Class Dis-Mythed

When I was a boy, my friends and I used to play "Demon In the Dark," where one person was chosen as the Demon, hunting down all the others and 'killing' them. Your heart pounds in your chest when you think you hear someone sneaking up behind you. It was hard not to shout out when the Demon grabbed you and hauled you away to wherever the holding area was, usually someone's cellar or a stall in a handy stable. We would always laugh hysterically when it was all over, as much out of relief from the tension as from the fact that it was a lot of fun. My students didn't seem to see the fun in playing the game with a real life Demon, or dimension traveler, as I now understood the philological origin of the word. All of them looked deadly serious, even frightened, as they tried to keep away from Chumley. He was making it easy on them, crashing around like a charging bull. From where I sat I could see a couple of the trees he had pushed down across the road, just shouldering his way through the undergrowth.

Suddenly, silence fell. I grinned. Chumley's secret weapon had just gone into play. I wondered if any of them would remember what I had said. The biggest mistake they all made was assuming that just because Chumley had come charging in like an avalanche, that meant he couldn't move any other way. I was almost ashamed of them, after the detailed introduction I'd given him.

A wild yell from the depths of the forest told me that he had just captured a student. I couldn't tell who it was by the shrill screech of surprise. I knew I could just go back to the inn and see who was sulking in the sitting room with Bunny. Oops, there went Tolk, galloping on all fours over the pathway. So it hadn't been him. I settled down to read a few pages.

I looked up at the sound of rustling grass. Not far from my coign of vantage, Pologne sat on a large rock painting her nails. I sighed. It was a good illusion, but I could tell easily

that it WAS an illusion. The image wasn't making any noise. That wasn't going to fool Chumley. I glanced around for the real Pervect.

Moving twigs on the other side of the clearing gave her away. She had dug herself in behind a hollow tree, hoping to surprise Chumley. I imagined she hoped to capture him single-handedly. I had no idea how she thought she'd accomplish that, without the physical strength to subdue him or even a rope to tie him up. I imagined that at least a few of the others, most likely Bee among them, had similar intentions, and were laying traps instead of merely trying to avoid detection and capture.

Melvine came flitting through, just ahead of the crashing noises. He saw Pologne sitting on the rock. I could see an evil grin spread on his face. He doubled back into the woods and came out with a handful of red tree-buds. He flicked one at the back of the Pervect's head. She never blinked. The acorn clattered to the forest floor. The evil grin grew wider.

It had been dry that day. Melvine had no trouble kicking up a miniature whirlwind that raised enough dust to fill the clearing. Too late, Pologne saw that something was up. The dust collected itself and surrounded her like a cloud. She started coughing uncontrollably. Feeling blindly around the ground, she located a rock and heaved it in Melvine's general direction. He bobbed out of reach.

"Nyah NYAH nyah!" he taunted. The minicyclone whisked across the forest floor and went up the leg of Pologne's shorts.

"You little monster!" she shrieked, dancing around. She batted at her pants until the little wind dropped out again and skittered away. Magnificent in her fury, she stalked toward Melvine and pointed a hand at him.

Too late. A purple-furred hand, a dozen times the size of her own, snaked out of the underbrush at her back, and clapped over her mouth. The other appeared and dragged her into the bushes.

Melvine looked astonished for a moment, then gleeful. He flitted off into the woods again, no doubt to see if he could get any other fellow students snagged, at no risk to himself.

When we broke for lunch, the sour expression Tolk shot at the Cupy suggested to me that Melvine had had one more success. At the far end of the table, Melvine was bragging to Bunny how he lured Tolk into his own leaf-covered pit, from which Chumley had hauled him out.

"Isn't he being unfair, Master Skeeve?" Tolk demanded, slamming a paw down on the edge of his plate of green meat.

"Yes and no," I said, swiftly fielding the cold gobbets of flesh with a small net of magik. I put them back on his plate. I'd had plenty of time to think about it while guarding the road. "On the one hand, Melvine's not being a team player, but that should come as no surprise to you. He hasn't shown a lot of loyalty to the group."

"Hey!" Melvine protested.