Witches in Flight Read Online Free PDF Page B

bunch of brainiacs.
    She sat in silence, watching eight sets of eyes stare at
hers.   Some curious.   The professor’s more demanding.   And Lori’s, almost pleading.
    Frack.   She was
turning into a total wimp lately.   “It also belongs to the audience.”
    Professor Allard’s eyes were still demanding.   Most of the rest were fairly
confused.   Apparently braniacs
sometimes needed a personal tour.   “Words start as ours.   Until
we say them or write them, they’re just in this little bubble inside our heads,
and they mean exactly what we meant them to say because we’re the only
audience.”
    She turned to Lori, blocking out all the other eyes.   “But if we put them out there, words
speak to things inside people, things we don’t even know about.   You talked about being new—new in
this country, new in this culture.”   She shrugged.   “That’s no
big for me—I’ve always been here.   But I’m kind of new to the whole grown-up thing, so that’s what I heard
in your words.   So now they’re a
little bit my words too, and they don’t only mean what they meant when you
wrote them.”
    And wow, that was an arrogant thing to say, even if she was
totally right.   Someday she was
going to find a leash for her mouth.
    Lori’s grin was a bit wavery.   “Do you want to know what I heard in your words?”
    No.   A thousand
times no.   But that wasn’t how
grown-ups did business.   “I guess.”
    “I heard that you don’t win a fight by surviving.   You win it by changing the rules, by
being smart and being brave enough to look past what you always thought was
true.   You win by knowing the truth
matters, and it’s the truth inside you that matters most.”
    Lizard tried desperately to squirm in some direction that
wouldn’t make her look into the mirror her new friend was holding up.   Dammit, this was exactly what she’d
expected to happen when she’d come to class.   She glared at Professor Allard, purveyor of broken
promises.   He just winked and
grinned.
    Lori looked down at the table, cheeks flushing.   “Anyhow, that’s what I heard.”
    Lizard yanked down her mind barriers as murmurs of agreement,
said and unsaid, started floating around the room.   “Don’t we have some dead-poet dude to talk about?”
    “In a moment.”   Her
professor’s eyes had that look again.   “But I’m going to break my own rule first.   You told us ‘stupid’ wasn’t a name anymore.   Just a word.”
    Triple fracking hell.   She wanted to move back to the planet where nobody paid any attention to
the words coming out of Lizard Monroe’s mouth.   “Yeah.   So?”
    He smiled slowly.   “It made me wonder what the new name is.”
    As she mentally stomped out of class, Lizard could hear the
frustrated answer swinging around her ribcage.   Sometimes poems lied.   There was no new name.   She
was Lizard.   She would always be
Lizard.
    ~ ~ ~
    Elsie watched as Helga clambered up the ladder to the trapeze,
and prayed that Abe knew what he was doing.   The Trapeze Arts trainers hadn’t even blinked when
seventy-year-old Helga had shown up, peeled off her warm-ups to reveal a
spangly cat suit underneath, and announced she wanted to try flying.
    Apparently half the world wanted to try flying.   The line-up in their beginner class
included a football player, three teenagers, a man with a beard long enough to
be a safety risk in the air, and a mom of six.   Other than one of the teenage girls, they were all bouncing
happily in line and waiting their turn, shouting encouragement to whoever was
currently up with the trainers.
    Helga waved down as they cheered her on, and then grabbed the
trapeze with both hands.   Elsie
watched in interest and relief as Abe clipped on a couple of additional
wires.   Good—they were taking
extra care with her bold friend’s old bones.
    Some students froze when they first gripped the bar, clutched by
the exultant terror Elsie remembered all