Authors: Lia London
The next day, I ate my lunch on the top bench of the bleachers outside where Hadley and Elizabeth usually joined me. Half-way through my sandwich, I saw Amity climbing up towards me instead. “Well, if it isn’t the famous Amity!” I said, not as nicely as I could have. “Where were you during chemistry today?”
“Oh…Yeah, sorry about that,” she said, sitting down on the bench below me. “I was…trying to test out of the class.”
“What?”
“Well, I went down to Miss Flinckey’s office to see if you guys even allow people to test out.”
“She’s a counselor. Mr. Whittle’s the test guy.”
“Right, but he was too busy to see me.
Flinckey said I can’t anyway. I’ll be back in class tomorrow.” She looked half mad and half sad. Squinting up at me, she asked, “How’d it go today, anyway?”
“
You got us a perfect score yesterday. Petercriss was
not
pleased.”
“With you?”
“With
you
. He takes pride in being the guy that wrecks grade point averages.” Suddenly I laughed. “I guess either you’re going to rock his world, or he’ll up the stakes for all of us.”
She shook her head and stuffed a slice of apple into her mouth. “Can he stomach 95%? I’m not going lower.”
“We’ll find out,” I said.
She started coughing, and I pounded on her back so she wouldn’t choke, but she held up her hand. “Did you
see
that?” she asked, pointing out onto the field. “That was
amazing!
”
I looked down at a pack of
freshman cheerleaders. “What did they do?”
“They were up in one of their big pyramid things, and the ground buckled right under the tall girl there, and then they started to collapse, but—”
“But the girls flew down,” I said, bored. “They have to do that when the Punkers open Dirt Holes under them. It’s a stupid prank, but common enough.”
“No,”
said Amity, shaking her head vigorously. “The girl on top is from Corporal. I met her. She did this flip thing and landed perfectly like it was no big deal.”
“Cool,” I admitted. I saw the girl. She was super petite, but looked like there was nothing but muscle on her. While the other girls
kicked at the Dirt Holes and yelled at a nearby Punker, she started doing handsprings up and down the track. I’d never seen anything like it except on TV when it’s all computer animation. “Whoah! That’s brilliant!”
“Yeah, it is,” said Amity.
“The Punkers will have to try harder to make
her
fall.”
“Dirt bags,” said Amity.
“Dirt
Holes
,” I corrected. “Some Mages can open up pockets of land. It’s why they get hired as excavators so often.”
“You ever do that to someone?” she a
sked, eyeing me with that flame-throwing look of hers.
“Nah, I can’t. Earth isn’t really one of my Elements.”
“What happens if a kid gets hurt because one of those things?”
“Find a teacher
to heal you. All the teachers can. It’s part of their certification.”
“They
can
, but they don’t. I saw two Wiser kids limping today, and one Corporal with a burn on his cheek. Somebody did your spark trick, no doubt.” Amity turned and faced me straight on. “Do you really think Mages and Nomers are ever going to get along? Even out there in the ‘real world’, you don’t see many businesses that hire both or cater to both.” She wasn’t accusing me, but I felt challenged.
“But they used to, didn’t they? Way back when? The districts
only divided because of schools wanting to meet kids’ needs better.”
Amity sneered and looked out at the field where a Punker was throwing Water
Balls at some freshmen. “To meet the kids’ needs, or to meet society’s need to break up the fights?”
***
Seventh period study hall was bad. The teachers and administrators with a free hour rotate through that duty, and it was Mr. Whittle today. Jack sat two seats in front of me and kissed up to Whittle in the worst way. I don’t know how Whittle puts up with it. I mean, Jack got water from the drinking fountain and formed it into a thin cushion to do the wet pants gag, and Whittle didn’t even get mad when some poor Nomer girl sat on it. He chuckled and said, “Now boys, put your magic away until after school.”
Anyway, when the bell rang, Mr. Petercriss came in
to talk to Mr. Whittle. He grabbed my arm as I passed by and said, “Your little Nomer friend wanted to test out of my class.”
“Yeah, she told me,” I said, trying to pull away politely.
Mr. Whittle looked at me funny. “You know only incoming freshman can test out,” he said.
“
It wasn’t my idea,” I said. “I’m glad she can’t test out. She’s the smartest lab partner I’ve ever had.” I looked right at Petercriss.
That went over like a fairy in a chicken coop. With his free hand,
Petercriss jabbed me in the shoulder. “Just make sure chemistry is the only thing you do with that girl, or you’ll lose everything.”
“Are you threatening me, sir?”
Mr. Whittle raised a hand, calming me down. “No, Kincaid. He’s stating a fact. You mingle with Nomers—you get too close—you’ll lose it all.”
I shrugged my arm free. “Whatever you say, sir,” I said, turning to go.
As I reached the door, I heard Petercriss say, “It’ll serve him right if he falls for her.”
Mr. Whittle kind of
sighed. “He’ll end up like Flinckey. Lose his Jump.”
I was half way down the hall before I really processed what they’d said. I had no idea what they were talking about
.
***
About an hour after Kelsey got home, the doorbell rang. “Kelsey, let Mom in. She must have lost her house key again!” I shouted.
“It’s not Mom. It’s some
girl.”
I jumped up from my bed
and took the stairs down three at a time. Looking through the peep hole, I saw nothing. Kelsey pulled back the curtains of the living room window, and there was Amity knocking on the glass.
“Hey,
are you in there?”
I jerked back in surprise and then felt like an idiot, but I smoothed my hair back and opened the door.
“Hi, Amity. What brings you by?”
She started to enter,
but Kelsey ran forward and slammed the door on her.
“Kelsey! What are you
doing?
”
“We’re not supposed to let strangers in.”
I opened the door. Amity looked at me, half cracking up. “Ouch?”
“Oh man, are you hurt?”
“Just my finger,” she said, holding it up. She smiled at Kelsey. “You’re fast.”
“Who are you?” demanded Kelsey.
“It’s okay, Kelsey. This is my lab partner, Amity.” I held the door open wide and Amity walked in slowly, smiling at Kelsey as if trying to appease a vicious guard dog.
Kelsey relaxed. “Did I really hurt you?”
“It’s a little red and throbby, but I’ll survive.”
“Kincaid can h
eal you,” said Kelsey proudly.
Amity
faced me with a pleasantly surprised expression, and I suddenly wondered if my breath stank or if I had stains on my shirt. “Uh, yeah…Do you need me to…?”
She made a big show of examining her finger and shook her head. “I think
I’ll pull through.”
I was used to being around girls, but for some reason, Amity made me feel self-conscious. She was so hard to read, even for a girl. I gave up trying to guess and asked, “Again, what brings you by?”
She rolled her eyes at me. “You’re the welcoming committee, remember? As far as I can tell, there are no other seniors living within a five-block radius, so I thought I’d come bug you since at least I know you.”
“Oh. Yeah. Sure. I was just
doing homework. Do you want to come up to my room?”
Kelsey gasped.
“
Ooooh!
Kincaid’s got a—”
“Shut up, Kelsey. She’s my lab partner, okay?”
Amity chewed her lips shut, and followed me up to my room. She paused half-way up the stairs. “What, you don’t fly up the stairs?”
“Magic takes energy, too, you know.”
“It does?” She followed me in, and closed the door to my room with a little wave at Kelsey, who I knew would plant herself in the hall to spy. “I didn’t know that.”
“
Shocking, but true,” I said, flopping down on my bed. “Takes as much energy to use Travel Magic as it does to walk or run, just a different kind of energy.”
Amity grunted in thought and sat down on the floor. She has really nice legs, so I tried not to stare by picking up my history book. “You got history with
Schooster?”
“Yeah
, it’s weird.”
“What do you mean?”
“Each chapter goes back and forth between Mage history and Nomer history. But there’s never anything about them interacting much.”
“I wonder why that is. Two civilizations side by side—”
“
Not
side by side,” she said. “It’s more like we’re braided together. Separate strands, but forced together.”
I thought about the braids Kelsey sometimes wore in her hair, and the analogy made sense. “There’s always that bit at the end where the hair comes together in one bunch,” I said.
“After it’s been squeezed by a rubber band,” agreed Amity. “Do you think that’s what has to happen to us? We’ll all have to be squeezed before we come together?”
I dropped the history book back on the bed.
“Amity, are you for or against desegregation? I really can’t tell.”
Her mouth twisted
like she was afraid to answer. “I
was
against. But mostly because I knew I’d have to leave Wiser. But I want to learn new stuff, too, and I’m starting to think that even the Corporals know stuff I don’t.”
“That’s hard to imagine.”
“What about you? You lobbied for it. What do
you
think?”
“I wanted others to have the Magian High experience. It’s a really great school.”
“So is Wiser,” she said.
“You don’t feel like Magian is a step up?” I asked.
As soon as I said it, I realized it was the worst line I’d delivered yet.
Amity looked at her watch. “I probably better go. I just meant to stop by and say hi.”
She got up and opened the door. Kelsey was there, playing with the gaming board in the hall. Something with ponies kicking flowers around. “Is that Binky’s Bouquet?” asked Amity. “I made it to level seven on that once.”
Kelsey stared at Amity like she was made of gummy bears.
“
Really?!
Show me how?”
Amity
glanced at me. “Maybe another time.”
Before I could apologize
, she had let herself out the front door. Kelsey looked up from the gaming board. “She’s nice.”
***
“Mom, where does magic come from? Is it inherited? Can you learn it?”
Mom
sat bent over the bills, and didn’t react right away. When she did, she had her
trying-to-be-funny
voice: “I don’t know, but if you find some Money Magic lying around, let me know.”
“Mom, I’m serious.”
She sighed and pushed the bills aside. “It’s a complicated question, Kincaid.”
“Hey, you explained babies. Magic should be a snap.”
She got this wry look on her face. “Babies are a physical thing. They come because persons A and B get together and… Well, you know.” She didn’t really blush so much as look tired.
“Okay, so…explain it to me
.” I pulled up a dining room chair and sat on it backwards to face her.
She paused. “In a perfect world, we’d all be Mages because magic is passed from one person to another through demonstrations of true affection. Not sex, which may or may not
even include love. It’s when someone
really
cares about someone else and
shows
it. That’s why it gets passed along from parents to children most of the time, and so everyone assumes it’s hereditary.”
“It’s not hereditary?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know, but they haven’t been able to isolate a gene, so…?”
I thought about what Petercriss had said. “Can
we lose power by showing that we care?”
“Techn
ically, yes. But if we’re shown real love back, the magic is restored, often even increased.”