But after leading the class through a series of stretches, Qush Yurwush did not split them into pairs for sparring. “Chushr!” he shouted, gesturing with both arms to segment off one half of the class, including Jeff and Ushegg. “Ors Ruchjez!” he gestured to the second half, which included Suzy.
There was some groaning on both teams, but mostly from Jeff’s team, who began pulling off their beads – all their bracelets, their necklaces, and their anklets – and depositing them in little piles by the side of the school.
Jeff wondered if this would turn into shirts vs. skins, but after losing their jewelry, his team began collecting the big boards stacked in a pile on the corner of the school. Not boards – shields, Jeff realized, as he slipped one on his arms. Meanwhile, Suzy’s team had used a ladder on the side of the school and climbed onto the roof.
Ushegg rammed Jeff playfully with his shield. He was grinning from ear-to-ear. “Thiay yegu nez,” he said, hopping up and down like a boxer getting ready for a bout.
Jeff couldn’t suppress a grin of his own. He still didn’t know what was going on, but at least this felt like FUN.
On the roof, Suzy was not having fun. Qush Yurwush was yelling instructions that were totally incomprehensible, though she kept hearing “Choshoythmu” and wondered why that sounded familiar.
Behind her on the roof, there was a big wooden bucket full of orange sludge. THINGS were floating in it. Suzy shied away until she saw her teammates reaching in and pulling out handfuls of what looked like knotted rags.
At Shovuy’s urging, Suzy suppressed a gag and glopped out a couple for herself. Then she moved with Shovuy to the back side of the roof, where Jeff’s team, down on the ground, couldn’t see them.
“What?” she held up the rags, widening her eyes and shrugging. She had to be careful to keep the goo from dripping on her clothes.
Shovuy said, “Nshib nuqu,” and made a throwing motion at the same time Qush Yurwush yelled “Ci!”
Suzy was worried about not knowing the rules, but as it turned out, there wasn’t much to know.
At the teacher’s shout, the kids down below all began shooting spells up at the kids on the roof. The kids on the roof all started throwing the wadded rags, dripping in orange goo, back at the kids on the ground.
The ground team had a big advantage with the shields, but at the same time, the shields were heavy, and the kids couldn’t hold them up forever. Also, without shields, the kids on the roof were more mobile, running to the back of the roof and dropping down for cover when the electric currents of air came rippling up to meet them.
Suzy saw a couple of the boys run to the edge of the roof then scamper across the wall of the courtyard to flank the kids down on the ground. They managed to lob several of the orange-dripping rags over the shields and into the middle of the ground kids before the other team picked them off with spells. They dropped out of sight into the courtyard.
This is such a Jeff game, Suzy thought – playing commando on a roof and throwing slime grenades at people. She peeked over the rise of the roof and saw Jeff, dodging behind a big shield and looking intensely happy.
Suzy jumped up and hurled a bomb at Jeff, but he just managed to get his shield up in time to save his face. “Ha! Missed me!” He yelled. Definitely a Jeff game. But then Suzy was running and diving out of the way of an incoming ripple of a spell, and she had to admit, it was kind of thrilling.
As she lay there panting, Suzy saw Shovuy and Xequth loading up with grenades and giving signals to run for the front corners of the building together. Suzy wished she had more rags still, but as the others charged, Suzy jumped up too, ran forward, and launched the last of her bombs.
No hits.
Then, just as she was ducking down again, a ripple she hadn’t noticed hit her on the top of the head. The spell connected with an explosion of cold and hot trickling down from the crown of her head, almost like she had had an egg smashed there. Where the cold and the heat spread, her body went rigid. She tried to step away, but her legs stopped working. She teetered, then crashed stiffly to the roof. She remembered what choshoythmu meant.
Suzy looked ruefully at her brother as they walked back to the human school. The top half of his body was solid orange, the sludge still rolling lazily down his shirt and dripping as they walked.
“Do you think they did it to be nice? Like to a coach after a football game?” Jeff asked Suzy for the dozenth time.
“Quit asking!” Suzy tisked. “You were being a dork and gloating too much. But I think they mostly like you.”
Ushegg, who had been quiet for a while, slapped Jeff on the back. Then he wiped his hand off on a cleanish spot on Jeff’s pants.
“I wish we could get a good answer from him about the food,” Suzy said.
“Well, we can’t really understand what he’s saying, so maybe he HAS given us a good answer.”
“No, a good answer would be if he would keep explaining to us until we understood. Not just waving his hand,” Suzy waved her hand airily, “And ignoring us.”
They were almost to the bridge to the human school. “Don’t worry,” Jeff said, veering off the road and scrambling down the bank of mossy stones to the water. “He’s saying that they’re getting food. And if they haven’t gotten food, I won’t let go of Ushegg until the guards give us some.”
Suzy watched while
