All That Lives Must Die - Eric Nylund [186]
The boys in the class were bigger and more serious than the ones she usually saw on campus. Upperclassmen. Two of them she recognized from that first-day demonstration of the obstacle course; one had had a broken arm, but he looked no worse for the injury today.
Fiona worried that she might be late—despite having made sure that she had an early start this morning. It was one of those things that just seemed to happen to her: misreading the grandfather clock at home, class getting moved up . . . Eliot doing something to mess them up, like start a small war.
She checked her phone. No, she still had ten minutes.
As Fiona walked toward them, however, she noticed one more thing different with this picture.
Robert Farmington.
He stood with the other boys (just as tall but not quite so filled out), and he looked completely at ease—as he always did. He had a black eye, but nonetheless laughed along with Mr. Ma, and grinned—until he saw her.
His smile dried up. The others turned.
Mr. Ma’s smile similarly vanished, and he was once again the same stern figure who made her life miserable in gym.
“Good morning, Miss Post,” he said.
The way he said it, though, was laced with disapproval—as if what he meant to really say was: Good morning, Miss Post, and notice that while you’re on time, you’re not early . . . indicating that you don’t have the dedication to the martial arts that these other fine young men do, so why don’t you go back to bed and get your beauty sleep and not worry your not-so-pretty-little head about such things?
Imagined or not, irritation made her neck flush with heat.
“I’ve come to learn how to fight,” she told him as confidently as she could (which sounded more like a squeak to her).
“I’m sure you have,” Mr. Ma replied. He nodded to Robert. “But as you can see, I’ve already had one freshman who has contested the prerequisites for this course. I have no desire to babysit two such fledglings. It would not be fair to the others.”
Robert looked at the ground, unable to meet her gaze.
The prickly heat on her neck spread across Fiona’s chest. Anger or embarrassment or both—she wasn’t sure.
It was completely unfair. Just because Robert had gotten here a few minutes earlier and passed Mr. Ma’s stupid test? A test she was sure she could pass, too.
“Miss Westin said I could challenge your prerequisites.” Fiona had wanted to say this calmly and logically, as if Mr. Ma had just overlooked some bookkeeping error, but it came out sounding petulant.
“I’m sure she did. But Miss Westin’s influence stops at the entrance of this hall.”
Fiona pursed her lips. Something solidified in her . . . a titanic, immovable mass of stubbornness.
“I will challenge your prerequisites,” she told him. She had made that sound exactly as she wanted this time—as if she were contesting Mr. Ma personally.
The other students collectively inhaled and held their breaths.
Mr. Ma narrowed his eyes slightly as he took her in, and then after a moment said, “A challenge, is it?” He chuckled. “What would be the point, Miss Post? You need a signed permission slip first.”
He turned back to the others.
“I have one.” Fiona got out the piece of paper and handed it to him.
Mr. Ma looked at the permission slip—which covered all the things she had expected: a dozen hypothetical near-fatal injuries, and the four Ds (death, decapitation, dismemberment, and disembowelment) . . . as if there weren’t already a million different ways to get beaten, broken, or killed in Paxington.
What was absolutely fascinating to Fiona, though, was that Audrey had signed it.
Fiona had gone back and forth on the best way to approach her mother—how learning to fight would actually increase the odds of her graduating—it was better to learn in a structured and supervised environment where there were medics nearby rather than doing so outside of classes where anything could happen.
Audrey hadn’t listened. She had simply taken the permission slip and signed