The Unwanteds (8 page)

Meghan adored her instructor too: Ms. Claire Morning. Ms. Morning was a tall, striking woman of forty or so, with long, honey-colored hair and a warm complexion. She was the same person who had popped in for a chat on Meghan’s blackboard on that first day to teach Meghan the lesson with the oboe. Claire Morning was full of praise, and Meghan excelled and grew increasingly confident with her music as time passed. Meghan not only enjoyed playing the oboe and piccolo, but she loved to dance and sing as well, and her voice had such a mesmerizing lilt to it that people and creatures alike often felt compelled to stop in the hallway outside the practice room just to listen to Meghan sing.

“With a voice like yours,” Ms. Morning told Meghan after three months had passed, “I do believe you are quite ready to train magically with your art as a warrior now, Meghan. I will talk with Mr. Today about it this afternoon.”

Meghan’s face lit up. She’d been dying to start her magical training ever since she saw her brother perform magic on the day she reunited with him. “Yes!” she said. “I’ve been so impatient. So I’ll be the first of my class to start, right?” She grinned. “Alex will be so jealous.”

Ms. Morning smiled. “Your gifts are very strong, like your brother’s. He was the first of his class to begin magical training as well.” Her voice turned contemplative. “But you may want to ask him about how best to deal with your successes in front of your friends. I know he had quite a difficult time being the first.”

“Did he?” Meghan asked. “He didn’t mention it.”

Ms. Morning sat down at the desk next to Meghan’s. “It is because you are all so unused to expressing your emotions, and now that you’re allowed to do so, sometimes they can grow wildly out of control. All of you have felt the sting of not being a Wanted or a Necessary. It’s not a pain that goes away quickly, and it resurfaces sometimes without warning.”

Meghan grew somber. “You’re right,” she said softly. “But that’s why being the first feels so nice. Like I am actually … you know.” She blushed and scraped the toe of her sandal on the marble floor. “Like I’m valuable or something.” Her face burned.

Ms. Morning patted Meghan’s shoulder and tipped the girl’s chin up. “You are valuable, indeed,” she said quietly.

“Then, why …?”

“Because this will feel like another failure to your friends.”

Meghan thought about that for a long moment. She sighed, and though she didn’t want to say it, she did. “Maybe I should wait for them to catch up.”

Ms. Morning smiled warmly. “That is a very generous thing to say, Meghan. You are a mature young woman. But we shan’t wait for them. Our warriors need you, and they need you now. You must learn everything you can, as quickly as you can. The others will join you eventually—perhaps your success will drive them to succeed as well.” Her smile remained warm, but her eyes became shadowed with a hint of … something. Was it fear?

Meghan didn’t dare to ask, and after a moment the shadow passed and Ms. Morning continued on in her cheerful manner so convincingly that Meghan thought she must have imagined it.

After her private lesson Meghan left the practice room bubbling with excitement, but also a bit anxious to know how Mr. Today would respond to Ms. Morning’s suggestion. She decided she would keep her news quiet until she was certain, and only discuss it privately with Sean. Hopefully, she thought, he’d have some good advice for her. She joined
the others in the last class of the day, Actors’ Studio, which they all shared.

In the midst of it she was so deep into her thoughts that Alex had to poke her in the arm when it was her turn to perform, and she was so befuddled that she flubbed her lines quite horribly, which made Samheed frustrated enough that he threw his script at her.

It hit her squarely in the forehead, and as it was Shakespeare’s
The Merchant of Venice
, it was thick enough to hurt.

“Hey!” she shouted. And without thinking, she flung her script at Samheed, hitting the back of his head as he stomped off the stage.

“Why, you little …,” Samheed charged toward Meghan, his boots thumping and echoing in the auditorium.

Lani and Alex jumped up before anyone else even noticed what was happening. Alex grabbed and yanked Samheed’s arm, while Lani stood in between the spitting Meghan and the growling Samheed.

At the assault from Alex, Samheed wrenched his arm from Alex’s grasp and promptly slugged him in the eye, knocking Alex flat and causing quite an outrage with the other
students, until the stage was crawling with thirteen-year-olds taking swipes and cuffing one another. The voices joined in crescendo, and the volume grew to such riotous proportions that the poor little instructor, Mr. Appleblossom, had to resort to standing on a chair and reciting a magical soliloquy so deathly boring that it not only sucked all the energy from the room, causing the students to fall limply on the stage, but it also put some of the smaller ones like Lani into a deep sleep.

“Oh dear, oh dear, please summon Marcus now!” Mr. Appleblossom called out to the blackboard in his typical rhyming, iambic-pentameter fashion. He wrung his hands and muttered, “And quickly, please. I swear, I don’t know how …”

“I have done so already. He’s coming through tube.” The theater blackboard preferred free verse.

Immediately Mr. Today appeared and surveyed the scene, twenty students flattened, arms and legs hanging motionless off the edge of the stage or swinging lightly with what little momentum remained. “Good heavens,” Mr. Today said. “Have we had a bit of a brawl, Sigfried?”

Mr. Appleblossom, pacing and muttering still, held out his hands dramatically and cried, “Oh why, oh why, this
ruthless waste on me? Am I but sand, and they the stormy sea?”

Mr. Today coughed loudly into his hand, although it might have sounded more like a laugh to anyone who was listening closely. When he could speak again, he smiled politely. “Dear, dear Sigfried, your troubles are great indeed. And yes, it’s true this sort of thing rarely happens elsewhere, but surely you understand the nature of the theater and its desperate want for dramatics … don’t you?” Mr. Today had to sort of squinch his lips together to keep from an all-out grin, which would of course lead to chuckling, which wouldn’t be good at all at this moment, he knew.

“Aye,” sighed Mr. Appleblossom, “’tis true, the action’s in the stage. However, wishes me they’d tone the rage. For what, but spells, is there for me to do to stop the madness—’fore they slug me too?” He dropped his arms heavily at his sides and gazed imploringly at Mr. Today.

“You did the right thing, Siggy.” He turned toward the stage. “Did you hear that, students? I want you all to think about your actions, because next time Mr. Appleblossom won’t be quite so kind in stopping you. If you don’t work out your
differences in a proper manner, next time he’ll use a stinging soliloquy rather than the boring one, and you’ll all be really very sorry that it came to that. Is that clear?” Mr. Today didn’t wait for an answer, since the children were rather unable to speak. He turned back to Mr. Appleblossom. “Let’s hope that’s the last of it for this group,” he said quietly.

Mr. Appleblossom sighed again, but this time it was a more relaxed sort of sigh, or maybe just a simple letting out of breath that had been held. “Great thanks and more, my friend; I’ll keep them here. Perhaps you’ll join me later for a—”

“Cup of tea?” interrupted Mr. Today. “Of course. Just let them go when the spell wears off. Incidentally, what strength spell did you use? A temporary one, I’m assuming.”

“Well … ’twas quite a row, you’ll understand it. An hour, less or more, will sure disband it.”

“Fine and good. If you need me again, please do summon.” And with that, along with a hasty shaking of Mr. Apple blossom’s hand, Mr. Today disappeared inside the tube before the instructor could fire off another rhyming couplet.

When the spell wore off, each child regained his full
presence at his own pace, the bigger students before the smaller ones. Samheed was first, being quite solid and muscular already for his age. He stood and looked at the scene, at Alex’s face now puffing up red and purple, and he hung his head slightly, feeling a bit ashamed. “May I go?” he asked Mr. Appleblossom in a resigned voice.

The instructor didn’t pause as he scratched notes in his paperwork. He merely nodded stiffly, like one of the mansion statues. But as Samheed neared the tube, Mr. Appleblossom turned and spoke a warning to the boy.

You know, Samheed, no rival can compare
his acting gifts to yours, but I declare:
If you don’t shake that attitude, and soon,
I’ll drop you from my program. You’ll be goon
.

Samheed’s face burned at the reproach from his own private instructor. Yet he couldn’t resist giving the little man a puzzled look. “Goon?”

Mr. Appleblossom sighed impatiently. “‘Gone,’ then. Oh, my stars, I hate imperfects.”

Samheed dropped his gaze, entered the tube, and completed the couplet for his teacher. “I’m sorry, sir. I meant no disrespects.”

When Samheed was gone, Mr. Appleblossom tapped his forefinger against his lips and, after a thoughtful moment, smiled grimly to himself.

T
he next evening, after everyone had ignored him completely due to his nasty behavior, Samheed sought and found Alex in the lounge. He slipped uneasily into the curved booth seat around the table from him, scouring Alex’s face, and frowned. “All right, Stowe. I’m sorry about the black eye,” he said, a bit begrudgingly.

Alex shrugged and fixed his eyes on the tube, waiting for Meghan.

Samheed rolled his eyes, as if it pained him to say it. “I mean it. I just … when I get mad, I just sort of go … a little crazy.”

Alex looked down at the floor. “All right,” he said, his voice cool. “It’s not like I care, anyhow. And I know you’re only apologizing so Mr. Appleblossom will keep you in the program. I heard what he said. You’re a real jerk sometimes. And I’m not afraid to punch you back, you know.”

Samheed, who stood several inches taller and weighed several pounds more than Alex, tried not to scoff. “Oh, I know,” he said as seriously as he could. “You can punch me now if you want.”

Alex glanced up at Samheed, a suspicious look on his face. “What’s the fun in that?”

“None for me, that’s for sure.”

“I’d rather pound you when you’re not expecting it.”

“Well,” Samheed said, “I can’t be sure how I’d respond to a sneak attack. I might punch you again, and then we’d be right back in this stupid mess.”

“That would be awkward,” Alex said. He relaxed his shoulders a bit.

Samheed nodded. He looked over to the bar, squinted, and impatiently waved off his friend Will Blair. Will glowered back, his eyes like slits.

“What’s with that guy, anyway?” Alex asked. “He’s so … snarly.”

“He’s not so bad when you get to know him,” Samheed said, sounding a little bit defensive.

“Oh, yeah?” Alex didn’t believe it.

“He’s just, I don’t know. He’s acting. I guess.”

“Right.”

“Seriously. That’s what he said when I asked him. And he’s really good. He’s got some amazing spells.”

“Well, why would he want to hang around with a new kid like you? Did you know him in Quill or something?”

“Yeah, I did. He lived in my column, two houses back. His father is the Quillitary general.”

Alex looked shocked. “You lived in the Quillitary Sector? Your parents are Wanteds? You always walked beyond that sector from school.”

Samheed’s eyes flared. “I went to the Quillitary to do work with my father every day after school, to train and prepare myself for … Anyway. So what if my parents were Wanteds? Will’s parents were Wanteds. Heck, Lani’s parents were Wanteds, and her father is the senior governor! But look where that got her.
And look at you—you’re Unwanted, your parents are Necessaries, and your evil twin turned out to be Wanted. There’s no pattern, Stowe.” Samheed nearly spit venom with the last words.

“My brother is not evil!” Alex said, a little louder than he had planned. He hastily settled back in the seat and took a deep breath.

“Right. Sure, he’s not.”

“What do you know, anyway? You’re just as Unwanted as I am.”