A magic school story

Chapter Fifteen:

He slammed the dorm door as he came in, but the damn thing was so old and rickety it barely budged and all he did was dislodge his shoulder a bit. But he didn’t have any time to baby his pain, because right there on the kitchen being fed by Kate, was Brainrot.

Oh, shit.

Jess fwipped into the kitchen nearly spilling all the food he was carrying.

“Hey, guys.” He said casually, keeping his eyes fixed on the dog. He wanted to try to grab Brainrot, but he was now being firmly cuddled and cradled by Kate who sitting at the table in exactly the same place that Jess had first met her. Even Nora, was at the stove again battering the bowl of batter with a whisk.

“Jess!” Kate exclaimed. “How could you leave this little baby all alone inside the room? He was terrified!” But then she turned back to cooing the imp immediately. “Yes, you were! Yes, you were!”

The chihuahua gave a short disagreeing bark.

“Oh, you weren’t scared.” Kate said, with all the over the top emotion of a high school thespian. “You were so brave weren’t you!”

“Nice outfit.” Nora said, still not turning around from the stove.

“Thanks.” Jess replied. “Brainrot, ate all my clothes.”

Kate looked up at him quizzically. “Brainrot?” she asked. Then she turned back to the chihuahua and lifted him up into the air like baby Simba. “Brainrot!” she cheered, gleefully bringing him back down into a hug. “That’s so silly, it’s cute!”

Jess sighed and sat at the table dumping all the plates of food down. Guess they hadn’t figured out that there was a demon inside.

“Did you get all that for breakfast?” Kate asked. “Do you want to warm everything up? I can help get everything ready if you want.”

“It’s for Brainrot mostly,” Jess said. “I didn’t bring any dog food yesterday.”

“Did you just bring him over yesterday?” Kate asked in surprise.

“Yep, I went home to get more clothes and found him wondering around on the streets.”

"He was on the streets! Oh..." she said sorrowfully. My gosh, this girl was too sweet, Jess thought. She just met this dog a few minutes ago, but you could tell she'd go on a crusade for him already. "Do you think his owner is looking for him then? They must miss him so much.”

“I'm not sure." Jess said. "I don't think he's a stray. But I don’t know anyone I my neighborhood with a Chihuahua. My dad wasn’t home so I couldn’t leave him at my house, so I had to bring him with me.”

“That’s so kind of you.” Kate said, admiringly. “You went out of your way to do all that. Thank you so much, Jess."

He sputtered not knowing at all how to recover from a genuine compliment.

"Oh!" Kate continued excitedly. "You should write your dad and ask him to look out for the owner!"

“Already taken care off," Jess said. "I made sure I told him about Brainrot.” Jess was relieved that at least he was telling the truth for once. Minus the incriminating stuff of course.

“That’s good then.” Kate said. “Hear that Brainrot? Jess is going to get you home!”

Nora suddenly appeared at the table- which startled Jess because once again he completely lost track of her movements. Now, she sat down and placed a large stack of pancakes on the table and the plates and knives shot of the drawers and cupboards by themselves.

“How come you guys don’t go to the dining hall?” Jess asked, wondering why they were eating dry pancakes again so soon.

“Nora, doesn’t like being around so many people.” Kate answered, whilst she was happily letting Brainrot chew some of her soft blonde hair. “But some nights I'll go out and get dinner, and bring it back here for us.”

Dinner?

“Dinner?” Jess repeated, confused by her use of the word. Who called it that?

“Supper.” Nora corrected. “We’re American.”

“No accent.” Jess noted, in surprise.

“We’re half American, on Dad’s side.” Kate said. “So we moved back and forth a lot. We don’t have much of either accent but we have all the words, and we get jumbled sometimes.”

“Do you?” Jess laughed.

“Lowkey.” Kate joked, in her best most swaggerific pose.

Jess smiled at her. “Hey, if you’re just having pancakes, help yourself to some of Brainrot’s food.”

“Oooo, shall we, Nora?” Kate asked. “We normally always have pancakes, it’s Nora’s best dish.” She added to Jess.

“I’m not eating dog’s food.” Nora said threateningly.

“It’s people food!” Kate chirped, and grabbed a piece of bacon to feed Brainrot.

Jess didn’t realise it before, but as Nora and Kate sat in front of him he realised they were wearing matching clothes- just in different colours. Nora wore a black dress and a buttoned black coat. Kate the exact outfit, except her dress was white with a buttery yellow coat. Even the jewelry was the same black necklace- white necklace, black studded earrings- white gangly earrings. Okay maybe not all the same but-

Twins were weird weren’t they?

“Hey, didn’t you have an exam yesterday!” Kate asked excitedly. “So how was your first exam? Did you enjoy it or was it hard? We still find it hard even now. the standards here are so different.”

“Oh,” Jess shrugged. “I kind of missed the exam.”

Kate stared at him in alarm. “How did you miss the exam? Do you think you’ll be okay? I hope you don’t get into any trouble.”

“Doesn’t matter. I’m not technically starting here till next semester. I’ll actually choose my subjects then. I don't even know what I'm enrolled for now.”

“What subjects will you take?” Nora asked.

Jess was actually waiting for her to speak, since she hadn’t stopped glaring at him since she sat.

“Probably not charms.” Jess, said recalling how pissed the professor was at seeing him. He’d definitely avoid that guy if he could.

“What’s your academic average?” Nora asked, playing bad cop again.

“About average.”

“Above or below average?”

“Right in the middle.” He said, through gritted teeth.

Kate burst out laughing, popping the tense and almost violent tension. “You guys make me laugh!”

“Share the joke then, wouldn’t ya?”

Jess turned to see who had spoken- and why they had a British accent. A newcomer had entered the kitchen. A boy about Jess’s height entered in warmly. He looked about the same age as Jess. He was black with short neat hair, and a pair of plastic framed glasses.

“It’s a good morning, innit?” he said, to everyone. And in response, Nora woke up and left the kitchen.

Kate apologised for her immediately. “I’m so sorry! I’ll just go check on her.” And with that Kate left as well, leaving a confused and clingy Brainrot on the table. The little dog sprinted and tried clawing at the closed kitchen door to try to get back to her.

“Get to the room.” Jess hissed at it.

The imp must have heard him because the Chihuahua scampered away.

“Cold that one isn’t she?” the stranger said, still talking about Nora.

“Good pancakes at least.” Jess said, regaining his appetite.

“She is cold though! She goes Antarctica, and the penguins turn her away!”

Jess laughed at that and the stranger took it as an invite to join the table.

“I’m Matt by the way.” He said, offering a hand to Jess. “Another unfortunate prisoner in the Cancer dorm.”

“Jess.” Jess said, taking Matt's hand and introducing himself.

Matt only laughed. “Brother, believe me I know you. I’m 4th year too. Best charms exam I’ve ever written! I probably lost a mark or two mind you. You took a good chunk of the test.”

“What, they didn’t give you the time back?” Jess asked.

“Doesn’t work like that does it.” Matt said, and to Jess’s relief, despite his serious tone now Matt didn’t sound angry or upset.

Matt was silent, then stared at Jess and then laughed to himself. “I’ve never seen such a calm mans before in my life.” He laughed.

Jess shrugged.

And Matt laughed again. “You don’t get it, you’ve been here two minutes and you’ve gone and gotten yourself marked.”

“Have I actually?” Jess asked.

“Brother, what you did this morning- If I was Brentley, I wouldn’t have it. That guy is stupid popular, everyone loves him. He's like a bad boy but in the top of the class... Nah, no one's on your side brother. Maybe some younger kids he takes the piss out off will laugh with you but nah. And you can bet Brentley ain't happy. Maybe he had that and much worse coming, but you’ve gone and dug your own grave and built your own coffin and everything. And even worse than that Brentley… The academics like me. You took five minutes from the exam! Believe me if people’s marks come back bad… They’re blaming you. Those four guys that were failed for cheating? They’re blaming you.”

“They can try.” Jess shrugged. “I’ll have to get Gwen to play bodyguard at this rate.”

Matt made a whooping sound. “I’ll be perfectly honest, I do not envy you. But we gotta stick together you know? There’s only a few of us in the Cancer dorm and we’re up against it here.”

“Amen.” Jess toasted. But his mind was still on what Matt had said about Brentley. So he was a high functioning psycho then? In the cafeteria Brentley did look handsome and dressed only slightly preppy, and he clearly came from a high born family. He must be well liked. Jess had expected to be more of a clear cut sitcom bully. It clearly wasn't so.

“So how’d you piss off Nora?” Jess asked.

“They’re Americans you know!” Matt explained.

”Mm, sounds like you had it coming.” Jess joked.

“The war's been over ten years they need to get over it.”

“You guys killed a lot of them.” Jess said. “Maybe she lost someone.”

“I wasn’t the one that killed them though was I?” Matt sighed. “Probably didn’t help that I rubbed it in her face? Now why’d I do that though?” Matt asked himself, shaking his head. “Something bout that girl is off. She provoked me.”

Jess said, nothing but kept chewing through some fruit.

“I might have made a joke, the first time she came here, and she took it bad.” He continued. “But I apologized so my conscience is clear. Anyway… You wanna move to the lounge? The Knights are playing.”

“The knights are full of crap.” Jess said.

“Yeah, but they’re playing Meadhouse.”

“That’s a good game then.” Jess said, excitedly. He hadn’t watched a good discus game in a while. And Meadhouse was a good team to watch, they were one of the original teams that never had a big takeover and was still mostly made up of local homegrown players and coaches. A real home team, but they played dirty, so they were the most fun to watch.

“I'm gonna kill you!”

This time Jess recognized who had entered the kitchen and spoke. And however scary Brentley, the imp, and Nora were... They had nothing on Gwen right now.

She stood there angrily, in an un-ironed set of clothes and wildly uncombed hair that was frizzled and floating just by how much magic she was leaking as she glared at Jess. A glares so angry that her eyes had begun glowing red like iron in a fire.

In moments like Jess always knew what to do. He had always fought back, or tricked his way out of something, outsmarted and out lied and right now he knew what to do again:

Run.

He was out of his seat ready to sprint away when a bolt of lightning flashed passed his face and crashed into the kitchen sink shattering the plates.

“Don’t you dare move!” she said storming angrily toward him.

“Listen! Listen! Just tell me what happened.” he said, trying to calm the situation.

And ironically even though she’d saved him just this morning she drew her fist back and punched him straight in the nose, and he felt his neck snap back.

“Ow, Jesus.” He sputtered, wondering if any blood was coming out.

“You need some help, there brother?” Matt asked in bewilderment, though not at all looking like he wanted to step in.

“What the hell, Gwen!” Jess yelled in pain.

“The headmistress just kicked me out of my dorm.” She yelled back.

“Oh.”

“Not 'oh', Jess! She said that, you said that I wanted to move!”

“I may have…”

“Why would I want to come this stupid waste of a dorm! And she’s refusing to let me switch back to the Aries dorm because you need me for the Dorm Games!”

“Okay…” Jess said slowly, “So then you’re staying here? That’s good we need you to participate!”

“You cannot be so selfish!”

“What?”

“You had me transferred here out of Aries so you could take part in the dorm games! You’re not even going for the military or the Aries dorm! Why do you care about winning!”

“I- uh- well.” His voice had taken a very lost whiny tone, since he seemed to be blanking at every turn. “I don’t have to win... like you said I’m not going for the military.” Jess whined.

“But I am!" she exclaimed. "And you dragged me to the cancer dorm! Who's going to take me seriously now!” Gwen said, and now her eyes were threatening to tear. “I just can’t believe you.”

“Okay, listen." he said, drawing closer. "We need you, Gwen. We don’t have a chance at winning with these guys.” Jess said, not caring how desperate he sounded.

Matt was smart enough to stay silent through all of this, occasionally he reacted with some expression- but silence was safest.

“That doesn’t mean anything!" Gwen snapped, but she was sounding more depressed and defeated than angry now . "You can’t get me kicked out of my dorm, Jess. You need to fix this.”

“I can’t,” Jess said, desperately. Then he sighed, completely defeated. All that was left was how he really felt. "I need your help.” He admitted.

She shook her head.

“Please.” he begged.

"I-"

"Please."