Chapter 17: Gerallt's Revenge

The following week, during which Colin, Clayton, and Dylan were suspended, was by far the best one yet for Gerallt and Matt at Hawthorne High. More students were friendly, and their teachers seemed to be doing everything they could to make up for the previous week.

When Colin, Clayton, and Dylan finally returned from their suspension, Matt and Gerallt started the second phase of their revenge. This time it was Gerallt's turn to furnish the fun. He waited until the bus pulled up in front of the school and Clayton stepped off.

Gerallt touched the ancient amulet hidden under his shirt and quietly whispered, "Magna Dea, fac, quaesumus, ut saccus eius scindat!"

The bottom of Clayton's backpack burst open, dropping its contents into a large, slushy puddle. Even worse, Clayton's homework binder slid completely under the bus. While the other students looked on and clapped, Clayton had to get down on his hands and knees to retrieve his soggy belongings.

Thus, it was a wet and dirty Clayton who angrily stormed into American history class that morning. Plopping heavily onto his seat, he slammed his dripping book and binder under his chair. He turned to a smaller boy next to him and demanded a dry piece of paper. Then he pulled out an old pencil covered with tooth marks and began to print his name in big block letters. The point of the pencil broke.

Anticipating Clayton's next move, Gerallt reached under his shirt and whispered "Magna Dea, fac, quaesumus, ut sella eius decrescat!"

Clayton started to get up so that he could walk to the pencil sharpener, but his desktop seemed to have grown unusually tight against his belly. He tried to slide sideways, but his pants stuck to the seat and the desktop only held him tighter. In frustration, he gave the desktop a huge shove, and this time it was the back legs of his chair that buckled. The entire classroom heard his curse as Clayton and his chair crashed backward on the floor, leaving him looking like a monstrous overturned turtle with his legs flailing in the air. It took his teacher and two more from neighboring classes to pull Clayton from the wood and steel jaws of his desk and chair.

Once the end-of-class bell rang, Clayton stormed out, carefully followed by Gerallt and Matt who stayed well back from the bully. It didn't take long before Clayton found Colin and Dylan, who were waiting by a drinking fountain in the hall. He was about to tell them about his embarrassing rescue from the boy-eating chair when Dylan leaned over to get a drink.

Gerallt reached between the buttons of his shirt, whispered "Magna Dea, fac, quaesumus, ut aqua in eum volet!" A perfect parabola of water arced through the air onto the crotch of Clayton's pants.

"Arrgh!!!" Clayton screamed in exasperation, looking at the dark wet spot spreading down the front of his pants.

Colin and Dylan took one look and started laughing. Clayton gave them both a look that could melt steel, and the two shut up.

Carefully avoiding the curved path taken by the water, Colin also bent over for a drink. From his vantage point down the hall, Gerallt whispered the incantation once more. The water took an entirely different direction, this time toward Dylan who showed amazing agility by jumping backward out of the way.

Unfortunately for Dylan, however, he jumped directly into the path of several senior football players who promptly tripped and fell on top of him. They were not amused and not the least bit careful of whom or what they stepped on as they got up. After a few well-chosen curses, they told Dylan to stick his head in an anatomically impossible position and sauntered down the hall.

The second bell was about to ring, so Gerallt and Matt had to get to class and wait until lunch to continue with their revenge. They were waiting at their table when Colin, Clayton, and Dylan entered the cafeteria carrying their trays. This time Gerallt whispered, "Magna Dea, fac, quaesumus, viam lubricam!"

Clayton slipped, throwing his tray of spaghetti on Dylan's back in the process.

"Jeez, you big clumsy idiot, look where you're going!" Dylan yelled, turning to face Clayton, who couldn't decide whether to feel angry because of what Dylan had called him or guilty about what he'd done. Clayton decided instead to just laugh at him.

"Watch out," Colin warned, pointing at the cafeteria monitor who had noticed the noise and was walking their way.

Colin swiftly sat down at their usual table, while Clayton went back to get more food, and Dylan left to remove the remains of spaghetti from the back of his shirt. Not waiting for the others to return, Colin took a bite from his pizza and opened his milk carton.

"Magna Dea, fac, quaesumus, ut lac eius coagulet!" Gerallt whispered, as he and Matt observed Colin from their table at the far end of the cafeteria.

Colin took a swig from the carton and immediately spewed a mouthful of milk across his table and part of the next. Several nearby students made disgusted sounds but became far more disgusted when Colin poured the rest of his milk in large coagulated globs onto his tray. Colin quickly grabbed Dylan's pop bottle to wash the curdled milk out of his mouth, but Gerallt was too quick for him.

"Magna Dea, fac, quaesumus, ut aqua in eum volet!" Gerallt whispered, as Colin twisted off the bottle cap.

The bottle's contents sprayed over Colin's face, shirt, and pants. Cursing in disgust, he slammed the nearly empty bottle down on his tray and stormed out of the room to the sound of clapping and jeers from several students at nearby tables.

At their table across the room, Gerallt and Matt quietly chuckled as they watched Colin leaving the cafeteria just before Clayton returned to find the now empty table with its trays covered with pop and curdled milk. As they went to pick up their afternoon books from their lockers, the boys agreed that it had been a most memorable and enjoyable lunch.

In English class, several students stared and chuckled at Dylan, who entered the room with the back of his shirt and pants still wet and stained from his unsuccessful effort to remove the remains of Clayton's spaghetti. Dylan scowled at Clayton, who was already sitting at his desk. Clayton shrugged his shoulders in a vain attempt to imply that it wasn't his fault. Looking a bit green from the curdled milk and with his shirt spotted by the pop, Colin ignored the other two as he joined them in the back of the classroom.

"Okay, everyone. Let's settle down, shall we?" Mrs. McKinney said, as she looked around the room for the cause of the chuckling. She scowled at Colin, Clayton, and Dylan before continuing. "Take out your copies of Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, and read the first chapter." Clayton raised his hand. "Yes, Mr. Cartwright. Is there a problem?"

"Uh..." Clayton stammered.

"Yes, Mr. Cartwright. Out with it."

"I can't, Mrs. McKinney. I don't have my book with me."

"And why is that?"

"Because the door to my locker's stuck."

Colin and Dylan also raised their hands.

"And I suppose you two don't have your books with you, either," Mrs. McKinney suggested, eying the pair skeptically. "What's the matter? Are your locker doors also stuck?"

"Yes ma'am," both boys answered sheepishly.

"Do you actually expect me to believe that all three of your lockers chose the same day to jam?"

The three boys looked uncomfortably at one another. "Uh... Yes, ma'am."

"Enough of this nonsense! The three of you can spend an hour in detention tomorrow after school for coming to class unprepared. In the meantime, you can borrow classroom copies."

"But, Mrs. McKinney, our lockers really are..." Clayton protested.

"I said enough! One more word from you, Mr. Cartwright, and I will make it two hours."

Gerallt did his best to stifle his smile as Clayton angrily retrieved the three books and returned to join the others.

Matt looked over at Gerallt and silently mouthed the words, "Was that you?"

Gerallt grinned back, nodded, and whispered, "Between classes this morning."

Midway through the class, Mrs. McKinney said, "Okay everyone, take out your pens and a sheet of paper. You have until the end of the period to answer the following questions about the chapter you've just read. What are the similarities and differences between the book's two main characters, George and Lennie? What is their relationship, and how they feel about each other?"

Gerallt raised his hand to his chest, slipped his fingers between the buttons of his shirt, and whispered "Magna Dea, fac, quaesumus, ut stili eorum perfluant!"

Seconds later, everyone in the class heard Colin, Clayton, and Dylan muttering and slamming their hands on their desktops.

"Now, what is it?" Mrs. McKinney demanded in exasperation.

"It's our pens," Colin answered. "They're leaking ink all over our hands." The three boys raised their ink-stained hands in proof.

"Okay, you three. I've had all of your shenanigans I'm going to take. Just one more, and all three of you will have earned yourselves a day of in-school detention. Now go and wash your hands, but I want you all back here in your seats in five minutes. Is that understood?"

The three nodded and stormed out of the room, only to return five minutes later with ink stains still on their hands. The remainder of the class passed without a hitch.

After the bell rang, the five boys joined their classmates in the boy's locker room to dress for gym class. Mr. Armstrong stood in a corner with his arms crossed over his chest, making sure there would be no repeat of the incident that got Matt into trouble. Once everyone was dressed and outside on the gym floor, Mr. Armstrong began the class by having everybody do a few stretching exercises. A moment later, Clayton bent over to touch his toes, and the whole class heard the loud rip of the back seam of his gym shorts giving way. Matt glanced questioningly over at his friend, but Gerallt shook his head.

"It wasn't me," he whispered to Matt. "Maybe he just ate too much while he was home last week."

The coach sent Clayton back to the locker room to change while he had the rest of the class run several laps around the floor. After a long series of calisthenics, the period ended with the rope climb. Most of the students, including Matt and Gerallt, had no problems making it to the top of the pair of ropes hanging down from the ceiling. Then, it was time for Colin and Dylan, who had waited until last.

Standing behind the other students, Gerallt whispered "Magna Dea, fac, quaesumus, funes eorum lubricos!"

The two began to climb their ropes. The boys steadily worked their way up and were near the top when first one and then the other one slipped several feet down. They started back up again, but the same thing happened.

"What's wrong up there?" Coach Armstrong asked, as Colin and Dylan hung suspended like a pair of angry spiders.

"It's my rope, Coach," Colin replied. "It's slippery near the top."

"Mine, too," Dylan said.

"Did anyone else think that the ropes were slippery?" the coach asked, looking around at the rest of the students, who shook their heads. The coach glanced at the gym's large wall clock. "Well, come back down if you can't make it. We're about out of time anyway. Okay, everyone to the showers."

To hide the existence of his amulet and protect it from theft, Gerallt never showered at school. Instead, he merely whispered a silent prayer to remove the sweat from his clothes and body. Thus, Gerallt remained in the locker room with Clayton, who had already changed out of his gym clothes. Coach Armstrong stood in a corner, keeping a watchful eye on Clayton to ensure he didn't bother Gerallt, while Colin and Dylan joined Matt and the other boys in the steaming showers.

Colin and Dylan had barely finished soaping up when their water suddenly turned ice cold. They both gave out high-pitched screams and jumped out of the icy water. Yet no one else's water had changed temperature. The two bullies gingerly stuck their hands back under the water, which was now nice and warm. When they stepped back under the water's flow, it had once more turned as frigid as a winter's frost. This happened twice again, even after Colin had shoved a nearby student out from under his warm spray. Both Colin and Dylan were covered with soap suds as they walked back into the locker room to dry off and dress. Colin gave Gerallt a look that could have boiled ice, but Gerallt merely smiled.

By the middle of the last class of the day, Colin couldn't take any more. After silently signaling Clayton and Dylan, Colin asked his teacher for permission to leave the room. A few minutes later, Clayton and Dylan also excused themselves and met Colin in the boys' restroom. Thus, none of the three was there to notice that a few minutes later Gerallt also excused himself and left the room.

"So, Colin, what's so important it can't wait 'til school's out?" Clayton asked. "You know we're going to get in trouble if a teacher catches us in here cutting class."

"Yeah, Colin," Dylan added. "My father's already furious at me for getting suspended. We've got to be really careful until everything blows over."

"We've got bigger things to worry about than our parents, Dylan. Don't you guys see what's going on? Having this much bad luck in one day just isn't natural. Gerallt's got to be hexing us." Colin pulled a half-empty pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and lit one.

"Jeez, Colin," Dylan said. "Put that out. If a teacher catches us smoking, Tanner will expel us for sure."

"Ah, Dylan, stop being such a wuss. We need to figure out some way to get Gerallt off our backs. If we don't, he's going to keep doing this to us 'til..." Colin stopped mid-sentence when a shower of green sparks spewed from the end of his cigarette. "What the..." he exclaimed as he dropped the blazing cigarette on the concrete floor while the other two looked on with a mixture of amazement and terror. It continued to burn furiously like a Fourth of July fireworks fountain.

"Quick," Colin yelled as he turned toward the sink. "Get some water to put the damned thing out!" While Clayton joined Colin in carrying handfuls of water to douse the brightly burning cigarette, Dylan decided he'd had enough and ran to the door.

"Oh God," Dylan cried, "The door's stuck! I can't get it open!"

"Forget the damned door!" Colin commanded, as he and Clayton threw water on the blazing cigarette. "Get over here and help us put out the fire before anyone comes in."

The instant the water hit the cigarette, the sparks went out, only to be replaced by billowing clouds of white smoke.

"Oh, no," Clayton cried, as he rushed back to the sink. "We need more water. We've got to put it out!"

Colin stamped on the cigarette, scattering tiny bits of tobacco that continued to smoke like dozens of minuscule chimneys.

"Okay, enough of this!" Colin shouted. "We've got to get out of here before anything else happens."

All three boys rushed to the door, but no matter how much they pulled on the handle, it stubbornly refused to open.

"This is insane," Colin said. "I'm going back to try again to put the damned thing out." But he couldn't find the remains of the cigarette because the smoke had thickened to the point where he could hardly see his hands in front of his face.

Colin had barely started searching for it before the sprinklers turned on, drenching everything and everyone in the room. Yet strangely, the clouds of smoke cleared as soon as they were touched by the spraying water. In less than a minute, Colin, Clayton, and Dylan were totally soaked.

"Now what?" Clayton asked, looking down at the squashed remains of the cigarette that was slowly floating toward the drain in the center of the floor. "Mooching lunch money off nerds is one thing, but this... How in the hell can we fight against all of this?"

"We don't," Dylan said firmly. "We don't. I don't know about you two, but I'm never going to say or do another thing that might piss Gerallt off. He really is a witch."

"But..." Colin started to say.

"But nothing, Colin!" Clayton shouted. "It's your fault we got suspended, and it's your fault we're in here getting drenched. And it'll be your fault if this gets us expelled. If you want to do anything more to Gerallt or Matt, you can do it by yourself."

"Right!" Dylan said.

Upon hearing Dylan agree with Clayton, Colin exploded. He shoved Dylan who slipped and fell backward onto the watery floor. Having had enough, Clayton stepped up to Colin and shoved him right back. Colin lost it and took a swing at Clayton, hitting him on the chin. But the blow only further infuriated Clayton, who roared with rage as he jumped on Colin, wrestling him to the ground. Dylan, having scrambled to his feet, piled on top of the pair, so that all three boys were rolling around on the water-covered floor.

The sprinklers stopped, and the door opened. It was a member of the varsity football team, who took one step onto the flooded floor and cursed. Then he noticed the three drenched and angry boys sprawled on top of each other in the water. He laughed and exited back into the hallway.

Embarrassed by having been seen, Colin, Clayton, and Dylan jumped up to stand in the middle of the room with water dripping off their hair and clothes. The bell rang, signaling the end of the school day.

"Okay, you two," Colin said, "Let's get out of here before anyone else sees us." Gathering up the last shreds of his drenched dignity, Colin led his minions into the crowded hallway and the laughter and stares of the other students.

Gerallt and Matt made sure that they were waiting near the school buses when the three finally shuffled outside.

"Well, well, what do we have heah?" Gerallt asked. He looked at the three boys standing there dirty, wet, and freezing in the cold November afternoon. "What do you think, Matt? Shall we give them somethin' really special tah top off theah day?"

"I don't know," Matt said. "They look to me like they've had about enough for one day. Besides, we have to save something for tomorrow. And the day after that."

"And the day aftah that," Gerallt agreed.

Clayton looked utterly overwhelmed, while Dylan looked terrified enough to run like a rabbit if Gerallt said "Boo!" Colin merely looked defeated.

"Okay, guys, you win," Colin said. "What do you want?"

"You know, Matt," Gerallt said. "That's just not the first thing I wanted tah heah."

"You're right, Gerallt. I think a little groveling would be appropriate before we discuss the terms of their unconditional surrender."

"Ayuh," Gerallt agreed. "I think some heartfelt apologies are in order."

"I'm sorry," Clayton said.

"Me, too!" Dylan added. "Please don't do anything more."

Colin nodded sullenly.

"No. Somethin's still not right," Gerallt observed. "Oh, I got it. You're still standin'. Get down on your knees and repeat after me."

Clayton and Dylan immediately knelt down onto the cold hard sidewalk.

"You too, Colin," Gerallt commanded.

Colin reluctantly got down on his knees.

"Now repeat after me," Gerallt said. "We sweah that we will nevah bother Matt Mitchell, Gerallt Hawthorne, or anyone in their families ever again."

The three bullies repeated, "We swear that we will never bother Matt Mitchell, Gerallt Hawthorne, or anyone in their families ever again."

"And we sweah we will stay away from the Hawthorne and Mitchell houses forevah."

"We swear we will stay away from the Hawthorne and Mitchell houses forever," the three bullies chorused.

"And one last thing," Matt added. "We swear we will never bully anyone ever again."

"We swear we'll never bully anyone ever again."

"Do you know what will happen if we ever catch any of you violating what you just swore?" Gerallt asked.

"No," a terrified Dylan answered.

"You don't evah want tah find out," Gerallt answered sternly. "Now get up and get out of heah."

The three bullies scrambled to their feet and ran as fast as they could for their buses.

"Well, Matt, do you think that will work?" Gerallt asked.

"Probably not forever," Matt replied. "But I doubt if they give us any trouble for a long, long time."

"Good, because I'd just as soon not have tah deal with them again. In fact, I think it's much too nice a day tah even think about them anymoah."

"You're right. So, after we finish our homework and chores, where do you want to meet: your place or mine?"

"How about mine? I think it's about time I showed you a few moah of the Hawthorne secrets."