"Erm...sorry..." said his friend, Rick. The boy's normally fair skin was as red as a cut beet. After a split second of worried hesitation he bent down in his chair and scrabbled to pick up what appeared to be a thin cigar tube off of the tiled floor. He finally glommed onto the thing just as half the class was turning to see what this new distraction was all about. Rick hastily thrust the silvery tube into his jacket pocket. Still in full turbo hyperblush, he grinned like a cartoon character at all the attention. "Dropped my pen..." he finished lamely.
No one called him on it, however, as the dam of conversation chose that moment to break, flooding the stunned kids with a torrent of babble. Indeed, only Jim was still paying Rick any mind. He made sure that his suspicion was plain upon his face. It worked: Rick, who was finally losing color, reddened anew and sunk into his seat, staring at little particles of guilt apparently floating just above his desk.
After a full fifteen minutes, during which the hubbub grew from amazed chatter to a somewhat prurient uproar, an assistant principal did his very best to try to restore order using nothing but stern glares. When this, somehow to his surprise, failed, he waded into the tumult and started throwing orders like a sprinkler spitting water. It was in this atmosphere that Jim bolted from his seat, grabbed Rick by the collar and hauled him out into the hall.
"Hey! Ow!" protested Rick, though honestly he put up only petty resistance; he was only too glad to get out of there.
"As surely as an Andorian's cunt is blue, you had something to do with what happened to Ms. Garcia!" accused Jim.
Rick looked him up and down. "That was a bizarre thing to say, Jim, I have'ta say..."
Jim scowled down at his slightly shorter friend. "Don't change the subject. What did you do in there? What was that tube I saw you pick up?"
Rick started walking down the hall, forcing Jim to follow.
"Change the subject?" he said, his eyes glancing furtively at every door they passed, reminding Jim of a rat in a cat-guarded house. "I'm not the one talking about the pudenda of cheesy Star Trek aliens, Jim."
"Jesus, you moron, just tell me..."
Rick the Rat interrupted, his voice squeaking with tension. "Not here, bud. I call for an emergency ditching. You comin' with?"
Without waiting more than a half-second for an answer, Rick scampered for an exit.
"Hey, I...wait!" called out Jim. He raced for the door and was through it before it closed. He spied Rick already across the school lawn in a fast walk calculated to look nonchalant and failing utterly. By the time an out-of-breath and out-of-shape Jim reached him Rick was clearly heading for a nearby gas station. Losing patience, Jim grabbed Rick again and twirled him around. The two friends stared at each other. Rick was the first one to break away, clearly embarrassed, yet excited just beneath. His voice took on the character of the "letter peddler" on that TV puppet show.
"Wanna see a magic wand?" he said, glancing first this way then that.
Before Jim could answer, Rick was already pulling out the silvery stick, looking for all the world like a gnomish pervert revealing the stage pole of a fairy's strip club. It was shiny with chrome but covered in Rick's greasy fingerprints. It had a slight knob at either end; really more like caps. It was otherwise unremarkable...a Beverly Hills Pixie Stick.
"A magic wand," repeated Jim, unconvinced.
"Yep," affirmed Rick. "I guess, anyway...I found it behind old Mrs. Smillwallow's trash can. I've been experimenting with it for the last coupla' days." He carefully handed it to Jim, who took it warily, turning it over and over.
"You made Ms. Garcia..." he started, still looking at the "wand".
"Drop her chalk?" grinned Rick. "Yes." He retrieved the thing from Jim. "I can only do relatively small things like that...I figure this really was Mrs. Smillwallow's magic wand (or whatever) and she threw it away before it completely ran outta "juice", just like people toss lighters when the flame gets low."
Jim gave Rick a look, like a dog tasting his own shit and discovering that it wasn't so bad. "You call blowing Garcia's tits up 'small'?"
Rick's grin calmed a bit. "Well, compared to trying to turn the neighbor's kid into a bat, yeah, just small stuff."
"You mean you tried to..."
"So, what the heck was that about an Andorian's cunt earlier, Jim?" Rick had tucked the rod back into his jacket.
Jim ignored him and thought about the weird day he was having so far. After a minute or so, he blinked to clear a little dust from his eyes and looked at his friend.
"So," he began, his voice casual, "what now, kemo sabe?"
Sat Jul 25 03:30:06 1998