Game Day

September 27
The Morning:

“Hey, rise and shine!” Terrance ran his fingers along my back. It rolled slightly, the fur bristling. My tail felt so strange, twitching behind me. “Everyone else is up, already.” The sunlight twinkled through the tall, gray curtains. They were frayed and torn at the bottom.

I hadn’t been to Bruno’s apartment in years. It was dark last night, and I was too tired to pay much attention to the surroundings. Bruno’s clothes were strewn out across the floor. Class papers covered every surface except for small gaps where there were little framed pictures. There was one of him and me when we were in first grade. His mother had taken it when him and I went to a Los Angeles amusement park together for his birthday. It had taken Mr. Stafford’s insistence for us to get special permission to leave Maple. I was grinning widely with one missing tooth in the middle, and we both had big ice cream cones.

Bruno came out of his bedroom, “Terrance, it’s only seven. I told you to let them sleep more.” He yawned and stretched his wings out behind him, “I didn’t think growing a couple inches would make my legs so sore.”

“You’re impersonating a fifty-year-old, dude. You’re supposed to have joint pain,” Terrance snickered, “Probably a midlife crisis and IBS, too.”

“My uncle is not having a midlife crisis,” Bruno huffed.

Mina scampered across the floor. She stopped, slowly turned around, then ran back. Pippa flopped sideways, watching her lazily, “Are you done yet, Zoomies?”

“You should get used to this body, too.” Mina skidded to a halt, panting, “In case you have to run from something, you know? I’m not getting caught.”

Pippa yawned, “We’ll be fine. Even if we are captured, they’ll think we’re mice and not students.”

“Students get arrested, then probably just sent back to school,” I said firmly, “mice probably get put on a fancy cruise ship somewhere with a huge, shiny deck, and big, comfy furniture.”

Pippa blinked, “If I were them, and I caught a mouse, I’d probably just eat it.”

“Luckily, most of them are human,” Mina’s tail swished back and forth behind her, “they’re not really interested in… ick… but, that wouldn’t stop them from just killing us.”

“It’s best to avoid that,” I said, “but we can be brought back. If you’re going to die anyway, use a bunch of random magic and overexert yourself. You’ll fall asleep.”

“If they see you using magic as a mouse, they’ll know you’re all not just mice,” Bruno shook his head, “if it goes bad for one person, they have to take it. Otherwise, you’ll just put everyone else in danger.”

Terrance flinched, “What do you mean just take it? Wouldn’t it hurt? I mean, just dying?”

“It might be better to die than to be kept alive for some reason,” I said, “if we die, Nurse Var can resurrect us. It’s an uncomfortable mess, but it’s not being a test subject. If you’re trapped anywhere, using quiet spells until your heart stops isn’t a terrible option.”

“Great,” Mina spoke in a saccharine voice, “and, what if there’s a way to warn everyone else if someone is caught. Like, cast a loud spell as a warning for everyone else to escape?”

“Nope,” Bruno grabbed a paperclip off a stack of his schoolwork. He slipped it into his pocket, “say they catch two of you, and you both create magical alarms before you die to warn the other person to leave. You both die, and Ledoric’s revives exactly two people within the next week. Who are they going to be asking questions to?”

Pippa spread her paws out, pressing her belly flat against the ground. Her tail slumped quietly behind her, “Alice, when did ya think of using magic as a way of…”

“Euthanasia?” I rested my head on my paw, “I should have known it the one time I needed it. I thought about it while using memory magic. You never want it to take an hour for you to die if it can take a minute instead.”

Mina blinked, “When did you start using memory magic like that? You said you use it for good memories!”

“I always have.”

“That’s not healthy, Alice,” she muttered.

Terrance sat on the ground, his knees bouncing in front of him, “I told you they like each other, Mina.”

She saw the framed picture out of the corner of her eye, “Then, why not go back there? Why…”

“I have. Many times,” I said, “I’ve been there. I’ve been in boring classes where Mrs. Strahn was lecturing about something I already knew. I’ve been in the movie theater when The Emperor’s New Groove came out and we went together, you were there, remember? I’ve been so many places, and then… I’ve also been back to that night. I go somewhere every night, but there, mostly there.”

Bruno looked away, “Stop, Alice.”

“Sorry, I won’t talk about it.”

“I mean…” He stopped himself, “Nevermind, I can’t tell you what to do.”

Terrance whispered to Pippa, “K-i-s-s-i-n-g.” She cackled.

“Shut up,” Mina buried her head in the carpet.

“I was whispering!” Terrance threw his arms up, “You aren’t supposed to eavesdrop on people.”

“Then whisper quieter.”

Pippa rolled over, giggling, “It’s funny, though, Mina! She would never like him! That’s why it’s funny!” I walked away from her.

Later:

I couldn’t help looking out of the bars of the little cage. Bruno was wearing a loose, blue suit. He had a big red tie on. Even though he looked almost exactly like Mr. Stafford, his eyes were a slightly different color, and his face was a bit thinner. To me, he looked like Bruno, but he was just a little taller, and he was dressed so nicely. Terrance left. He was supposed to take a position watching over the road and cast a simple spell to create a loud noise if anything seemed off. I was sure he’d get lost somewhere between here and his vantage point less than a quarter mile away.

Pippa was running around in circles, almost chasing her tail. Her claws scratched against the metal bottom of the cage. I’d never seen her nervous before. Mina lay flat against the ground, she was dead silent.

A horn blasted from the corner of the Ledoric’s campus just under a mile southwest. It carried out over the rocks and mixed in with the sound of the water. “Was that Terrance?” Pippa’s feet tapped up and down, “He was supposed to make a boom. Like a firework! A firework, not a horn!”

Bruno stopped for a moment. He looked in the direction of the sound, “He was supposed to be in the opposite direction. Come on, Terrance, really?” The sound of the national anthem started playing after the horn. Bruno sighed, “It’s just a sports game. We’re still in go mode.”

“Batter up!” Echoed out from the field. A roaring crowd and a thundurous applause.

“What if Mr. Stafford is at the game?” Mina whispered.

“He can’t stand baseball,” Bruno shook his head. “I called him this morning. He’ll be waiting at The Third Street Cafe in forty minutes, so he should be at home getting ready now.”

“Even if you fly, it’ll take you ten minutes to get over there,” I said, “are you really only giving yourself half an hour to get in and out?”

“He’s my uncle,” Bruno said, “he’ll wait for me if I’m late.”

Mina thought out loud, “You told him to go earlier than you could ever be there to make sure he wasted his time more, didn’t you?”

“I… I know, it’s not… I’ll apologize to him someday.” We’d been inside Site 91 briefly before. We had to go there anytime we needed to get permission to leave Maple. Now, the little gate under the razor wire fence loomed twice as tall. A soldier stood outside with a large, automatic rifle strapped to his front. The letters MP were stitched into his uniform’s sleeve.

The soldier looked into the cage, “Didn’t the site director tell you to store your weird lunch somewhere else, Stafford?” The soldier snickered, “Owl people…” As the soldier kept laughing, Mina turned around and glared at Bruno. I nudged her, we couldn’t be heard talking now.

Bruno flinched. He glanced at the soldier’s insignia, “This coming from you humans who like to eat brussel sprouts? How have you been, Sarge?”

“Better than ever. Linda and I are thinking of tying the knot. How’s your nephew doing?”

“Congratulations.” Bruno tapped his talon against the ground. He fiddled with his wings, “Kiddo decided to take my class this year. Flunked his first paper, can you believe it?”

“Just give him an A in the book anyway. You know nobody checks their GPA or anything,” The soldier laughed. He slowly opened the gate, “just going to your cubicle?”

“I needed to grab something from Ms. Snowfox’s for her,” he improvised, “I forgot which is hers, could you take me there?”

“She left something here?” The soldier led us forward, “She must have come by once when it wasn’t my shift. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her around here before.”

“You know her,” Bruno shrugged, “might’ve thought she left something here, and it’s actually somewhere in the middle of the damn forest. I may as well look on her behalf while I’m here.”

“I’ve only met her in passing. Heard some rumors,” He went on, “so, this mouse is pitifully small, this one is rather normal, and this last one is frightfully large. How do you come by such a selection?”

“I purchased them,” Bruno pointed at me, “this one I had to have imported from far away, it’s a rare breed.”

“You paid to have a little mouse shipped here from far away? Man, I wish I could get your guys’ paygrade. Magical people.”

“She was quite cheap,” Bruno chirped, “indeed, there was a promotion, and I got her almost for free. Would you believe the common, New York City, rat was much more of a fuss?”

“Really?” The sergeant shook his head, “what kind of profit could somebody make from buying rare mice while they’re cheap and reselling them later?”

“Around here?” Bruno hummed, “Well there’s plenty of catfolk, and birdfolk around here. I’m sure lamias would be interested also. I don’t know about merfolk. You might see some good margins.”

“I mean that one there,” the sergeant pointed at me, “ones like that, people have to keep ‘em as pets too, no?” He waited in front of a large metal door for Bruno to open it with his keycard. The machine beeped, and the huge, stainless stell doors buzzed as they slid apart from each other.

“I don’t know. I’ve only ever thought about eating mice,” Bruno stepped inside. It was a large, windowless building with thick, concrete buildings. Little, fabricated walls separated white, plastic desks with metal nameplates on them. There was one for each member of the Ledoric’s faculty, but few of the desks were ever used. I supposed they must have preferred the space of their own offices on the campus over this artificial place. He set us down on Mr. Stafford’s desk, “thanks, Sarge.”

The soldier walked around Ms. Snowfox’s desk. It was deserted, “Huh, she really didn’t leave anything here.”

Bruno fiddled around in his pocket. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see him hiding a paperclip in his wing. He walked over to Ms. Snowfox’s desk and pretended to pick it up off the ground. He looked it over, “All of that for this?”

The soldier raised an eyebrow, “What’d you get?”

Bruno turned it around, revealing it the the soldier, “A paperclip. She sent me here for a single, goddamn paperclip.”

“Did she say that’s what it was?”

“Just that it was small and metallic, I’d know it when I saw it.”

“Good god, this school is full of maniacs,” the soldier turned about face, “well, I trust you’ll find your way out when you’re done with your work.”

“I’m heading out now,” Bruno hopped after him. He curled up the end of his wing like a fist and held it out toward us, “I just wanted to drop those off for later.”

“Do you want somebody to stop by and feed them or something?” The soldier walked out the door, “Fatten them up?”

“I’m planning to come back late tonight,” Bruno said, “they’ll be fine until then.” I watched as they left. Bruno used the keycard to open the door on his way out. They stepped outside and the double doors closed back together with a clash. The lights turned off on their own.

“That absolute…” Mina fumed, “He insinuated that he was planning…”

“It worked, didn’t it?” I asked, “We’re here.”

Pippa pushed her head against the gate of the cage. Bruno had intentionally broken the lock the night before and it swung open, clattering against the desk. “That felt awful! I hate being this small.”

“You’re still pretty huge,” I stepped out after her, “it was obvious he was lying. He’d never say those kinds of things and actually meant it. He had to pretend he didn’t know it was us.”

“So what now?” Mina looked around. “I can’t see anything.”

“I’m so turned around!” Pippa moaned, “Where’s the door?”

“These are DOO cubicles, aren’t they?” I asked, “There could be papers or something in here that matter.”

“These are just for the Ledoric’s staff,” Mina’s voice echoed around us, “I read the nameplates as we came in. We need to get into a different office, somehow.”

“Which one?” Pippa stumbled forward. She yelped as she nearly fell off the edge of the desk, stumbling backward into me.

I fell on my side as she hit me, “Owww, Pippa, be careful!”

Mina clicked her claws against the desk. A glowing ball shot up into the air above us. It looked like a little star hanging just under the ceiling, and it filled the room with a dim light. “Better?”

“We can’t use too many Dames, or we won’t be able to change back,” I warned her.

Mina’s big, round ears twitched, “That doesn’t use many, and it’ll be way worse than waiting longer to change back if we keep wasting time tripping over each others’ feet.”

I looked off the edge of the desk, “So, where do we go from here? We can’t exactly fly.”

Mina just jumped off. She fell for a moment, then landed on the ground. She quickly picked herself up, “It’s not even far enough to be dangerous, come on.”

Pippa stared down at her. She leapt off, making sure to land on her feet. I watched them, then carefully stepped off the edge. I spread my legs out as I fell, and flopped painlessly on my belly. “So, how far can we fall from?”

“Only big people get really hurt by falling,” Mina said, “we could fall out of a huge building right now, and we might be fine. We walked along the edge of the room, and I felt my whiskers twitched to remind me the rising, concrete wall was just beside me. The twin metal doors stood, sealed shut.

Pippa ran up and scratched at the bottom of the door, her claws raking against the metal, “Come on, open! Open!”

“Shhh!” Mina lightly bit her. She spit wildly, “Eww, eww, eww, rat!”

Pippa spun around, “What was that for?” She yelled.

“Someone out there could have heard us!” Mina hissed. We waited, staring at the doors silently, and waiting to see them open. A minute felt like twenty, and finally we all breathed a sigh of relief.

“So, do we just wait for the door to open?” Pippa whispered.

“What are the odds of that happening?” I looked around.

“Hopefully low,” Mina shook her head, “we’d be spotted immediately.”

I softly wedged my paws into the soft edges of the door. I made some quick calculations, and pulled my paws back quickly as a gust of wind slammed against the inside of the door. It was enough to create a thunderous noise, but the door didn’t budge at all.

“Alice!” Pippa stared at me.

“I thought that would push it a crack open,” my vision blurred slightly for a moment, but I adjusted quickly.

We spent another few minutes thinking, but were cut off as we heard talking outside. It was the sergeant, “You know, we were just talking about how you never come here.” I stumbled after Mina and Pippa as we pressed ourselves against the corner by the door.

“Really?” Ms. Snowfox’s voice echoed in from outside, “I do stop by here sometimes, you know?”

“Well, I was saying I never saw you. And, Mr. Stafford came here for that thing.”

“Oh, he did?” She sounded surprised, “Well, I’ve still got to check on something.”

The door opened a moment later, and we darted out the door past the sergeant’s feet as it did. Ms. Snowfox turned her head toward us slightly as we ran past. She breathed a sigh of relief, “You know what,” she mumbled, “I think I can do it later. Let’s go back.”

“Are you sure?” The sergeant asked her, “We’re already here.”

“Oh, I guess so…” She stalled, “Maybe… I’m not sure… Want to go to the mess hall and get some breakfast?”

“I’m on duty,” the sergeant asserted, “you know, Mr. Stafford left some mice here.” We wrapped around the edge of the building and into the courtyard. Site 91 was a mess of fabricated buildings, and secure, concrete facilities like this one. The far gate opened for a black, metal limousine. Three police cars entered ahead of it and three more behind it. Their sirens died as soon as the gate was shut behind them.

The back door of the limousine opened, and two men dressed in all black walked around the side to open the door. Emerging from the back seat was a tall woman with wavy, silver-blonde hair. An American Flag pin was pressed against her solid black suit. A violet tie hung down from her neck. A group of soldiers saluted to her, and an officer approached her, “Madam President. The Director has been held up, he’ll arrive shortly.”

Pippa stopped. She faced us and whispered, “We should go…”

“If Dreammaker is here, we might be in the right place,” Mina said coldly, “be careful.” The Secret Service guided the president inside. Two agents remained outside.

We stayed pressed against the edges of the buildings, slipping under what little shadows existed in the midmorning. Site 91 was full of mumbling, “Did you hear she was going to be here?”

“Nobody told me.”

“A campaign event?”

“This is some DOO stuff. Leave them be.”

There were no large signs on any of the buildings, just doors that needed a keycard to open. They all looked almost the same, and we found ourselves going in circles around military trucks, barracks, and watchtowers. Agent Spirit wandered past us at one point, and I held my breath, afraid she’d somehow recognize me. She didn’t even see us. Still, there were no open doors we could get into.

“We need to sneak in somewhere after someone,” Mina offered.

“What if they see us?” I asked.

“The longer we’re out in the open, the more likely we are to be seen anyway,” she explained. I decided that following somebody wearing a military uniform wasn’t going to do me any good. There were some high ranking officers here, but the soldiers were doing their own, seperate jobs. Instead, we followed a short man wearing a black coat. A briefcase dangled from his hands.

We barely managed to get ourselves inside the room he was entering. There was a long, black hallway before us as the metal doors shut. The man with the briefcase hurried forward, and we pressed against the walls as we pursued him. We stopped dead in the doorway before the next room. President Dreammaker stood tall, “You’re telling me that you pursued this!” She yelled, “A teenager? Let him sound like he’s goddamn crazy!”

“Ma’am,” a silver reptilian sitting beside her spoke deeply and slowly. He resembled Mr. Archstar, but the cracks in his scales showed much more age in him, “now that I have heard the full story, I agree with the actions of Secreatry Sharp.”

“You had a directive…” She stopped, “Were you going to come in or not? Students.”

“What?” The reptilian stood up rapidly. His dry hands pressed up against his chest defensively.

“Director Archstar,” Dreammaker sighed, “in what world am I noticing a group of children wandering around this site before the head of the FBI.” She turned to us, “Come in now, or I’ll feed you all to snakes.”

We walked inside. Men dressed in all black immediately shut the doors behind us. They stood beside us, “Madam President,” Mina said, “I’d have hoped we could have met when I was more presentable than… this.”

“Would your son know who these are?” She whispered to Director Archstar.

“I suppose he might.”

She looked down at us, “You’re very presentable. In fact, you’re quite adorable like this. What are you doing here?”

“We were just curious!” I exclaimed, “We heard you would be here, and we just wanted to see. You used to go to the same school as us!”

She folded her hands against the table, “Is that right? My visit was meant to be top secret. Who told you?”

I shook my head. President Dreammaker leaned back in her chair, “As I thought. Are you here for the Lincoln student?”

Pippa squeaked, “Y-yes!”

“That’s fine. I’m letting him go,” The president stood up. She cracked her knuckles as a group of her advisors squabled about Teddy. “Now, I have to decide whether to let you go. Make it easy for me, tell me your names.”

“I’m Mina Sparrowbane,” my sister stepped forward, “This is my sister Alice, and our friend Pippa Twitch. We’re all Ledoric’s students.”

“Sparrowbane?” She looked up at the ceiling, “Of course. Your mother would have found a way to do the same, and she didn’t have magic to do it with. She was an amazing woman.”

“Madam President,” Director Archstar stood up beside her.

“Escort them out. Make sure they’re brought back to their student apartments safely. Then, find out who their accomplice that got them in here was,” she demanded, “if any of you try something like this again, I won’t be here to save you.”

“Sorry!” Pippa’s tail sunk down below her.

“I was a student at Ledoric’s once, too,” The president smiled broadly. She walked alongside us as we were led out. For a second, I caught a glimpse of a long, black scar across the back of her neck. “It’s impressive how far you got, but I knew you weren’t mice the moment I saw you all.”

“You saw us?” Pippa asked.

“I’m a very observant woman. Far, far more than most. And, indeed, I thought, what are three entirely different species of mice doing running around a facility like this. It was amusing. You still got past all of these other fools,” She smiled to herself, something between regret and nostalgia spreading across her face, “sneaking into places, using magic in such creative, stupid, but creative ways. Hone those skills, and you’ll have careers worth watching.”