Dark foolery

Chapter 1

Class rules:
1: claws to yourself and no biting in class
2: changing into something else, only outside
3: no flying, only during break
4: black magic, only when given permission to
5: no pets in class (and that also counts for cute vampire bats and cuddly scorpions)

1

"Now I've had enough!" Mr. Howls pointing stick flashes through the air. On an inch it misses the screeching bat that escaped from Subaru's shirt.
"Put that thing back in your bag!"
"Never hit Batman, sir," Subaru warns. "You'll make him mad."
Great advice, but a little late. With an angry hiss the vampire bat grows to the size of a goose. Its teeth grow to daggers, long and sharp enough to penetrate the skin of an elephant. Its screeching turns into the honks of the horn of a ship.
Wow! This is getting out of hand, Kazuki thinks. In the class you hardly get bored. He scoots up to the front of his chair.
"Stop, Batman!" Subaru waves his pale hands. "You can't suck the teacher dry!"
Kazuki knows how well dead vampire bats listen to their keepers. Not at all. Batman makes a looping, and charges straight at the teacher's throat.
Mr. Howl throws his pointing stick aside and pulls the drawer of his desk open. At Batman's second dive mr. Howl raises the spray can of holy water. A generous hiss. The bat dives into the sparkling mist and falls apart in ashes.
"That's what we do to pests around here," mr. Howl says.
"We don't care, sir," Subaru and Kento say in synch. "At home we have an entire attic full of bats."
"I'm calling in a new rule," the teacher continues. "Absolutely no pets in class. Dead or alive." With his ruler he wipes a scorpion from the seat of his chair. "That also counts for cute vampire bats and cuddly scorpions!"
"My scorpion isn't dangerous," Kamijo protests. "I personally trained him."
Mr. Howl folds his arms. "The rule starts now. I'm giving you five minutes to remove your, your..." He's looking for the right words. "...creatures from the classroom. The next Tarantula or hissing cobra I find, goes straight into the trash container."

"I think the teacher exaggerates," Tomoya complains during break. "I even had to throw out the mice and tuna in my lunchbox. Now I don't have a lunch."
"He was lucky that it was a déad vampire bat," Kento says. "Holy water doesn't work on living ones."
The amount of pets that the other kids brought with them, amazed Kazuki. The twins' bat, Kamijo's scorpion, Tomoya's mice: that was common. But the 12 feet long worm in Koudai's pencil case and the cage of blue rock eaters in Teru's bag... Let alone Hizaki's white doves.
"A little boring," says Koudai. "A classroom without pets. I mean, it's already a pity that there's no grass on the floor."
"We can bring invisible pets," Hizaki suggests. "Or ghosts. You can fold a ghost to the size that it fits in a box of matches." He smirks. "Teacher isn't done with us yet. We'll have a competition. We'll all bring in a secret pet tomorrow, okay? Who remains the last, wins."
"Cool!" Koudai says. "I'll put a mini owl in my pen case!"
"Yes!" Subaru cheers. "I'll fill my travel cup of blood with leeches!"
That sucks, Kazuki thinks. Everyone is taking a special pet tomorrow.
"Uhh, Hizaki? I, I...I actually don't have a pet."
The angel cocks an eyebrow. "No pet? You're basically a male witch, right? When you fly through the sky then there is always a black cat with them on your broomstick. And when you are brewing a fine poisonous drink, you always have toads and rats watching?"
Kazuki feels his ears glowing in shame. "As soon as I wanna pick up our cat, he hides under the closet hissing. I really can't get Tigger on my broomstick at all."
"Yes," Kuina laughs. That weird Santa laughs: Yeaha ha. "Not much luck with toads either, huh Kazuki? You know, Hizaki, on his birthday I gave Kazuki one of those nice fat toads. You know, with a slimy back and green drool from its mouth. As soon as Kazuki picked it up, it peed on his hand in fear!"
I'm gonna kill you, Kuina. I'm gonna kill you, Kazuki thinks.
"Tomorrow I'll bring a pet." Kazuki says.
"If you hurry, you'll make it to the pet shop," Subaru jokes. "To buy a fluffy little bunny."
That's enough.
"A witch cat!" hisses Kazuki. "I'll bring the most evil and meanest with cat that you have ever seen with me. One that plays with vampire eyes!"

When Kazuki arrives home that afternoon, his mood is still darkened. He throws his roller skates into the closet, stomps up the stairs to his bedroom.
I'm a terrible wizard, he says to himself. No toad wants to kiss me, no rat will even look at me. Besides, without a witch cat I can better use my broomstick to clean the kitchen.
He can see it so clearly! A witch cat in front of him on his broom. With an arched back and a thick tail. Yes, while it hisses at the night owls and evil spirits.
Powerless Kazuki throws a handfull of dried wasps and hornets into the fly trap plant. The mouth with needle-like teeth closes ticking.
Lovely little bitches, those Venus fly traps. Too bad plants do not count as pets.
He wipes the wings and stingers off his hands and pulls his shoulders back.
No more hesitating. A witch cat.
"Mom!" he calls down the stairs. "Have you seen Tigger?"
"In the garden. I just saw him sneaking on the bird pool."
Tigger owns his name to the orange stripes in his fur, not to his braveness.

"Tigger," Kazuki says sweetly and shakes the bag of cat treats. Calling doesn't work, that scares Tigger.
The cat looks up disturbed, stares at Kazuki and then smoothly slips under the rose bush.
He doesn't trust me, Kazuki thinks. He can't blame the cat. When he was a toddler he joyrid the cat's back with the neighbor boy a few times. They used his ears as braces.
Kazuki lays down on his stomach, puts out a hand.
Tigger arches his back, hisses. Kazuki knows it's fake. This cat would never dare to bite him or scratch him.
A good start, he thinks. That almost sounded like a witch cat.
"Sorry, Tigger, it's for your own good."
He draws a circle with his left thumb, whispers a spell.

Kazuki drags the stiffened cat from under the rose bush. Tiggers tail feel oddly rough: like he grabbed a toilet brush. He hooks the claws into the wood of his broom.
"Just a few rounds around the tower, Tigger. To get used to it."
The cat helplessly rolls his eyes. The spell doesn't allow him any more than that.
This is the real witch life! The howling storm in your face, a cat in front of you on your broom. Kazuki flies through a flock of crows, flies circles around Tokyo tower.
It's not working. Tigger is still Tigger. He could've put his Rilakkuma bear on his broom.
Kazuki sends the broom down, unhooks the cat and pushes him back under the bushes. There is no easy way to end the spell.
Ah, a half hour and Tigger is as good as new, he thinks. Spells like this never work longer than that.
He does feel a little guilty. Tigger is actually his mothers cat.

'Let it go, let it go!' Kazuki reaches into his pocket.
'Let it go!'
Strange, nothing on the screen.
'Can't hold me back anymore!'
It's without a doubt his ringtone, but it's not from his phone. He looks up. Yes, the open window of his bedroom. Only, there's no phone there.
Uncle Merlin. No doubt about it.
Kazuki's ancestor was the great wizard Merlin, but he was a strict wizard. One that changed you into a frog if you looked at him wrong and then threw you into a nest of hungry gulls.
Sometimes uncle Merlin calls his descendant. That he's dead for centuries, doesn't matter at all.