The Foods We Like

Lunch:

Lunch, at Ledoric’s, was an overlong affair. It was expected that we spent some of our two and a half hours to simply go home to our student apartments, to form study groups, or to visit teachers for their office hours. In this way, and others, Ledoric’s had the design of a university in mind.

We didn’t have a real cafeteria, though we had a dining area that was seldom used. As we were allowed to leave the campus during lunch, we were expected to find something for ourselves somewhere in Maple. Our Student IDs could be used to purchase things from the businesses in town, and the businesses would be paid by the school. When my father first heard about this, he grumbled something about taxpayer dollars. My mother cut him off quickly, saying how it didn’t matter so long as we were well fed. The students at the other schools in Maple weren’t given the same luxury.

I flew to the large Maple Mall on the opposite side of town. It wasn’t quite a mile, and I could make that distance quite quickly. By the time I got there, I could already see high schoolers’ cars filling the mall’s garage. Three thousand people lived in Maple. Over two hundred were Ledoric’s students, and another thirty-or-so were faculty. Maybe three hundred total. The local economy desperately needed us.

There were some of the students from Lincoln High School at the Mall today. They must have been paying for their food themselves. They weren’t magical, so it was fair. I was sitting in the food court with a little tray in front of me. Though fairies were a very rare sight in most of the United States, there were maybe ten total in Maple, and the restaurants knew how to make a portion that wasn’t too big for a horse. Barely. I’d ordered a salad from the McDonald's. Almost everyone got McDonald's or some other fast food for themselves. It was how we all celebrated the new semester. But, trying to eat meat had made me sick since I could remember. I used to love it.

Pippa and Fern were supposed to meet me here, but they were taking a long time to finally walk over. I sat on the edge of the table, picking at my salad quietly. I didn’t want to finish before they even arrived, that would feel wrong. I looked at it longer, my belly growling. If I did, I could wait for them in the Barnes & Noble instead, and they could get something while I browsed through the new releases. The clerk there had gotten to know me. She also knew Edward, though that was because he had been banned for the store. Smoking or something.

I grabbed one of the tiny leaves and jammed it into my mouth, gnashing at it slowly. I could just take as much time as possible to actually finish the salad, then I could say I waited for them while also not starving myself. A couple human teenagers watched me, though I didn’t recognize them. One walked over, “Hey, are you from that Ledoric’s school?” He was tall, maybe sixteen, with a sports jersey loosely dangling around his shoulders.
I slurped up the lettuce leaf that was hanging halfway out of my mouth, “Yes, yes.”

“I thought I saw you around town once before,” he said, “you guys do magic or something, right?”

“Yeah, everyone knows that,” I scratched my chin. That’s what Ledoric’s was famous for.

His friend tried to pull him away. She tried to whisper to him, but I made out every word she said, “They’re a bit elitist, Teddy.”

He whispered back, also loudly enough that I could hear, “Well she’s adorable.” He stepped a little closer to me, “Sorry, I just moved to town, so I’m getting used to magic being like this common thing around here.”

“Of all places in the world, why’d you move here?” I asked, “You’re like ten times more likely to encounter some kind of weird monster here.”

“For my Dad’s work,” Teddy explained, “well, it’s nothing. Monster’s are cool, too. What’s the worst that could happen?”

“Don’t worry about it,” I muttered. Ledoric’s would only revive its own students. I hoped he didn’t get into any trouble.

His friend snickered, “Well there’s a whole school of magic people, so you guys would protect us from a monster, right?” She asked halfheartedly. She already knew the answer. If it was convenient.

“Hey!” Another girl’s voice echoed from across the food court. Fern was short for a human girl, and she magically dyed her hair an obnoxious green at all times. She ran between the high schoolers and me, “Come on, leave her be.”

“What? We were just talking!” Teddy complained. I looked away.

“See, I told you,” his friend whispered to him, “they’re an odd flock.” They went on their way calmly.

“Saved ya,” Fern’s head rocked back and forth as she talked, “Pippa felt a bit sniffly, so she actually went back home to get some medicine or something. Bet it’s catnip.”

“They were just asking questions, Fern.”

“Waste-of-time, weirdo questions. I’d rather listen to Bruno and his weird, lonely moping,” Fern looked at the salad, “you never try anything anymore.”

“I have the things I like.”

“Ugh, boring.” She carefully touched the edge of my bowl with her finger, “Y’know, this diet is probably why you don’t really grow.”

“Really?” I looked down at it. I wasn’t hungry anymore. “Thanks, Fern. That’s really helpful. I didn’t think much about that.”

“You, not think?” She hiccuped, “I guess it happens to everyone. Fish can be easier if you haven’ had meat in a while. Though, I’d try the pork dumplings if I were you.”

I pushed the bowl away from me, “Another time. I’m full today.”

She looked at the mostly full salad, “Wow, you hardly had any!” She said loudly, “Well, it can’t be helped. You’ll never be as fat as I am, at least.” Fern was well within a healthy weight.

“Are you getting anything?”

“Nah,” She poked at her belly, “I have the opposite problem, remember? I lost twelve pounds over the summer, though!”

“That’s… a lot,” I said carefully.

“For you, sure,” she said, “do you even weigh one pound?”

“Not quite, no.”

“Lucky,” she sighed, “you still need to eat more.”

I glanced around, “How was homeroom today? Ms. Snowfox made us do some kind of icebreakers or whatever.”

“Pippa was telling me! Mina and I have Ms. Verdant this year. She was totally disengaged when Mina was talking. It was offensive.”

“Ms. Verdant is really friendly.”

“Usually. I don’t know what changed this year, but it’s like she forgot Mina existed altogether. Imagine someone doing that. And to the Vice President too!”

“You know who else was a Vice President at Ledoric’s?” I asked. This was something Mina and I had been proud of. It was the final element that made us decide on running for Vice President instead of President.

“President Dreammaker. Everyone knows that,” Fern shrugged. Sally Dreammaker graduated from Ledoric’s before I was even born. Now, she held the highest office. Flyers went out back before the summer reminding kids to tell their parents to vote for her re-election. “Dreammaker is a human, Alice. I have a better chance than Mina. Now, Secretary of Agriculture? Maybe.”

“She’s worth more than that. Everyone voted for her, or at least enough of everyone.”

“Ledoric’s people have one thing in common. Magic. Non-magical people see a magicky, tiny girl with cute little moth wings, and they get apprehensive. She might win California, but Nebraska? Are there even any fairies in Nebraska at all?”

“What’s Nebraska worth anyway? Three points? Maybe four?” I asked.

“It’s not Nebraska, Alice. It’s Nebraska and Wyoming and Alaska and a blur of other pointless states. They don’t have magic there. They don’t have people there. Just a bunch of humans who all look and act the same. The Baptists would start witch hunts against us if we let them.”

“You’re a human, Fern.”

She nodded, “My grandfather owns a farm in Nebraska. My mother spent her whole childhood there. Imagine how they reacted when I got sent to Ledoric’s. At least I’m not a hillbilly.”

“How could they have been mad? The Veil only just fell when you turned five.”

“That made it worse for them,” Fern said, “It wasn’t new, but it was new to them. And imagine hearing about a new thing, a new thing that can save lives. That can make things better for you. Imagine all that and being afraid. Most humans, most of everyone are a bunch of cowards.”

“People voted for Dreammaker.”

“Because she said she would limit magic. And she did.” Fern laughed to herself. “I think she’s a traitor. She is a fox pretending to be a rabbit.”

I adjusted my glasses, “Limiting? Whatever. It’s not like we can’t use it.”

“What do you mean?”

“The Airlines Magic Act?” I smiled, “Who is even casting spells on airplanes anyway?”

“Well of course that one doesn’t affect you, you can fly.”

“I can’t fly to New York in six hours.”

She looked out the window, “None of us can. We can’t even sneak out to Big Sur anymore.”

“We can just go camping in the forest,” I offered.

“That’s the one with the monsters in it,” She tapped her foot against the ground, “be my guest, Alice. You have the best track record with monsters.”

I picked myself up, “I-I’m going to the bookstore, Fern.”

“See if they have any geology books!” She called after me.

Fourth Period:

Our schedule wasn’t the same every day. Today, I had Ms. Snowfox’s elective. Magical Creatures: How Not to Get Yourself Eaten. I was happy to have multiple classes with her this year. I told myself I took this class just because she was the one teaching it.

Today, we were only in the library. This class only had middle schoolers in it. There were four elective groups: second and third graders, fourth and fifth graders, middle schoolers, and high schoolers. So, for any elective I took, I’d only see the other sixth, seventh, and eighth graders.

Mr. Rye, the librarian kept his eyes firmly planted on Ms. Snowfox as she padded along the edges of the bookshelves, hopping from one ledge to another as she talked. “Good afternoon, everyone. I hope you had a fabulous lunch!”

Bruno muttered, “No…”

She turned and looked at him, “Well work on that. You eat good, you feel good. Well, you know that.” She stopped her self, “just take care of yourself. Fern, where are you?”

“I’m here, Bianca!” She raised her hand.

“You too,” she shot her a glance, her eyes sharply passing over me as she did. For a moment, it felt like they stopped. “This class is about how it’s dangerous out there. You could have taken psychology, or 18th century naval combat, or even bagpipes, but you chose this class because you know it’s important. This will do nothing for you if you don’t keep yourself healthy.”

I tuned her out. What did health matter in the face of a real monster? She went on, “None of you could win a fight against a bear, I don’t care how cool you think you are. But, if you’re well fed, you can run faster, you can cast spells more sensibly. Do you know why I’m uniquely situated to teach this class?”

“Alice?” She asked, “Why do you think?”

“You’re a fairy. In your true form, you’re six inches tall. Anything may as well be a monster if it wants to be,” I read the spines of the books in front of me. It was a stupid question for the kids in the back, but she made me answer it.

“Exactly,” she hopped up further, looking down over the whole class from the top of the bookshelves, “And everything can be faster, it can be bigger, it can be smarter. I heard about a spider the size of a car once.”

“Ms. Snowfox,” Roland cleared his throat, “what does health have to do with this?”

“A hungry bear doesn’t chase the large, scary person. He chases their slow, emaciated, delicious partner. That’s just a normal creature. Magical creatures show even better judgement, but they’re still opportunists.” She smiled, “And besides, why waste an advantage when you could have it instead? Now, you’re taking this class in the right year. Principal Gray ensured this must only be a theory class, I can’t just take you all into a giant wolves’ den. Now, giant is relative, and to me it’s no difference. Annoyingly, he said I can only do that with the high schoolers. But, the wolves are getting bigger and stronger every year. My, the giant wolves might be even faster and even hungrier by the time you’re all in high school.”

“Awww,” Fern pouted, “We can’t see them up close?”

“Complain to the principal, not me,” Ms. Snowfox teased, “I’m more than happy to feed you all to a bunch of wolf cubs. The adults wouldn’t even bother having you for themselves.”

I kept looking over the books. I’d read most of them before. The chatter aimlessly went on. Ms. Snowfox had us talk about our favorite magical creatures at one point. She called up Bruno and asked him to present the “Mighty lycanthrope” for the whole class.

Instead, he walked forward, shook his head, and started talking about the Kraken. Ms. Snowfox looked disappointed but not surprised.

“Alice,” She waited for me to look away from the books, “We still need somebody to talk about them.”

“Dragons?” I knew that’s not what she meant, “Supposedly they only exist in the wild in East Asia. One appeared in Washington D.C. in October, 2000.”

“Yes, yes. President Dreammaker got rid of it, and then she got elected. An October Surprise.” Ms. Snowfox said. “I was hoping you would talk about lycanthropes instead. You’ve studied them extensively.”

“I already presented a creature,” I asserted. She gritted her teeth together, but didn’t press the issue.

The Night:

I flew toward where the chess club was meeting, but ultimately turned away. I wasn’t sure who would be there. Instead, I just went back to the student apartments. They were scattered throughout Maple, and I shared one with my siblings. The edge of the forest encroached against the facade of the old brick building. It was originally made for humans, but it had been refitted with tiny furniture, making the building feel intensely spacious. Mina was sitting on the couch when I entered, “You didn’t go to club?” She glanced at the clock.

“I thought student council meets after school.”

“We met during lunch,” she shrugged, “the other officers thought it was useless to meet after school until the President gets back. I tried to convince them.”

“Why did they even want to get elected,” I sat beside her, “now they just don’t want to do their jobs.”

“Ha!” She leaned her head back over the back of the couch, her wings spreading out behind her, “Have you seen real politicians? We’re saints here. Hard workers and saints.”

“What are you planning to do tonight?” I asked.

“Edward is making lambchops! Oh… and he got carrots and grapes too.”

“I thought he was sick.”

“Come on. He was just ditching,” she said.

“I think I’m just going to head to bed,” I walked away. She watched as I left. Mina quietly exhaled.

I lay flat across my bed and closed my eyes. I was back again. There were all the same people, all the same places. There was Bruno. Before second grade, him and I had been best friends. He had a lot of friends, then.

He had no control of himself. He had no way of preventing it. Bruno killed me when we were both in the second grade. He’d been bitten by a were-coyote, and nobody really knew until he turned.

He transformed into a hairy beast in the last hours of the day. Him and I were the last people in the school library, finishing up a homework assignment together. Neither of us noticed as the moonlight washed through the windows, and I stayed around him as he crumpled over in pain. I’d heard of lycanthropes before, but I didn’t realize quite what was happening to him. I was six.

By the time I understood the core of his pain he’d already changed completely. I tried to fly away from him, but in a second he grabbed me. I tried to avoid his teeth, thinking I was surely going to become a were-creature like him if he bit me. Instead, he simply swallowed me. His momentary transformation ended before I died, and he could do nothing about what he’d done. He was crying and screaming at himself before I was even fully dead. It was the last thing I heard.

I woke up five days later in Nurse Var’s office. My mother was there. She hadn’t known resurrection was possible at Ledoric’s. My original body didn’t exist in any coherent sense, but this one was a perfect copy. I blamed it for the fact that I grew slower than my classmates. I blamed it when I wasn’t quite fast or strong enough for something.

I had to take the same silver pills as him for the next week. I’d been in contact with a lycanthrope’s saliva. Because the infection wasn’t so far along in me, I was able to be completely cured. It had already become chronic in Bruno, and he’d have to take those pills daily for the rest of his life.

It was three years later when I was finally forced to speak to him again. It was late last spring, and I was pushed into it by Ms. Snowfox. “Do you see how alone he is?” She asked me.

“I don’t really pay attention to him,” I lied. I always saw him in the corner of my eye. I never let him out of my sight.

“I want you to do your final project with him,” she demanded.

“No,” my wings spread out behind me, broad and imposing, like a cat arching it’s back.

“That wasn’t a suggestion, Alice,” Bianca put her hand on my shoulder, “It was a direction. I’ll be watching, okay?”

I flinched at her touch, “Why?”

“Because he’s twice as angry about that memory as you’ll ever be.”

“You’re wrong,” I said, “that’s just unfair.”

She shrugged, “I’ll let you make your decision on that once you’ve actually done the project.” I got a low A on the project, the lowest score I received all year. I just couldn’t focus properly. I told myself repeatedly throughout our work that I was only acknowledging him for the grade, I promised that to myself. But when we were done, he stopped me between classes to congratulate me. I think I said some token response, but he went on asking me how I’d been for the last three years. I wanted to tell him plainly how I’d been feeling, but instead, I said that things had been wonderful. I apologized for not saying anything for so long, and I was cursing at myself in my head as I did.

He finally knelt down to look as closely as he could at me, struggling to even look into my eyes. His tried to shut themselves when mine were even close to them. “I’m sorry. I mean- I… That means nothing. I’m just being stupid, again.”

“Yeah…” I looked away, “okay, Bruno.”

I’d fallen asleep already, my dreams taking me back. This was Ledoric’s where death was only a roundabout in the road. After all, we mattered more than the other kids.