Cyberwitch Academy: Learn or Burn

Chapter 8

We file into the assembly hall together. On the surface, we're like a funeral march, bubbling with feral repressed energies. All this physical contact is making me sick. The shoving stepping on each other, pulling each other around, all semi-secret but not really. Meaningful looks thrown between silently grinning faces. Not for the last time I miss my boutique school in Manhattan.

As we pass through the double door teachers hiss and shh. Kids are dragged away for uniform infractions. Entering the hall, I hear the soft rumble of three hundred people talking who are not supposed to be talking. Their low voices gather and vibrate through the theatre seating that banks up from the stage to a height of some twenty feet at the rear of the hall. I feel the drumming of feet on the steps up through the rows. Feel the sentinel stares of the teachers, more like angry cops than the eccentric educators I once knew. I'm twitching. My brain stutters. My breathing is quick and shallow.

Our group is lucky enough to get into a row midway up the bank, far enough from the cursed front row, where the unfortunates sit silently, inches from the school leadership team. Ty talks to me in a stagey whisper, constantly, ignoring dagger stares from our form tutor. I fade in and out of his vocalised line of thought, trying to make myself invisible. Not winning. I'm acutely aware of the sneaky looks that fly my way.

Somewhere in a little room at the back of the hall, with a big window, a teacher like a fish in a bowl, fumbles with AV tech, putting the wrong video on. It won't play. Headteacher up front, short, fierce, proud like a bulldog. Dressed sharp, long white hair in a business-like style. Just a little masculine. Something about her appeals to me, like a rock to cling to. She's scary, but kind. Evil kind. For a moment my glitching seems to calm. She's busy communicating with her face. Silently managing the room. Waiting to pick the moment to begin her assembly.

I feel so wrong. Dizzy. Comes in a wave. My skin feels weird. Suddenly everything is too close to my head. I want to tell Ty to shut his goddam mouth. Then the music comes in way too loud. Laughter erupts from a few groups. Fake, forced and barking. Hissing teachers. A voice in my head...

Vintery mintery cutery corn.

For a few seconds there is a music video on the big projector hanging above the head teacher. Some kind of girl group, very London sound, she catches my eye. Can't understand a word of what she's half singing, half rapping but dear god suddenly I just want to be her more than anything I've ever wanted. Take me out of this high school cliché hell. All the blood in my body decides to go into my head. Suddenly my face is a balloon full of blood. And then I catch a glimpse of light coming from under the skin on my wrists. It traces the strangest pattern. And the voice again. This time my mouth moves with it. Is it mom's voice?

Apple seed and apple thorn.

"That's enough thanks Chris. Now I know a lot of you are fans of this group. Is it a group? I don't know what you call it these days."

Polite laughter.

"And many of you know that they've been criticized for promoting illegal technologies. But I've called this assembly today, because I don't believe a song can make any one of you go and get surgery you shouldn't be having."

Ty elbows my in the ribs. I snap my head up, realise I've been hunching so far forward my head was on my knees. Tutor has her eyes on me, head to one side, projecting concern. I pull my sleeves up over my wrists. Ty whispers in my ear

"You've got weird lights on you."

Then my stomach flips upside down and I feel like my whole self is itching, from genome to epidermis, but there's nowhere to scratch. I'm trying not to double over, but the feeling is so big and loud I'm sure that everyone in the room is watching me.

"Your body is a gift, it's precious. You only get..."

The head teacher stops talking mid-sentence. Three hundred sharp intakes of breath. Every head in the room turns.

I try to focus. It's not me. Gracias a Dios. They're all looking at a figure on the stage.

A uniformed body, looks sort of like a soldier mixed with a cop. Except it's pretty much all white. Then there is this eye-catching shield thing across the vest, some kind of knife vest maybe. It's a coat of arms, with a red cross and two dragons. The face is covered by some kind of... veil?

She's missed her cue, interrupted the head teacher. Typical cop. The head makes a dramatic and amusing face, shrugs and gives up the stage.

As the witch hunter steps up to the podium, she flicks a switch retracting the veil. She fixes her audience with a winning smile. That smile seems to send tiny invisible fire ants up and down my nervous system. And for some reason the dragons on her vest are moving. Like the world is glitching. And the voice is getting louder and louder. And I think it's going to jump out of my throat.

Wire, briar limber lock.

I need to get out.

"Good morning year 8. What was that? You can do better than that! I said good morning year 8! That's better. Now, we know what you call us. But don't worry I'm not here to hunt anyone, least of all witches."

I tug on Ty's sleeve and hiss in his ear.

"Ty, I need to get out."

Ty, bless him, starts miming to our tutor, vigorous miming of vomiting, stabbing his fingers at me.

The hunter, for the briefest second flashes her eyes at me.

"We exist to protect you all. Because there are some naughty people out there. People who want to get you into debt with them by giving you (finger quotes) free implants. And these are not real surgeons by the way, not safe, tested, legal implants...Is it something I said?

Directed at me as I do the awkward shuffle along the row. Some nervous giggles. But I can't even look at her. Trying to shrink into my uniform.

"But seriously, if you have been personally affected by any of this, please come and have a chat with me after the assembly."

I'm right in the middle of the steps down towards the stage when the voice comes out of me. I'm aware but not in control. Like I'm watching myself from the outside. It's very loud. Almost like a song.

TO CONSTANT VINTERY ASSIGN EMPTY ARRAY VINTERY DOT PUSH MINTERY DOT PUSH CUTERY DOT PUSH CORN

The silence will haunt me. I feel myself ageing as the long seconds pass. Frozen in the headlights. Then a couple of shrieking giggles, then the whole crowd erupts. Ty and my tutor hustle me out of the room. As the laughing fades behind me, I see a sign for a bathroom and bolt for it.

Now I'm sitting on the toilet seat, hugging my knees, rocking back and forth while the weird feeling very slowly passes. And I pull up my sleeves to watch the strange patterns of lights under my skin slowly dimming.

Ty leans against the other side of the locked cubicle door, whispering protectively. Then another voice. An adult woman.

Is Ursula in there? She is? Listen, I can help you. I'm a friend of your mother. Come to F15. But wait till the hunter is gone.

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