Chapter 13
"Winged fl ight is our heritage and our destiny."
Coach Knorrig kept her hands clasped behind her back as she addressed the second-period aerial exercises class. "But there is more to fl ying than fl apping your wings and avoiding low-fl ying aircraft. Fluttering around in the open sky is one thing; learning to use echolocation so you can fl y in tight, cramped spaces is something else altogether."
Standing on a high, wide ledge a hundred feet above the fl oor of the grotto, Cally was glad that several girls were between her and Lilith, who was eyeing her dangerously.
As Coach Knorrig continued her speech on the importance of close-quarters aerial skills, Cally moved nearer to the edge for a better view. From here it was easy to tell that the vast underground chamber had been made, not created naturally. The stalagmites on the fl oor far below reminded her of the hedgerows in a garden maze.
Looking down, she was overcome by a burst of vertigo and quickly stepped back. She glanced up and saw the Todd girl staring at her like something she'd scraped off the bottom of her shoe. It would be too ridiculous to plummet headfi rst to her death. Then again, Cally wouldn't put it past any of her classmates, especially Lilith, to give her a shove over the ledge when she wasn't looking.
The coach consulted her ever-present clipboard and said, "Maledetto, you're fi rst."
At fi rst Cally thought the twin who stepped forward was Bella, who had been in her shapeshifting class the night before. Then she realized the ribbons the girl was removing from her hair were red, not blue.
"Could you keep these for me?" Bette Maledetto asked timidly, holding the hair ribbons out to Lilith. She was used to having her twin sister's help with such things, but the administration was placing them into separate classes in an attempt to foster independence.
"What do I look like? Your body servant?" Lilith sniffed, eyeing the satin ribbons with distaste. Seeing a chance to make a much-needed ally, Cally quickly stepped forward. "I'll look after them for you."
"Thanks," Bette said.
Bette walked up to the very edge of the precipice and lifted her arms high up over her head, her fi ngers shooting rapidly outward while her thumbs crooked into huge claws. As the bones of her hands warped themselves into a strange new geometry, the skin between her fi ngers and along her arms expanded and grew into a membranous cape. The tip of her nose pushed upward and back, exposing the nostrils, while her lips peeled back to reveal pearly white fangs. The pointed tips of her ears quadrupled in size while moving to the top of her skull, and her hair was replaced by dark gray fur as soft as moleskin. Her neck retracted, pulling her head in tight between her shoulders, while her chest widened to accommodate a longer reach. The toes of her feet elongated until they were all the same length, the nails curving into ebony talons. Within seconds Bette was leaning forward on transformed legs, the knees of which now bent backward, chittering anxiously to herself as she peered down at the jagged forest of stone below her.
Cally was astounded at how quickly Bette had metamorphosed from a cute, baby-faced teenage girl into a monstrous humanoid bat. The whole transformation, from start to fi nish, hadn't taken more than a few heartbeats. The thought of having to accomplish the same feat made her own heart drop like a coin down a subway grate.
"Don't be nervous, Maledetto," Coach Knorrig said in a cajoling voice. "You can do it."
Bette contracted her pectoral muscles, bringing her wings down to her sides. Flexing her huge mutated thumbs, she fl ung herself into the abyss. Her classmates surged forward, jostling one another for the best view as she plunged toward the rocks. Suddenly Bette's arms snapped open as if they were spring-loaded and, cupping her wings against the air rushing past her body, she began to make a vigorous rowing motion. The skin of her wings instantly billowed outward, generating lift that pulled her up and away from the rapidly approaching cave fl oor.
"Good job, Maledetto! You're doing great!" Coach Knorrig called after her. "Now fi nd a rock and stick to it!"
Bette fl uttered over and anchored herself to a stalactite, hanging upside down by her hooked thumbs and clawed feet.
"I hope the rest of you saw what Maledetto did to launch herself," Coach Knorrig said. "Mortimer: I see you've got your hand raised," she said, pointing at Bianca. "What is it?"
"Is this going to be on the test?"
Coach Knorrig sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefi nger. "There are no written tests for this class, Mortimer. You're graded on physical performance alone."
"Yes, ma'am," Bianca replied sheepishly.
"Okay, now that you lovely ladies have seen how easy it is to get yourself airborne, I want you lined up single fi le and in alphabetical order, ready to make your jump."
There was a sudden scurry of bodies and a fl urry of voices as the assembled students sorted themselves out by surname. As Cally reluctantly moved to take her place in line, Coach Knorrig caught her by the arm and pulled her aside.
"This doesn't include you, Monture."
"But you said line up. . . ."
"I know what I said. And I'm telling you to stand down. If you can't turn into a wolf yet, I'm certainly not going to allow you to make a hundred-foot jump in the hope you might grow wings on the way down. Look, kid, can you even wall-crawl yet?"
"Kinda, but not really," Cally admitted, dropping her gaze. Although she was secretly relieved that she wouldn't have to put her fl ying ability to the test, she was equally embarrassed to be singled out from the others.
"But I'm pretty good at jumping. I can take a ten-foot wall."
"Well, that's a start," Coach Knorrig conceded. "But it's a far cry from being able to fl y."
"What about my grades? You said this is a performancebased class. What am I supposed to do if I'm not allowed to fl y?"
"Run laps."
"But . . ."
"Don't argue with me, Monture," Coach Knorrig said. "If I tell you to run laps, the only thing I want to hear out of your mouth is, 'For how long?' Is that clear?"
"Yes, Coach. For how long?"
"Until I tell you to stop. Now excuse me, I need to get this class going."
With that Coach Knorrig jumped off the ledge and, with a single beat of her wings, joined her remaining students, who were clustered together. With a heavy sigh, Cally headed down the spiral staircase built into the side of the cavern to the fl oor below.
"Monture!" Coach Knorrig shouted, her voice echoing through the grotto.
Cally slowed her jog down to a walk before fi nally stopping altogether. She had been running laps so long she'd lost track of time. She looked up and saw Knorrig, still in her winged form, perched atop a nearby stalagmite.
"Hi, Coach," Cally gasped as she bent over to catch her breath, resting her palms on her knees. Although the grotto was a perpetual sixty-three degrees, it was humid. Sweat trickled down her back. "Is class over?"
"I'm sorry, kid. To be honest, I kind of forgot about you. I sent the rest of the girls to the showers a few minutes ago. If you hurry, you should still catch the midnight feeding before your next class."
"Gee, thanks, Coach," she said, fi ghting the urge to say something snide about how much she appreciated getting a whole ten minutes for mealtime once she fi nished showering and changing her clothes. Things were craptastic enough already with Coach Knorrig - she didn't need to be running laps backward. As she headed to the locker room, Cally realized that she still had Bette Maledetto's red hair ribbons in the pocket of her gym suit. She decided to hang on to them. No doubt Bette would eventually come looking for them. Maybe she could use the opportunity to talk to her without Lilith or one of her toadies trying to shut her down.
The locker room appeared to be completely deserted by the time Cally entered. Although she was hacked that she was going to barely have time to eat, at least she had the luxury of changing clothes without being watched. With every other girl in her class wearing La Perla, the fact that she had to buy her panties three to a pack was uniquely humiliating.
As she opened the clean towel hamper, Cally thought she heard a noise coming from the toilet stalls on the other side of the room.
"Hello? Is somebody there?"
She tilted her head to one side, but all she heard was a leaky showerhead dripping. She shrugged and turned back to the hamper; only this time she heard the distinctive sound of a stifl ed sob.
Cally closed the lid and walked over to the toilets, scanning the fl oor under the closed stalls. She stopped in front of the last door, under which she could clearly see a pair of legs outfi tted in brown penny loafers and white kneesocks.
"Are you okay in there?"
"Go away!" The voice on the other side of the door was so high-pitched it sounded like the owner had just inhaled an entire tank of helium.
"What's wrong with your voice? Are you hurt?"
"No, I'm okay - I mean, no, I'm not hurt. Just go away and leave me alone!" The girl inside the toilet stall began to sniffl e and sob quietly to herself again.
"Look, this is silly. Obviously something must be wrong or you wouldn't be crying," Cally said, reaching for the stall door handle. "Come out where I can see you."
"No!" the student cried out, her voice climbing so high Cally had to cover her ears with her hands. "Don't look at me!"
"Okay! Okay!" Cally said, trying to calm down the other girl. "Is there something I can do to help?"
"I don't think so."
"How can you be so sure of that if you won't even tell me what the problem is?"
"Okay, I'll tell you," the girl on the other side of the stall said after a long pause, "but you have to promise you won't tell anyone."
"I promise."
"I'm stuck."
"Stuck?" Cally frowned, unsure of what she meant.
"Like on the toilet?"
"No. Like this," the other girl said as she pushed open the toilet stall door.
Cally yelped in surprise before clapping a hand over her mouth. Standing before her, dressed in the uniform of a Bathory Academy student, was a small, slightly built girl with the ears and nose of a giant bat.
"Don't look at me! I'm hideous!" the bat-headed girl squeaked, raising her arms to shield her face. Cally struggled to regain her composure. "How did this happen?" she asked.
"I'm not exactly sure," the bat-headed girl replied.
"I had changed back and was getting dressed when I realized I didn't have my ribbons on me. I tried to remember the last time I saw them, and the next thing I know, I'm starting to change! I ran into the stall the moment I felt it starting to happen. I didn't want any of the other girls to see."
"You're Bette Maledetto?" Cally gasped in amazement.
"Afraid so," Bette squeaked as she nodded.
Cally reached inside her gym suit pocket. "I have your ribbons, if that helps."
"Thanks," Bette said, rubbing the red satin against her furry cheek as if it was a beloved pet. Then she wailed, "What am I gonna do? I keep trying and trying to change all the way back, but nothing works!"
"You stay put. I'll get Coach Knorrig."
"No! Don't do that!" Bette pleaded as she grabbed her arm. "She'll report this to the headmistress, I know she will! Everyone here at school already looks down their noses at me and my sister because we're halfbloods! This is the kind of thing they'd love to use as an excuse to prove we don't belong here!"
"That's funny - I thought I was the only student here with that problem," Cally said with a bemused smile.
"No, we're legacy students too," Bette squeaked.
"Our mama is a Lamia, one of the Old Blood, but our papa is New Blood. Most of the other girls won't have anything to do with us at all, although they don't openly bully us like they do you, for fear of what might happen. The only one who is nice to us is Melinda. The others like to make fun of her because her totem is a panther, not a wolf, like the rest of them. I guess that makes her feel kind of sorry for me and my sister."
Something that was probably a look of despair crossed Bette's transformed face. "What's the use? Even if this doesn't end up on my permanent record, I will never be able to live it down. Lilith will make sure of it! Her father and our father are old enemies, and she sees to it every chance she gets that we're miserable! I can already hear the others laughing and calling me 'Batty' behind my back." She dropped down onto the toilet seat and began to cry again, daubing at her upturned, leaf-shaped nose with a length of toilet paper still attached to the roll. "I might as well fl ush my social life down the tubes while I'm in here!"
"Don't get yourself all worked up," Cally said, patting Bette on the shoulder. "That's not going to help anything. Look, you need to decide what's more important: getting a bad grade or being able to walk around without a potato sack over your head. Besides, you can't stay in the girls' locker room for the rest of your life. You've got to come out some time. I'll go fi nd Coach Knorrig and explain the situation to her. I'm sure she'll know what to do."
"You're right: there's no other way out of this," Bette said with a sigh, her shoulders dropping in resignation. "It's really nice of you to help me, though. Up until now the only person I've ever been able to count on is my sister."
"Well, the way I see it, we half-bloods need to stick together, right?"