Living with Your Past Selves (Spell Weaver) (18 page)

“Tal, you must be so proud!”

Yeah, I would be, if I hadn’t started the whole mess in the first place.

“What I am is tired of everyone making such a fuss about it,” I said, more irritably than I intended. Mom looked hurt by my tone, but didn’t say anything. Dad, however, was a different story.

“Don’t take that tone with your mother,” he said, somewhat absently, still staring at the
Times
article.

“Sorry, I just think what I did is getting blown way out of proportion.”

“Oh, by the way, one of Ms. Winn’s people called while you were in the shower. The limo will be here to pick you and Stan up at five,” said Mom with unintended irony.

“Limo!” I pushed my chair back angrily. “I am not taking a limo! Stan and I could practically walk there, anyway.” My parents both looked at me as if I had just walked out of a spacecraft.

“Dear, her place is north of East Valley Road, practically out of town.”

“Whatever!” I snapped. Then I thought about the way I was acting.

“Sorry, Mom. I’m just tired today.”

“Maybe you can take a nap this afternoon. I’d hate to see you act like this with Ms. Winn,” said my dad, looking at me this time and raising an eyebrow.

Yeah, maybe I can squeeze a nap in between getting my brains beaten out by Shar and the party—we’ll see.

“I have a meeting after school, Dad, but maybe I can lie down for a few minutes.”

Not content with that, Dad hammered me for a while about how important an opportunity this was, how Carrie Winn could really open doors for me later in life, so I should make the most of the opportunity, blah, blah, blah. Actually, he had a point, but after last night’s media circus, it was hard for me to look at Carrie Winn in quite the same way. In fact, it was getting harder and harder not to think of her as my enemy, though I didn’t have the proof I needed to be sure yet. Anyway, eventually I got away from my parents and almost jogged to school. I didn’t stop for Stan; he had texted me that his mom was keeping him home from school, though he would be going to the Winn party. His staying home was a relief. At least I wouldn’t have to lie to him about what I was doing after school. I didn’t want him to know what was happening until it was all over; he had enough to deal with as it was.

The first few classes went smoothly, but then I got a summons to report immediately to Ms. Simmons’ office.

Have you ever noticed how seldom people are called to the principal’s office to hear good news?

As soon as I got to the office, Ms. Simmons briskly ushered me in and closed the door, another bad sign. She offered me a chair, sat down behind her desk, and locked eyes with me.

“Tal, is it true that you and Shahriyar are having some kind of unsanctioned boxing after school?”

“It’s not unsanctioned, Ms. Simmons. Coach Miller is refereeing. I was thinking of joining the local boxing club, and Shar said he’d show me what boxing was like.”

Ms. Simmons leaned back in her chair and stared into my eyes even more intensely.

“You lie so smoothly, if I didn’t know the truth I would believe you.” I looked at her as if she had just slapped me across the face.

“Don’t look like I’ve wronged you. We both know that this bout is some kind of footballer ritual.”

“It’s not against the rules,” I said, without thinking.

“If that’s the case, why lie about it? No, Tal, there is payback of some kind in the air, and I will not allow it. Boxing is dangerous enough under the best of circumstances…”

“It’s junior boxing. You know, more protective headgear and stuff than in real boxing.”

“Do not interrupt me!” said Ms. Simmons slowly, emphasizing each word. “When people fight in anger, I don’t care how much protective gear is involved—there is still danger. In any case, this subject is not up for debate. The boxing match is canceled. I’ll call Coach Miller right now and tell him.”

“No, you won’t!” I almost shouted, in Welsh, with considerable magic wrapped around the words. Ms. Simmons dropped the phone and stared blankly at me for a couple of seconds, then started dialing as if nothing had happened.

Getting people to forget little things was easy. Changing their minds about subjects on which their opinion was not particularly strong was easy. Getting them to change their minds when they had strong convictions was doable but risked damaging the person if their resistance was too determined. I knew Ms. Simmons well enough to know she was strong-willed, and on this subject she believed too strongly that I could get hurt. No, beating down that protective impulse, to say nothing of the professional ethics that reinforced it, would be so fundamentally a violation of her will that it would have to injure her. I couldn’t do that. At the same time, I couldn’t let her stop the fight.

“You need to call Coach Miller, but it will have to wait. You just got a tip that one of our students left school without permission and is likely to commit suicide at any minute.”

Ms. Simmons put down the phone. “Tal, I will call Coach Miller, but right now I need to take care of another important matter, a very time sensitive one.” She was playing it cool, but I could tell she was really upset. “However, if somehow I don’t get in touch with him, I am forbidding you to go through with this fight. Understood?” Well, I should have seen that coming and preempted it. I thought overwhelming her need to protect me with a bigger emergency would solve the problem, but apparently she was going to try to take care of both situations.

I started singing and hit her with the most concentrated burst of magic I could, then caught her quickly as she slumped to the floor, asleep. Lucky for me Ms. Simmons took good care of herself and wasn’t overweight, since I had to drag her into her desk chair. Then I laid her head gently on her desk.

What a mess! I had kept her from immediately stopping the fight but hadn’t saved myself from possible disciplinary action after, and I had frightened her with a totally bogus crisis. In a busy office like this, I couldn’t keep her asleep for very long.

At least I had gotten better at removing memories selectively, so I didn’t need to worry about injuring her in the attempt. I just sang to her quietly to forget the false suicide report, as well as any knowledge she had of the boxing match. Then I told her to wake in ten minutes, and just in case, I got on the intercom in her voice, a trick I’d been working on, and told her secretary not to disturb her for a few minutes.

I tried to slip out of the office inconspicuously, but Ms. Blount, the gray-haired guard dog / principal’s secretary, looked at me with profound suspicion as I walked past her. Had she heard me singing? Or did she know something about the boxing match? Either way, I couldn’t do anything about Ms. Blount’s memories. The door to her office was open, and I could hear other people talking in the outer office. If I magicked her, she would not remember, but anyone the spell was not directed at could remember. I pasted on my best fake smile and walked right past her. She did not stop me, but I think she wanted to.

At lunch I took Eva aside—not to the woods, you can be sure, but down one of the classroom halls that usually stayed empty much of lunch. There I told her the truth about Dan’s situation. Oh, she didn’t believe me at first, despite her close call in Annwn. Luckily I had taken to carrying White Hilt with me, in a scabbard that hung by my side, naturally charmed to be unnoticeable. It is amazing how fast a flaming sword can burn up people’s skepticism. Since she had already seen White Hilt in action, seeing it again reassured her that she was not crazy and that I was not playing games with her.

“Well, now I feel terrible,” she said, looking around as if she expected an accusing Dan to pop out of the lockers.

“There’s a lot of that going around lately.”

“I thought for sure he was playing some sick game with me…but he really didn’t remember. And now, look what I have done to him, to Stan…to you.”

“Stan and I don’t blame you,” I replied gently. I started to pat her on the shoulder, then thought better of it. “As for Dan, he really loves you, or he wouldn’t have taken what happened so hard. You will find your way back to each other.”

“I heard about the boxing match,” said Eva worriedly. “I’ll go to Dan and get him to stop this nonsense.”

“Eva, I said you would find your way back, not that you would be able to do it in the next ten minutes. Right now, he will just ignore you. This fight has to happen. I need to get Stan forgiven.”

“And your getting beaten to a pulp is the only way to do that? Sometimes guys are so unbelievably dense.”

“Well,” I said, raising an eyebrow, “I am troubled by your lack of faith. Maybe I’ll beat Shar to a pulp.”

Eva snorted derisively, then realized how that sounded. “I’m sorry, Tal, I know you’re in good shape, but have you seen Shar lately? He’s built like Hercules—and he knows how to box.”

“Well, again, thanks for the vote of confidence, Eva, and I’ll see you later—if I’m still alive.” I don’t think she appreciated the attempted humor, but I went whistling off down the hall, using my most self-confident stride.

“Guys!” she muttered as I turned the corner.

What little remained of the day dragged on uneventfully. Finally, the last class ended, and I hustled to the gym. Shar had his own equipment of course, but I didn’t. However, Dan borrowed the necessities from the local club; apparently he could still get pretty much anything he wanted in the community. A couple of the players led me to the visitors’ locker room to change, just as if this match were real. Clearly, Dan had been careful. Head guard, mouth guard, gloves, boxing trunks, jersey, groin protector—new, I was assured—everything fit perfectly. Since most guys have no idea about other guys’ sizes, except maybe for brothers, I could only assume some of the girls must have made extremely educated guesses. That would suggest some of them had been watching me pretty closely—good news, but not something I had time to focus on now. I sang myself into heightened stamina. I wasn’t trying to win, mind you. In fact, I intended to lose, but I needed to stay standing as long as possible. Also, because I wanted to keep track of the audience’s reaction, I shifted a little, just enough to give me keen, animal-like hearing. I still wasn’t comfortable shifting into a complete animal form, but I had found ways to gain some enhanced abilities without visibly changing.

I got a shock when I entered the gym. The bleachers were set up, and they were packed. I had expected the football team itself, and maybe a few cheerleaders, but the match seemed to have attracted all the cheerleaders and a large number of other students. No wonder Ms. Simmons had found out what we were planning! Hell, all she probably had to do was stand discretely in the main entryway before school and listen to the conversations of students passing by. The question was, even with her earlier memories of the match gone, how could she miss something this big happening right under her nose? Well, I couldn’t worry about that now. If she found out, she found out.

With such a mob I thought at first I had enhanced my hearing for nothing, but I saw Shar talking to Dan, and I tried to focus on them. What I heard surprised me.

“This is stupid, and you know it!” said Shar. “Tal’s been nothing but a friend to us. Okay, his buddy Stan messed up, but not as bad as you thought, and anyway Tal doesn’t have the training. This isn’t a fair fight.”

“He asked for it,” said Dan, clearly feigning disinterest in what Shar was saying.

“If you weren’t the team captain…”

“What, Shar? You wouldn’t do it? Fine, don’t. You’re not the only guy on the team I could have fight Tal.” Shar stared at Dan, clearly angry, and then stalked away. He did, however, climb into the makeshift ring. He might not like the whole idea, but he would fight. Good. So far, everything was going according to plan.

“Don’t hold back, Shar, or this won’t count!” Dan yelled after him. Shar started to turn toward Dan, then thought better of it and turned toward me.

As I climbed into the ring, I was still listening to the general area in which Dan was sitting, and I got another earful right before the match started, this time from Gordy Hayes, one of the football players Stan tutored.

“Dan, you’re a good student. You don’t know what it’s like for me. I have a shot at college, but only through football—and I won’t even have that unless I can pass classes like chemistry. And Dan, I can’t do it, not without Stan. He’s the only reason I’m passing chem now.”

Dan looked at him casually and replied, “There’s no I in team.” I thought for a second that Gordy was going to smash him in the face. But no, he walked away without a word…until he got out of earshot of Dan, at which point he was muttering vehemently, “I hope Stan does Eva…and your mom…three times a day for the next three years!” In fact, as I swept different parts of the audience, I picked up a fair amount of muttering from football players, though none was quite as colorful as Gordy’s.

Dan, who had been practically worshiped by the other players, especially this year, clearly was putting a strain on their loyalty with this vendetta against Stan. I felt good that the other players really did care about him—and me, for that matter—but I got a sick feeling contemplating what would happen to Dan if his attitude tore his connection with the rest of the team. I needed to do my best to end this today—and in a way that worked for both Stan and Dan.

I turned my attention to Shar. Eva had not been entirely accurate with her Hercules comparison. Shar was Persian, not Greek. Aside from that, though, the comparison worked. I thought I had definition, but Shar, who—big surprise—had decided not to wear a jersey and was thus bare-chested, like a professional boxer, looked as if he had been chiseled by Michelangelo. Was that a six-pack, or an eight-pack? Either way, he was perfect for what I had in mind, except that Michelangelo had sculpted David, and in this little drama Shar was going to be more like Goliath, except that this time Goliath was going to win.

Coach Miller, who wasn’t looking a whole lot happier than Gordy at this point, explained the rules, and one of his assistants rang the bell for the first round. Shar was far stronger than I was, and fast—but I was faster. I ran out the clock on the first round mostly by dodging. It wasn’t the most crowd pleasing strategy, but everyone knew what a powerful boxer Shar was, so on one level I was winning in a sense just by evading those Golden Gloves-worthy fists. Shar had clearly not expected me to have such defensive skill.