ROLL CALL

Max was already having a tough day when he walked through the door of his Bounder Care class with Sprig. She had taken the form of a white tiger that morning, and she hadn’t changed since. Some of the other students were intimidated, and she liked the reaction.

Brooke Lundgren was already seated in her desk. Honeysuckle, her overly protective Bounder pixie, was there, too. Neither looked at Max. In fact, Brooke hadn’t spoken to him in months.

Max didn’t get it. They’d been neighbors their entire lives, and now everything felt awkward. Everything seemed to fall apart after a murderous creature known as a Reaper attacked Brooke. He wasn’t sure if she blamed him for it or what the problem was. Girls were too confusing—especially Brooke. To avoid any drama, Max decided to sit on the opposite side of the room. It was easier that way.

“How’s it going?” Kenji asked when Max walked by. His drake, Sparky, was perched on his shoulders, asleep.

“Hey, Kenji.”

Sprig growled. She wasn’t overly fond of other Bounder Faeries, much less any faerie at all. However, the spriggan appeared to take particular pleasure when it came to annoying Kenji’s drake. Max warned her against it, but she ignored him.

The drake opened a single eye before closing it again. Then he yawned. In a flash of light, Sprig changed into an Ice imp. She wasn’t much taller than Max’s knee, with bandy legs, long arms, and leathery wings. She smiled ruefully as a snowball formed in her hand. Then she threw it at the drake.

“What the…?” Kenji jumped out of his chair as the ice crystals flew down his collar and ran down his back.

“Sprig, don’t!” Max said, but it was too late.

The drake screeched as he took flight. He retaliated by belching a ball of flames. The fireball was intended for Sprig, but it hit Brandi Stewart instead. She was stroking the neck of her catterfly when one of her braided pigtails caught on fire. Max couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

“I’m so sorry,” he said as he ran to the sink in the back of the room to get a pitcher of water.

Catalina’s Digger imp got so nervous that he vomited. Then Honeysuckle got in on the act. The pixie tried to douse the flames in Brandi’s hair, but she didn’t have much luck. At the same time, Sprig started throwing snowballs at the drake, but an errant throw took out a lightbulb, sending a shower of glass falling from the ceiling.

“Sprig, knock it off!” Max couldn’t believe what was happening.

Akinyi Butama, the Bounder Care teacher, walked into the room. She had been smiling, but it didn’t last. She grabbed Brandi’s arm and dragged the frightened girl to the sink, where Max stood with the pitcher. Ms. Butama took it and doused the fire in Brandi’s hair. Brandi looked like she was about to cry as her catterfly fluttered in the air next to her.

“What’s the meaning of this?” Ms. Butama asked.

All eyes turned to Max.

“Mr. Sumner?”

“Well… I…” He looked at Sprig, who had turned back into a tiger. She was already lying on the floor, snoring next to his desk.

“His spriggan threw a snowball at Sparky,” Kenji said.

“Is that true?” Ms. Butama asked.

“Look, I’m really sorry,” Max said.

“We’ll discuss this later,” she said, cutting Max off before he could explain himself. Then she walked over to her desk, where she picked up a phone to call the maintenance crew. A few minutes later, a service clockwork with a mop and a bucket filled with steaming water and a fragrant solution entered the room and started cleaning up the mess.

“You’re lucky we didn’t get detention,” Max said to Sprig after class. She was prowling next to him as the white tiger. “Why do you like teasing that drake?”

“Because it smells of foul sulfur,” Sprig said. Then she growled at a boy who was trying to reach for a book at the top of his locker. When he turned to see the tiger, he tried to run, but his feet got crossed up. He dropped his books. Everyone started to laugh. Sprig was smiling.

“You need to stop doing that,” Max said to Sprig, helping the boy to his feet. “I’m sorry about that.”

The boy was too discombobulated to do anything but pick up his books, shut his locker, and run off to his next class.

“I’m serious,” Max said as he walked down the hallway. Sprig was at his side, her head held high as she purred. “You can’t do stuff like that anymore.”

“Yes, Max,” she said. “We will be on our best behavior, we will.”

The last class of the day—the new class—was to be held in a small building on the outskirts of the school grounds. To get there, Max walked through a set of double doors that led to a rose garden with a gurgling fountain in the center. Harley was waiting for him.

“Where’s Natalia?”

“I haven’t seen her since lunch,” Harley said.

“Should we wait for her?” Max asked as Sprig shifted into a falcon. Then she took to the air. It was chilly, but the clouds had parted to reveal a sliver of sunshine.

Harley looked at his watch. “We better get going.”

“She’s never late.”

“I guess there’s a first time for everything.”

With Sprig soaring overhead, the boys cut through the garden, then across a wide lawn. It wasn’t long before they came to what looked like a one-room schoolhouse. It was a simple wooden structure with a gabled vestibule and a small bell tower.

A bell chimed as Max opened the door. The cozy room had scuffed wooden floors, two rows of desks that held two students each, and a potbellied stove that sat squarely in the front of the room.

“There’s Natalia,” Harley said. “Looks like you won’t be able to sit by Brooke.”

Harley was smiling, but Max wasn’t. He watched Natalia and Brooke as they talked and laughed in the front row.

Neither noticed the boys when they walked in. Honeysuckle, however, did. She flew to Brooke’s ear and whispered something. Brooke turned around, and Max held her gaze for a moment, but she looked away before opening a book.

“I thought you wanted to meet at the fountain,” Harley said as he slid into the desk behind the girls. Max hesitated. He wasn’t sure he wanted to sit that close to Brooke, but he did anyway. Sprig sat on her haunches next to him.

As Max sat down, Brooke glanced over her shoulder. It was subtle, but Max was sure that she was looking at him. Then, when they made eye contact for the second time, she rolled her eyes and turned back to her book.

Max frowned. His first reaction was anger, but it flared and died down and was replaced by confusion. He wanted to ask her what was wrong, but there was no way that Max was going to do that in front of a bunch of people.

“I guess I forgot,” Natalia said. “Sorry.”

The bell chimed. Max turned around to see Kenji walk in with Sparky. When Kenji saw Max, he scowled and moved to a desk in the back of the room.

“Don’t even think about it,” Max said when he saw Sprig’s ears perk up.

Catalina and her imp had snuck in as well. The Bounder still looked nauseated. His eyes were drooping and his skin was flushed. Catalina wouldn’t even look at Max. She sat across from Kenji as her portly imp struggled to climb into the desk next to her.

“That thing is ugly,” Harley said in a whisper. “I wonder if her parents let it in the house.”

Max turned to see Ernie walk in with the Toad brothers.

“You don’t get it,” Ernie said. “Kryptonite isn’t the only thing that can take Superman out. He’s susceptible to magic. That’s why Captain Marvel could win.”

He had been talking so loudly that everyone in the room turned to look at him. Embarrassed, Ernie sat down in the first available seat. Unfortunately, Catalina’s Bounder Faerie was already sitting there.

Scuttlebutt yowled, and Ernie shot into the air. His pants were covered in mucus. Ernie reached down to wipe it off, but that only made things worse. The slime was now stuck to his hands, stretching between his fingers.

“That smells disgusting!” Ross exclaimed.

Catalina jumped up and grabbed the imp before running out of the room.

“What am I supposed to do?” Ernie called after her as he wiped his fingers on the front of his shirt.

Everyone in the room was laughing.

Natalia pulled out the front page of the New Victoria Chronicle before tossing it to Ernie. “Of course, you can use this as a towel,” she said. “You might want to read the cover first. It’s about a bunch of juvenile delinquents running around New Victoria. The chief constable thinks that they’re changelings from Iron Bridge. Can you believe that?”

Ernie’s eyes shot wide open, and his jaw dropped. Then, recovering, he furrowed his thick eyebrows into a frown, pressing against the top of his aviator goggles. “I don’t really care what the chief constable thinks,” he said.

“Sure you don’t,” Natalia said. The final bell chimed, and Natalia turned back around before Ernie could say another word.

The door opened, and all eyes turned to the procession of changelings walking into the room. Yi Lu, the pyrokinetic, was first. Kenji’s drake hissed at him, and Yi responded by snorting flames. Denton was next. His lion’s tail swished behind him as though it had a life of its own. Hale, the girl with the green skin and antennae, was right behind him, followed by Raven. She looked as frustrated as ever, not that anyone could blame her. Dean Nipkin was lurking over her shoulder.

“Take your seats,” the dean said.

“We saved you a seat,” Natalia said, waving to Raven.

When Natalia learned that Raven could talk to inanimate objects, she decided to enlist her to help solve the mystery of the Clockwork King, Otto Von Strife. The only problem was that Raven had a well-earned reputation for having a prickly personality, so Natalia decided to befriend her first. She figured the old saying was true, that it was easier to catch flies with honey.

It was a disaster at first. Raven had found Natalia to be annoying, but Natalia’s persistence not only earned Raven’s help, but the two had also somehow become friends, or at least as close to friendship as Raven could get.

Raven hesitated, but she decided to join them.

“Have you met Brooke?” Natalia asked.

Raven shook her head.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Brooke said.

Raven’s eyes went from Brooke to Honeysuckle and then back to Brooke. “Yeah, nice to meet you, too.”

The door creaked open one last time. A stout man walked down the aisle before placing his briefcase on the empty desk at the front of the room. He was dressed formally in a brown suit with a gold vest, a white shirt, a bow tie, and a bowler derby. His shoes were polished, his grey beard was trimmed, and his round spectacles glinted in the lamplight.

Then he smiled at the students, revealing a peculiar set of wooden teeth.