Alchemist Academy: Book 1 (10 page)

The smashed leaves were in a small pile at the bottom of the bowl. I wasn’t sure how much to pour in and I could tell from Priscilla’s annoyed face that she wasn’t going to be of any help.

I closed my eyes and gripped the spoon. I thought of the people pulling me into the fence line and their hate-filled faces. The thoughts raged in my mind and when I shook with anger, I spilled the entire vial into the bowl.

Priscilla stepped forward and reached toward me as I poured, but stopped and put her arms back in their crossed pattern. I didn’t care what she thought, and the idea of her making me come up in front of the class filled me with more anger. I stirred the deep yellow liquid, watching the oak leaf bits rise to the surface and melt into the liquid. The concoction steamed and soon I couldn’t see into the bowl any more. The mixture became thick and rancid, but I pushed the spoon through it, thinking of Janet and her stupid skinny face, mocking me. The mixture became easier to stir just before I heard it: a clanking sound, as if someone had dropped a stone in the bowl. I knew I had mixed whatever it was she’d wanted.

I felt perspiration on my forehead and glanced back at Mark, who seemed to be concerned. It took me a second to realize all of the kids looked like him, Blue and Red alike, with their mouths hanging open. I turned to Priscilla, who approached the bowl with skepticism.

She blew the mist away. A green rock with thick yellow lines was sitting at the bottom.

“You used the entire vial. That was for a dozen stones.” Priscilla put on a glove and carefully plucked the stone from the bowl, then placed it in a small box lined with velvet.

Had I done something wrong? I wanted to ask, but I felt that if I said anything I would get myself in trouble. I’d had no idea I was supposed to use a small amount. It wasn’t like I had been given any instructions.

“I’m sorry,” is what I settled on saying.

“Why? You just created a very powerful stone.”

That hint of praise raised my spirits and I looked back at Mark with a smile. “Oh, good. I thought I messed up.”

“You have no idea what you just did?” Priscilla said.

“No. What does it do?”

“At the dose you made, it could….” She looked to the class and cleared her throat. “Go back to your seat, Allie.”

I lowered my brow and walked back to my desk, looking back several times, hoping for an explanation of what had just happened. Each of the people I walked by stared at me. I wasn’t sure if I had just done the worst thing or the best thing. I assumed the worst.

I plopped down in my seat.

“Okay, class, come up and get your mixing assignments for the day.”

The class groaned in much the same way my old class might have, but I was excited to do something with my power. I jolted out of my seat and made my way back up to Priscilla’s desk. I looked over the shoulder of the girl in front of me, trying to see what I would get to mix next. What would it do? I really wanted to know what I had made with that yellow and green stone.

The students in front of me hunched over and dragged a bowl, spoon, and vials off her desk. I might have thought they weighed a ton, but I knew the slump of the unmotivated all too well. I pushed my shoulders back and looked on with enthusiasm.

“Come around the desk, please,” Priscilla said.

I made my way around and looked for my assignment.

“You won’t be mixing anything in here.” Priscilla moved closer to me and whispered, “You clearly don’t belong in this room. I’m sending you straight to room twenty-eight.”

“I don’t understand. Did I do something wrong?”

She frowned quizzically at my comment. “Wrong?” She shook her head. “You just made something that none of these Malkis could even dream of,” she said in a whisper filled with disgust. “You should be making stuff we can actually use. I bet you’ll be a top-tenner before the months out.”

I didn’t know what most of that meant, but I knew I was moving up. Good, closer to learning something and meeting the president.

“Okay, what about Mark? I’m not leaving without him.”

She sighed. “Darius’s report showed him a hair above these Malkis. I’d be putting my neck out letting him go with you.”

“Please. He knows more about this stuff than I ever will. He can help me.”

“Fine, but if he can’t produce, he’ll get moved back down to room thirty-two and there isn’t a thing you can do to stop it.” She looked past me. “Mark, come up here.”

The Blues booed as Mark walked to the front.

“Mark,” Priscilla said in a slow way. “Allie is going to take you to room twenty-eight, okay?”

He frowned at her tone. “Only if she holds my hand the whole time. I gets lost real easy.”

Priscilla shook her head and waved her hand. “Just go.”

I glanced back at the class. As they watched me and Mark leave the room, I saw the envy in their eyes. They wanted a ticket out of there as well. What could be so bad about mixing stuff up and creating those stones?

I closed the door and stepped into the hub. To the left, the circular wall bent inward and I saw the door numbers lowering as they went across. A few people were mingling around the statue. A huddle of Reds eyed us as we walked past room thirty-one.

“She called you a Malki. What is that?” I asked.

Mark sighed. “It’s what they call alchemists who are weak with the gift, like my mom, and I guess like me. It’s derogatory.”

I bit my lip. I’d known it meant something mean. I would never call someone a name with hate behind it.

“What did I make back there? Why was she all weird about it?”

“It wasn’t what you made as much as the potency. The more ingredients you use, the greater risk of failure. You poured the whole damned mixture together and still made a stone.”

“Yeah, but what was it?”

“I think it was a mist stone.”

“Like the one we were supposed to make?”

“Yeah.”

A group of three Blues walked by, and I kept my head low as they passed. Mark glared at them, but they didn’t engage.

“Here’s room twenty-eight.” Mark pointed at the wooden door with the number carved in the front.

“Should we knock?”

“Did you knock at Summerford High?” He opened the door and we walked into the room.

I didn’t like it, but the first thing I looked for was the color people were wearing on their wrists and necks. I let out a long breath when I saw that every person in the room had red on. They looked up with weary eyes from their frothing bowls. I gave a small wave in an attempt to greet them, but they quickly went back to their mixing.

“Ahem.” A man standing behind the teacher’s desk looked at us. He was wearing a white lab coat, and his black hair was slicked back with a small pouf in the front. His polished black shoes held the large roll-up on his pants. “What are you doing here?”

“Priscilla sent us,” I said softly over the clanking of mixing spoons hitting glass bowls.

“Did she, now?” He raised an eyebrow. “I’m Professor Dill. There are two desks in the back available. Here are your materials until lunchtime.” He pulled out a milk jug and what looked like a bucket of wood shavings.

“Professor Dill … oh, you probably knew my mother,” Mark said. “Sarah Duval.”

The man frowned and shook his head. “I don’t think I remember a Sarah Duval.”

Mark looked down and crunched his eyebrows together.

I eyed the back of the room and saw the tables, glad to be in the back again.

“Come on.” I scooped up my supplies and Mark did the same. The bucket of shavings smelled just like pencils, a smell I enjoyed. I breathed it in and felt comfort in the one familiar thing in the room. I placed my supplies down on the last desk and pulled the chair close. I glanced over to Mark with a big smile, but he didn’t seem to have the same enthusiasm. He pinched some of the wood shavings between his fingers and smelled them.

I leaned close to him and whispered, “What does this make and how much should I use?”

“I’m not sure, but if these are wood and milk, I think it’s a growth stone.”

“Like, I’ll get taller?” I wouldn’t mind a few more inches.

“Maybe, but this is stuff you would use on trees or plants. You know, to grow crops faster, like fertilizer.”

I rolled my eyes and looked at the milk jug and wood shavings. Fog and fertilizer weren’t exactly the groundbreaking feats of alchemy I thought I’d be making, but I’d make do.

In the safety of looking at their backs, I watched the other students and their process for mixing. The room was filled with the sounds of clattering bowls, pouring milk, and the hiss of stones being created. The guy sitting in front of me kept grabbing and pinching his thighs, muttering to himself. He seemed to be cursing, and when pinching wasn’t enough, he started hitting his leg and rocking back and forth in his chair.

“Barry?” Professor Dill said. “Have you created one yet?”

“No, but I’ve gotten a lot of steam from this one. I’m almost….”

The teacher walked toward him and the class kept mixing, taking careful glances at the situation arising. I didn’t have any qualms about expressing my curiosity.

Dill stopped at his desk and lifted his bowl. He inspected the contents and swirled the muddy-looking remains. Dill tilted the bowl and poured the muddy contents onto Barry’s lap. The room erupted in a flurry of mixing as everyone seemed to hug the bowls in front of them. I couldn’t look at anything but Barry’s shaking hands and tear-stained face as he glanced around the room. What kind of teacher dumps a bowl of muck on one of their students?

“I’m sorry, Professor Dill. I’ll keep trying. I’ll get madder, I promise.”

“It’s not your fault, Barry. It’s my fault for not giving you proper motivation. Tell me, what is your trigger?”

Barry glanced around at us. He shook his head and his mouth opened and closed. I wanted to speak up and tell Barry we didn’t need to hear his trigger, whatever it was.

“I don’t like to think about it. I haven’t seen her in a long time.”

“You want to lose again, Barry?” Dill pointed to the front of the class at something.

Barry shook his head violently.

“Then you better consider your trigger.”

Barry looked around. “My sister has Down syndrome, and it’s when I hear people use ‘retard’ to describe her. Please, don’t tell the Blues.”

“But your sister
is
a retard.”

My mouth hung open. Barry’s fists clenched tight as he laid them on top of the desk. I stopped breathing in anticipation as Barry pulled back one hand. I glanced over to Mark and found him sitting in his seat, arms crossed, looking at the materials on his desk. I turned back to Barry and Dill.

“Retard?” Dill said as he hung over Barry’s desk. “I think that word is too good for your sister. To call her a retard would imply she’s a human of sorts. But she isn’t, is she?”

Barry stood up from his desk, both hands white as he squeezed his fists and sneered at Dill.

“But you know the truth? She likes it when I call her ‘retard.’ She wants me to call it out every time….”

“Just stop it, man,” Mark said, loud enough to make me jump in my seat.

Similar words were in my mouth and I was glad someone had spoken up. I was thrilled to see Mark stand up for this kid. I wanted to cheer him on and push the teacher away. Thoughts of regret spread through my mind. Maybe I had made a mistake in coming to the Academy.

Barry turned to look at Mark at the same time as Dill.

“I know you’re new here, but don’t ever interrupt a buildup,” Dill threatened. “In order for you to make a stone, you have to pour your emotion into it. It’s my job to get Barry to find that anger and now you’ve interrupted the process. Are you a Malki?”

All eyes were on Mark, and the whole room went silent. I could hear my heart pounding in my chest. I wanted to blow out the tension in the room and make everyone chill.

“I’m not a Malki,” Mark stated.

“Then don’t act like one,” Dill said. “Barry, use your sister as fuel and mix me up a damned rock right now. Time’s running out.”

Barry’s lips thinned as he sat back down. In a few seconds, he had distributed a small amount of shavings into his mixing bowl. The class still hadn’t moved, and Barry took center stage. His spoon shook as he poured a small amount of milk into the mix. After a few moments, it steamed and hissed. A white stone with brown splotches appeared and rolled around. Barry lifted the bowl and stared at what he had created. His face filled with pride as he tilted the bowl for the professor to see.

Dill nodded. “You see? You just needed to find the trigger. That goes for the rest of you as well. You have to be able to pull out the things that scare you, the things that make you angry … hysterically angry. This is the only way we can win. Now think about the thing you hate most in this world and pour it into the bowl. Go on, put it in.”

Barry used a cloth to pick the stone up from the bowl, then scurried to the front of the room and dropped it into a wooden box next to the professor’s desk. A number on the wall changed from twelve to thirteen.