Wood Sprites

Louise forced herself to smile. It felt so faked; she was sure she must have been grinning like an evil mad scientist out to take over the world. Skipping did help a little to let her feel strong and brave.

* * *

Miss Gray used the voice. She looked up when they walked into the art room and her voice came out all squeaky with that “oh, little puppy, you’re so cute” tone. “Jillian! Louise! Those dresses are darling.”

And then awareness of who exactly they were caught up with the cuteness, and her look changed to slight alarm. “Jillian. Louise. What are you two doing here so early? And why do you have your dog with you?”

“He matches us!” Jillian said as if it explained everything. She managed to seem unfazed that Miss Gray was in the classroom far earlier than they had expected. Louise’s heart was jumping in her chest out of nervousness.

“Yes, I see, but why are you here so early?” Miss Gray had apparently decided to tackle one issue at a time.

“Our class had a job printing on last night.” Louise pointed toward the Annex. “We wanted to see if it completed correctly and move the item to our class locker before the seniors come in.”

“And the dog?” Miss Gray asked.

“His name is Tesla!” Jillian purposely misunderstood the question. “Miss Gray, we remembered that we forgot about Hook’s hand.”

This was the complete truth. Louise had only thought of it the night before as they got their parents to sign Jillian’s permission slip for the stage-fencing lessons. Part of the fight involved Peter chastising Captain Hook for unfairly using his hook.

Jillian pulled out her tablet and moved to corner Miss Gray. “His left hand needs to be large enough to be easily seen as a hook by the audience. It needs to give the impression of a weapon, so it needs some point to it without it being dangerous to Iggy or anyone he might swing at. It also needs to be lightweight since he needs to carry it the entire play. We’re not sure, though, how to make it without making Iggy’s arm seem super long.”

As Jillian pinned Miss Gray down by sketching out the all-important hook, Louise took Tesla into the next room. Thankfully Mr. Kessler hadn’t arrived yet, so the Annex’s lights were still off. Weak morning sunlight filtered in through the wall of windows. On the top floor of the school, the art rooms looked out over the distant Hudson River. Louise left the overhead lights off and hurried to the 3D printer. The screen was reporting the job completed.

Her hands shook as she opened up Tesla’s onboard storage compartment and took out the fake generator. She set it down on the nearest table. As she took her hands away, she was filled with the certainty that she had put it in the wrong place. She snatched it up and then started to put it down, farther from the table’s edge so it couldn’t fall. It felt even more dangerous, but now that she was paying attention, there hadn’t been any chance it could have fallen from the first place she put it. She slid it forward. When the fake generator teetered on the very edge, the uneasiness disappeared.

She frowned at the precariously balanced fake. That didn’t make sense.

The hallway door was flung open and Mr. Kessler stormed in, flipping on lights. “Stupid freaking steps.” He was panting as if he had just run up all twelve flights. “If I wanted a Stairmaster workout, I’d get a gym membership.”

He hurried to his desk, logged onto his desktop, and quickly pulled up several windows, muttering, “Come on, come on.”

What should she do? It was obvious he didn’t realize she was in the room. She hadn’t gotten the real magic generator out of the printer. The fake was sitting out in plain sight. She was going to get caught! Should she try and hide the fake, or hope that Mr. Kessler didn’t notice that there was something still in the printer?

In the art room, Jillian did something that made Miss Gray raise her voice.

Kessler looked up, saw the open door, and hissed in surprise and anger. He jerked around to stare at her, the hiss becoming an explosive “Shit! What are you doing in here?”

“Me?” she squeaked as she slid sideways, blocking the view of the printer since she couldn’t shove the fake back into Tesla without being caught. “I was just getting our job out of the printer.”

“You’re not supposed to be here alone. You shouldn’t even be here with that big ape of a teacher. And what the hell is that thing you have in there?”

“You took it out?” Even as she said it, Louise remembered that the status light was still on, which it wouldn’t be if he’d taken the generator out of the printer.

“I checked your code with the teacher-access option.” He kept coming like a freight train without brakes. “The school board has made it clear that it will be my head on the chopping block if a kid used the printer to make bombs, drugs, or porn. Drugs or porn? What a complete joke.”