together, Lynie had never thought of Ryin as a friend. Yet his death still haunted her.
“You’re still not doing it.” Lynie opened her eyes to see Maris’s face right next to hers. She yelped, then clapped a hand over her mouth in hopes that the other students wouldn’t notice her surprise. If Lynie’s reaction startled Maris, the club’s advisor didn’t show it. “Stop thinking about how you can’t do it and just do it.”
“But I-”
“But what?” Maris asked. “You’re a time traveler. All I’m asking you to do is go back in time one hour.”
Lynie shut her eyes. Maris didn’t understand how it felt to spend most of your life hoping to be safe from magic, only to learn that your own mother had cast a spell on you to prevent your powers from manifesting. In retrospect, Lynie should have known better than to think she could escape from her abilities. But if she could go back in time one hour just by concentrating on that time hard enough, then all hope of living a more normal life would vanish like a dream upon waking.
“You’re going to go back in time, even if I have to keep you here all evening to do it,” Maris said.
“We can’t keep the kids after four-thirty without permission from their parents,” her co-advisor, Mr. Fairon, said from across the room.
Maris turned her attention from Lynie for a moment of relief: “Are you forgetting the obvious again? We’re mages. The school’s not going to give us any bureaucratic trouble about permission slips.”
“I understand if you can’t do it, Lynette.” Lynie turned her head over her shoulder to see Ruby sitting next to Devin in the very back row. “Lots of people can’t use their powers on their first several tries, especially if they aren’t very strong.”
Lynie turned away from Ruby instead of responding to her thinly-veiled taunt. If she answered, Ruby would say that she just wanted to provide some friendly advice to one of the younger students, and Lynie didn’t know if Maris and Fairon would fall for her usual tricks. Lynie focused on the clock at the front of the classroom. It read 3:10 PM.
You’ll see, Ruby, Lynie thought. She thought about 2:10 PM over and over again, then visualized the hallway outside the classroom at 2:10 PM after thinking the time began to feel cheesy. A few students would have already started sneaking out of class in anticipation of the end of the school day in fifteen minutes. Maybe one of the gods would have cornered a new victim up against the lockers as a couple of goths looked on and composed poetry about darkness on their smartphones.
No change of scenery. Lynie looked around the classroom. All the members of the club had disappeared, but no bored math students sat around her, either. The clock read 12:10, placing her safely in the lunch period instead of in the middle of class. She felt a wave of nausea come over her as soon as she looked at the clock and ran out into the hallway, trying to make it to the bathroom. As soon as she made it into the hall, though, Lynie found herself stuck in traffic as students milled around in the hallways.
“If there’s a pop quiz, I’m just going to throw myself under the school bus-”
“I heard the police are already questioning people about the car accident-”
“Hey, Ruby, is Chess Club meeting today?”
“It is! But remember, no gingers allowed!” Ruby laughed. Could Lynie do nothing to escape her? As she thought that, she felt the tile floor take a sudden tilt backward, and Lynie fell back into the math classroom that the young mages of Great Plains High School borrowed for their lessons.
--
“Hey!” Gemma ran after Ruby, but got stuck in the crowd of students heading twenty different directions at once. “What do you mean, no gingers allowed? What, are you scared I’d screw up how perfectly black and white the chessboard is?” Unable to reach her sister to punch her in the face, Gemma settled for the next best thing: punching a locker instead.
“Gemma?” It was that freshman she’d talked to at the assembly. Jazz. “What’s wrong?”
Gemma rubbed her knuckles and tried to make the pain stop. “ ‘No gingers allowed!’ She’s talking about me, Jazz! She thinks she’s so much better than me. She’s spent her whole life going on and on about how my hair means I’m a bastard, and now she’s turned it into a code word so she can get another dig at me while everyone thinks she’s so pure!”
“Gemma. Calm down. It’s just Chess Club.” Jazz wondered what “no gingers allowed” was supposed to be a code for.
“No. It is not just Chess Club! I’ve done everything right. I come from a magical family. I live a righteous life. My sister even has magic. So where are my powers?”
“Wait. Magic? You want magic?” Jazz asked. “Why? And what does that have to do with Chess Club?”
“Chess Club is-” Gemma remembered that it needed to be kept a secret from the rest of the school. She whispered to Jazz, “It’s not a chess club at all. It’s where all the students with magic practice. They’ve got a couple of counselors who help them. I know because Ruby started it, and Ruby’s always going on about how I should join it, but I can’t. Because ‘no gingers allowed’ means that nobody without magic can go.”
“It is?” Jazz thought he would have liked to join the chess club to actually play chess. “But what do you even want magic for? It’s-” He trailed off.
“I’m supposed to have it. I don’t know why I haven’t gotten any yet. But now-I’m going to get answers,” Gemma decided. “The club’s meeting after school today? I’ll find them. They’re going to tell me what happened to my magic. I’ll make them tell me.”
--
“Did you do it?” Maris asked Lynie.
“Still 12:10,” Lynie said. She still felt the room spinning. “Something’s pulling back there to Gemma.”
“Gemma?” Ruby got up from her seat next to Devin to approach Lynie. “My good-for-nothing sister Gemma? What do you want to do with her, Lynette?”
“She’s coming,” Lynie said. She wondered how she felt about that.
“Please tell me you didn’t tell her where we meet,” Ruby said.
“No.” Lynie laid her head down on the desk and hoped the spinning would stop soon. “I didn’t say anything to her. But she’s coming anyway.”
“I don’t believe you,” Ruby said. “Didn’t I tell all of you the rule? No gingers allowed?”
“It’s not a rule, Ruby,” Fairon said. “If a redhead with magic came along, we’d let him or her in. We don’t discriminate based on hair color.”
“But she doesn’t have magic,” Ruby said. “We don’t let in anyone without magic. That is the first rule.”
Then, the door to the room opened. Gemma walked into the room, a ticking device in hand, along with the blond kid she had been talking to back in the early afternoon. Lynie had a dim awareness of the other students frantically grabbing for chessboards and setting up pieces, but she didn’t know where her chessboard was located or if she could fight through the dizziness to put the pieces on the right squares.
“How did you find us?” Fairon asked.
“Never mind that.” Maris took an attack stance, and Lynie felt the room brighten up with the sense of magic waiting to be used. “What are you doing here?”
“Wow,” the blond kid said. “I thought you’d at least pretend to be a chess club.”
Gemma put the ticking device down next to the door. “Found you,” she said. “I’m here so that you’ll tell me where my magic is.”
“If you had magic, dear sister, you’d have found this place on your own without having to steal from our parents. They won’t be pleased with you when they find out their detector is missing.” Ruby smiled at Gemma.
“Well, I can tell you if you have magic.” Fairon produced a snow globe from one of the pockets of his coat, and Lynie looked up from her desk. “Give this a shake, and you’ll know for sure without having to wait for something otherwise inexplicable to happen.”
“A snow globe?” Gemma asked. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Nope. If the snow floats, you have magic. If it sinks again, you don’t have any.”
Gemma looked over at Maris, hoping for a different answer.
“I do not defend his madness,” Maris said, “but this method hasn’t been wrong yet.”
“There’s no point in doing this,” Ruby said. “She doesn’t have any magic. I know.”
“The worst that can happen is that she shakes a snow globe,” Fairon told Ruby. “I don’t see anything wrong with it.”
“All right. I’m doing it.” Gemma picked up the snow globe. Time to get her magic. She suddenly wished that the entire club wasn’t watching her do this, but it would be all right. She had to have magic. Gemma shook the snow globe.
The flakes floated at first, but all too soon, they dropped to the ground. Gemma shook it again.
“Sorry, Gemma,” Ruby said. “I told you not to get your hopes up.”
Gemma watched the snow fall again. No use. She couldn’t even make the snow float. She shook it a third time.
“Shaking it’s not going to change things,” Ruby said. “You don’t have any magic.”
“Oh yeah?” The anger came over Gemma again. Ruby should never be right, but Ruby being right about this hurt too much. “Maybe this will change it!” Gemma threw the snow globe at Ruby’s head.
“You’re still not doing it.” Lynie opened her eyes to see Maris’s face right next to hers. She yelped, then clapped a hand over her mouth in hopes that the other students wouldn’t notice her surprise. If Lynie’s reaction startled Maris, the club’s advisor didn’t show it. “Stop thinking about how you can’t do it and just do it.”
“But I-”
“But what?” Maris asked. “You’re a time traveler. All I’m asking you to do is go back in time one hour.”
Lynie shut her eyes. Maris didn’t understand how it felt to spend most of your life hoping to be safe from magic, only to learn that your own mother had cast a spell on you to prevent your powers from manifesting. In retrospect, Lynie should have known better than to think she could escape from her abilities. But if she could go back in time one hour just by concentrating on that time hard enough, then all hope of living a more normal life would vanish like a dream upon waking.
“You’re going to go back in time, even if I have to keep you here all evening to do it,” Maris said.
“We can’t keep the kids after four-thirty without permission from their parents,” her co-advisor, Mr. Fairon, said from across the room.
Maris turned her attention from Lynie for a moment of relief: “Are you forgetting the obvious again? We’re mages. The school’s not going to give us any bureaucratic trouble about permission slips.”
“I understand if you can’t do it, Lynette.” Lynie turned her head over her shoulder to see Ruby sitting next to Devin in the very back row. “Lots of people can’t use their powers on their first several tries, especially if they aren’t very strong.”
Lynie turned away from Ruby instead of responding to her thinly-veiled taunt. If she answered, Ruby would say that she just wanted to provide some friendly advice to one of the younger students, and Lynie didn’t know if Maris and Fairon would fall for her usual tricks. Lynie focused on the clock at the front of the classroom. It read 3:10 PM.
You’ll see, Ruby, Lynie thought. She thought about 2:10 PM over and over again, then visualized the hallway outside the classroom at 2:10 PM after thinking the time began to feel cheesy. A few students would have already started sneaking out of class in anticipation of the end of the school day in fifteen minutes. Maybe one of the gods would have cornered a new victim up against the lockers as a couple of goths looked on and composed poetry about darkness on their smartphones.
No change of scenery. Lynie looked around the classroom. All the members of the club had disappeared, but no bored math students sat around her, either. The clock read 12:10, placing her safely in the lunch period instead of in the middle of class. She felt a wave of nausea come over her as soon as she looked at the clock and ran out into the hallway, trying to make it to the bathroom. As soon as she made it into the hall, though, Lynie found herself stuck in traffic as students milled around in the hallways.
“If there’s a pop quiz, I’m just going to throw myself under the school bus-”
“I heard the police are already questioning people about the car accident-”
“Hey, Ruby, is Chess Club meeting today?”
“It is! But remember, no gingers allowed!” Ruby laughed. Could Lynie do nothing to escape her? As she thought that, she felt the tile floor take a sudden tilt backward, and Lynie fell back into the math classroom that the young mages of Great Plains High School borrowed for their lessons.
--
“Hey!” Gemma ran after Ruby, but got stuck in the crowd of students heading twenty different directions at once. “What do you mean, no gingers allowed? What, are you scared I’d screw up how perfectly black and white the chessboard is?” Unable to reach her sister to punch her in the face, Gemma settled for the next best thing: punching a locker instead.
“Gemma?” It was that freshman she’d talked to at the assembly. Jazz. “What’s wrong?”
Gemma rubbed her knuckles and tried to make the pain stop. “ ‘No gingers allowed!’ She’s talking about me, Jazz! She thinks she’s so much better than me. She’s spent her whole life going on and on about how my hair means I’m a bastard, and now she’s turned it into a code word so she can get another dig at me while everyone thinks she’s so pure!”
“Gemma. Calm down. It’s just Chess Club.” Jazz wondered what “no gingers allowed” was supposed to be a code for.
“No. It is not just Chess Club! I’ve done everything right. I come from a magical family. I live a righteous life. My sister even has magic. So where are my powers?”
“Wait. Magic? You want magic?” Jazz asked. “Why? And what does that have to do with Chess Club?”
“Chess Club is-” Gemma remembered that it needed to be kept a secret from the rest of the school. She whispered to Jazz, “It’s not a chess club at all. It’s where all the students with magic practice. They’ve got a couple of counselors who help them. I know because Ruby started it, and Ruby’s always going on about how I should join it, but I can’t. Because ‘no gingers allowed’ means that nobody without magic can go.”
“It is?” Jazz thought he would have liked to join the chess club to actually play chess. “But what do you even want magic for? It’s-” He trailed off.
“I’m supposed to have it. I don’t know why I haven’t gotten any yet. But now-I’m going to get answers,” Gemma decided. “The club’s meeting after school today? I’ll find them. They’re going to tell me what happened to my magic. I’ll make them tell me.”
--
“Did you do it?” Maris asked Lynie.
“Still 12:10,” Lynie said. She still felt the room spinning. “Something’s pulling back there to Gemma.”
“Gemma?” Ruby got up from her seat next to Devin to approach Lynie. “My good-for-nothing sister Gemma? What do you want to do with her, Lynette?”
“She’s coming,” Lynie said. She wondered how she felt about that.
“Please tell me you didn’t tell her where we meet,” Ruby said.
“No.” Lynie laid her head down on the desk and hoped the spinning would stop soon. “I didn’t say anything to her. But she’s coming anyway.”
“I don’t believe you,” Ruby said. “Didn’t I tell all of you the rule? No gingers allowed?”
“It’s not a rule, Ruby,” Fairon said. “If a redhead with magic came along, we’d let him or her in. We don’t discriminate based on hair color.”
“But she doesn’t have magic,” Ruby said. “We don’t let in anyone without magic. That is the first rule.”
Then, the door to the room opened. Gemma walked into the room, a ticking device in hand, along with the blond kid she had been talking to back in the early afternoon. Lynie had a dim awareness of the other students frantically grabbing for chessboards and setting up pieces, but she didn’t know where her chessboard was located or if she could fight through the dizziness to put the pieces on the right squares.
“How did you find us?” Fairon asked.
“Never mind that.” Maris took an attack stance, and Lynie felt the room brighten up with the sense of magic waiting to be used. “What are you doing here?”
“Wow,” the blond kid said. “I thought you’d at least pretend to be a chess club.”
Gemma put the ticking device down next to the door. “Found you,” she said. “I’m here so that you’ll tell me where my magic is.”
“If you had magic, dear sister, you’d have found this place on your own without having to steal from our parents. They won’t be pleased with you when they find out their detector is missing.” Ruby smiled at Gemma.
“Well, I can tell you if you have magic.” Fairon produced a snow globe from one of the pockets of his coat, and Lynie looked up from her desk. “Give this a shake, and you’ll know for sure without having to wait for something otherwise inexplicable to happen.”
“A snow globe?” Gemma asked. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Nope. If the snow floats, you have magic. If it sinks again, you don’t have any.”
Gemma looked over at Maris, hoping for a different answer.
“I do not defend his madness,” Maris said, “but this method hasn’t been wrong yet.”
“There’s no point in doing this,” Ruby said. “She doesn’t have any magic. I know.”
“The worst that can happen is that she shakes a snow globe,” Fairon told Ruby. “I don’t see anything wrong with it.”
“All right. I’m doing it.” Gemma picked up the snow globe. Time to get her magic. She suddenly wished that the entire club wasn’t watching her do this, but it would be all right. She had to have magic. Gemma shook the snow globe.
The flakes floated at first, but all too soon, they dropped to the ground. Gemma shook it again.
“Sorry, Gemma,” Ruby said. “I told you not to get your hopes up.”
Gemma watched the snow fall again. No use. She couldn’t even make the snow float. She shook it a third time.
“Shaking it’s not going to change things,” Ruby said. “You don’t have any magic.”
“Oh yeah?” The anger came over Gemma again. Ruby should never be right, but Ruby being right about this hurt too much. “Maybe this will change it!” Gemma threw the snow globe at Ruby’s head.