Battle of the Beasts

“Cordelia? Are you all right?” Mrs Mortimer asked.

“May I please be excused,” she said. It wasn’t a question. She shoved her old-woman hands inside her bag, got up, and rushed from the room, using her elbow to open the door. Mrs Mortimer protested as kids behind her gave one another looks and started laughing.

But Cordelia felt a different look. She felt the look of the person who had been watching her – back again, seeing what she was going through, and feeling pleased about it. She whirled around at the window, but no one was there. I’m losing it!

She could only think of one place to go.

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Cordelia dashed down the hallway with her hands in her bag. Why had she not worn something with pockets today? Because, she thought, I wanted to wear leggings with this vintage sweater.

Tim Bradley, from her chemistry class, suddenly appeared at the end of the hall. He was tall, on the basketball team, with shaggy red hair, blue eyes and a sweet smile. He sneaked glances at Cordelia in chemistry when he thought she wasn’t looking – but Cordelia always knew when someone was staring at her. Especially a cute guy.

Still, Tim never talked to her. Maybe he didn’t have the courage. Except now he was waving at her, holding a hall pass.

“Hi, Cordelia … are you okay?”

“Can’t talk!” Cordelia said, moving past him. She couldn’t believe it. Boys never knew how to time anything.

“But … wait! You’re going into the—”

I know, thought Cordelia as she dipped inside the women’s faculty restroom.

She closed the door. The faculty restrooms were like hidden temples at her school; no one had ever been inside them and they could contain anything. Luckily this one was empty. Cordelia pulled out her hands to examine them.

They were worse. Like gnarled old sticks with grey hide pulled over them. Like fossilised snake skins. With great difficulty, she managed to lock the door, noticing as she did that her hands were still getting older, shrivelling and cracking in real time, like they were going to fall off and leave her with stumps—

Like the Wind Witch, she realised. Who had a hand like this? Dahlia Kristoff, that’s who.

Cordelia’s hands were cold. Ice-cold. Suddenly she had an idea. She used her elbows to turn on the sink’s hot water.

When we were on the pirate ship, what did the Wind Witch do to me? She turned me to ice. And what’s the opposite of ice?

Cordelia shoved her hands into the sink. The water burned; she jerked back but held firm. Steam rose into her face. Tears came out of her eyes.

This is good; this will help. Beat the ice. Beat it with heat.

She wiped her eyes on her shoulder. When she looked down, her hands were back to normal. They were swollen, crimson and throbbing, but they no longer resembled Dahlia Kristoff’s hands. Cordelia collapsed on the bathroom floor.

She returned to class. Nobody said a word. She guessed that Mrs Mortimer had warned them to respect other people’s privacy. But now everyone would be talking about her. She needed to find Brendan and Eleanor ASAP, to discuss what the heck was going on. But not until they got home. Talking about the Wind Witch in public was dangerous.

At lunchtime, Cordelia didn’t feel like eating, or talking to anyone. Fortunately Bay Academy had a sushi bar, so she grabbed a tiny prepackaged container of salmon sushi and sat by the window.

“Hi, Cordelia.”

It was Tim, from the hallway. Cordelia had a momentary burst of excitement before she remembered the crazy situation she had been in that morning – then she felt a quiet numbness as she realised she’d need to lie to Tim.

“Yes?”

“I just … seeing you before … are you okay? I mean, you seemed upset—”

“Oh, I’m fine. I thought I was getting the stomach flu, but I’m okay now.” Cordelia forced a smile, took a bite of sushi.

“Look,” said Tim, a bit nervous, “I was wondering …”

“Yes?” asked Cordelia, taking another small bite.

“If you’re not too busy this weekend, would you like to go to a movie with me?”

Cordelia blinked. Somebody put this day in the calendar!The first time a boy has officially asked me out! Hopefully the freaky thing with my hands won’t happen again. Maybe I imagined it all. Maybe everything’s just fine.

But there was one thing that wasn’t fine. The last time Cordelia’s heart had raced like this, it was because of Will, and she still missed him …

But you know what? Will’s gone. He had his chance and he never showed up. And Tim is right here.

Cordelia didn’t want to appear too eager. She took one last bite of sushi, for dramatic effect, ready to answer yes, when she heard a chunk and felt a tugging in her gums. Now what?

She pulled the piece of sushi out of her mouth. The salmon was covered in blood.

Protruding from the top of it, like a gravestone, was one of her teeth.

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Tim Bradley stared at the tooth in horror. He looked at Cordelia, back to the tooth, back to Cordelia …

“Uh,” muttered Tim, “I just remembered. I have to get a haircut this weekend. Maybe some other time.”

Tim backed away, bumped into a table, and made himself scarce. Cordelia cupped the tooth-sushi in her hand and rushed out of the cafeteria. Kids gasped and stared, but there was nothing she could do – she needed help. She barrelled down the hall and pushed open the door to the nurse’s office, screaming: “You need to put it back in! Can you put it back in?”

“Put what back where?” Nurse Pete said.

Bay Academy’s school nurse weighed almost eighty kilograms, with big sweat stains in the underarms of his dress shirt. He was bald, with a small grey goatee, black glasses and fuzzy blue Uggs. The office was covered in posters about depression and lice.

“My tooth fell out!”

Nurse Pete pointed to a bench. Cordelia sat while he took the sushi, then handed her a towel to stop the bleeding. As it subsided, he placed the tooth and sushi in separate Ziploc bags.

“Can you explain what happened?”

“It just came out like a baby tooth.” Cordelia moved her tongue into the spot where her tooth had been. She could feel her exposed, ragged gumline.

“Baby teeth get loose before they come out,” Nurse Pete said. “Was this tooth loose?”

“No—”

“But sushi’s very soft. It’s nearly impossible for food that soft to extract a tooth. This is very disturbing, could be serious.”

“Like how serious?”