The Tiny Curse (Werewolf High Book 2) (8 page)

At first it was kind of fun, going to class without anyone being able to see me, being invisible. I could concentrate on the lessons and not worry about getting bullied. That only lasted so long, though.

"The air smells so much fresher in here without the stench of that commoner," said Charlotte Lu Pont on her way out of history class. "Did you see her Facebook from yesterday when we were teaching her a lesson?
I'm taking a small vacation
. I hope it's not too small!"

"I hope she never burdens us with her ugly face again," said Olivia.

"I hope she never burdens the world with her ugly existence."

The two of them burst into peals of laughter. I felt like being sick, but was a bit heartened when Nikolai stuck out his foot as Charlotte walked through the door of our English classroom and tripped her over.

After class, Nikolai met back up with Tennyson to hand over the hat.

"I'm not wearing that," Tennyson said.

"I made it with my own blood and sweat," Nikolai said, pouting.

"Then I am definitely not wearing it. Why would I want to wear a hat made from bodily fluids? She can sit in my pocket."

Nikolai shook his head. "Pockets are not safe."

"You know my feelings about headwear."

They stared at each other until Nikolai gave in and took off the hat for me to climb out.

"What are your feelings about headwear?" I asked Tennyson as he tucked me into his pocket.

"It is unnatural and an abomination. Now be quiet, you don't want the polo team to find you."

"Polo is unnatural and an abomination," I told him. "I will have no part in it."

He ignored me and kept walking. I poked my head out of his pocket to see where we were, but it was a part of the school grounds I wasn't familiar with. Because it was the sporty part. He obviously wasn't joking about the polo.

"Hey, Mr 'You can't ride a rat in life threatening circumstances because it's exploiting animals', are you seriously going to play polo? I am not comfortable with this at all. Are there going to be actual horses involved? Are there going to be
boys' changing rooms
involved? Because I know you've got no issues going into the ladies' but that doesn't mean I want to be surrounded by sweaty jock straps. How about you take me back to the house and I'll have a nap while you're off torturing ponies for funsies. I don't need a babysitter." And if I did need a babysitter, why not Sam? I was sure he wouldn't wolf out on me again and it would be nice to spend some time together.

I tried to kick Tennyson but the fabric of his coat was too thick for me to have any impact.

"Be quiet," he whispered. "We're almost there."

I huffed and settled down into the pocket. I didn't really know much about polo, but I'd seen how these people treated humans so I doubted they had much regard to the feelings of a horse. Plus, all the polo players I'd seen around school were the biggest jerks. This was not going to be a fun afternoon.

Tennyson Wilde stood by some bleachers waiting for all the players to gather. At the far side of the ground were the stables, but there were no horses around.

"Today, we're practicing technique," Tennyson Wilde said in a commanding tone, once everyone was gathered.

"Wait, you're the captain?" I couldn't believe it. Like, I could believe that he was the head of the jerk squad, that was easy to believe. I just hadn't taken him for a hypocrite.

"Our technique is fine," said Astor, I recognized his voice.

"Your game record says otherwise," Tennyson said.

"What do you even know?" Astor muttered.

Although I couldn't risk peeking out of the pocket to see what was going on, I felt a sudden shift in the air. A coldness.

"You will note," Tennyson said, "that I was asking neither for your permission nor your opinion. Today we are practicing technique. Go and prepare."

They all filed off into the locker rooms but Tennyson Wilde stayed behind. I wondered what he was doing but didn't care enough to ask. He took off his coat and folded it on the bottom row of the bleachers in a way that meant I could sit and peek out without it being obvious. It was pretty cold out of the pocket and I was glad I didn't have to run around on a field with a bunch of meaty guys waving their sticks at me.

Tennyson Wilde paced across the field, swinging his polo stick in his hand. It wasn't very interesting to watch him and I wished I had a book or something, but I doubted any books small enough for me to read even existed. Wow, this whole world really was made for able-bodied people. I'd come across it a bit before with my mother being sick, that type of prejudice that isn't overt but just subtly excludes you from things. Being around all these rich people when you were poor was a little like that as well.

After a moment, I saw someone approach Tennyson. I raised my eyebrows in surprise. Most people seemed too in awe of him to try to engage him in conversation. It was that guy, Llewellyn, from my history class.

"E-e-excuse me," I heard him say. Poor guy had turned bright red and looked like he was about to pop a vein, but he seemed determined to get out whatever he had to say. "Have you seen my dog? She's a beagle. Tricolor beagle. Bonkers. That's her name. She was playing with her ball but then she just ran off and I can't find her."

To my surprise, Tennyson Wilde's face softened. He placed his hand on Llewellyn's shoulder. "She probably just caught a scent," he said, almost kindly. "I bet she has quite the nose on her?"

Llewellyn nodded.

"I'm sure she'll come home when she gets hungry, but I can put a message on my blog about her, if you like. Do you have a picture you can send me?"

Llewellyn seemed reassured as he wandered off, tapping on his phone. I stared at Tennyson Wilde in shock, but already the image of him as a kind, caring guy was fading and he looked harsh again.

The rest of the team came out, in their fancy polo uniforms. They were all grumbling as they walked past me toward where Tennyson stood in the middle of the field.

As they filed past, one of them knocked Tennyson's coat and it fell to the ground. I landed softly, but the rest of the coat fell on top of me and it was heavy and suffocating, so I struggled my way out of the thick fabric and up to the fresh air. The snow had only fallen lightly on this part of the grounds and had already begun to melt. Only a few clumps here and there remained and luckily I hadn't fallen into one. Still, the ground was frozen solid, hard and cold, and I climbed back into the warm sanctuary of the coat. I'd just gotten comfortable when I felt a shadow fall over me.

"Such a nice coat…" the person muttered. "Shame to get it all mucky."

They picked up the coat and brushed it off, flinging me off under the bleachers.

I landed hard, putting my arms out to break my fall as I went skidding along. Through the gaps in the bleachers I could see the person fold up the coat and sit it neatly back on the seat, well out of my reach. I was stuck there, on the freezing cold ground, until polo practice was over. How long did it go for, I wondered. From the way that Tennyson Wilde was yelling at people, it seemed like it would probably be a long time. I shivered and rubbed my arms. Why couldn't I have been shrunk in the summer, when it was warm? Though, I guess that would've been worse, with all sorts of weird bugs and snakes and who knows what else out and about. Probably, no time was a good time to be shrunken out in the wild.

I'd been so cozy inside Nikolai's ugly hat, and not expecting to be dropped on the ground that I wasn't even wearing warm clothes. The grass was wet from the melting snow and there was nowhere for me to go to get out of it. I walked to the edge of the bleachers and looked up, hoping I'd spot some easy way to get back up to the coat. Maybe like a tiny person ladder or something. I was plum out of luck, there was no way I was getting up there without being a whole lot taller.

So, I either had to stay there and freeze, or get some help. Well, there was a third option, go and hide out in the boys' locker room, but if Tennyson Wilde hadn't realized I'd fallen out of his coat, I might end up stranded in there, and that was clearly a level of hell that I didn't want to plummet to.

I took a deep breath and rolled my shoulders. Tennyson Wilde wasn't so much as participating in the training as yelling from the sidelines, so if I stayed off the field, it should be safe enough. I'd go find him and he'd put me in his pocket and I'd be warm again. Man, I could so not wait until it was Althea's turn to look after me.

It was a long walk, but I could do it. The grass was neatly trimmed, even more so than the rest of the school grounds, and only came up to just past my waist, so I could clearly see where I was headed. As if I could miss it, all those big clodhoppers stomping around, with the biggest clodhopper of all barking orders at them. Whoever let him have a whistle was surely from the devil. I kept on the outside of the line around the ground and headed for Tennyson Wilde.

I couldn't tell what they were doing. What sort of technique did you even need for polo, didn't the horses do all the work? I guess they had to grip their sticks properly and all that but I didn't see why that would be so hard for them. I seemed to walk forever and ever without getting anywhere. What if practice finished and they all came stomping over the top of me. The ground was so hard, I'd be squished like a bug. I picked up my pace and eventually put a fair distance between myself and the bleachers.

Then a whistle sounded. The whole lot of them, the entire polo team, came thundering toward me. I stood, stunned, watching them. There was nowhere for me to run, nowhere to hide. I couldn't escape my fate of being trampled to death by a herd of wild polo players.

Panic gripped me and I began to run. I didn't know where, which direction, anything, just that I had to get away from them. They got closer and closer, so quickly it was unimaginable. I couldn't outrun them. I looked over my shoulder and they were right there, almost upon me. I was so busy watching them, waiting for a giant foot to finally come down on my head, that I didn't look where I was going. The whistle sounded again and the polo players stopped running for me and changed direction. I turned around and noticed a mountain right in front of me, but I'd got up too much momentum and didn't have time to stop. I ran splat, right into that mountain and fell backward onto my butt.

Right away, the smell told me that it was no normal mountain I'd run into. It was a mountain of horse manure. A pony poo pile. And I was covered in it, head to toe.

I groaned as I got to my feet. This was the worst. The actual worst.

The smell was unbearable. Chunks of it were in my hair, it was embedded under my fingernails. I tried wiping myself off on some grass, but the poo was sticky and just smeared around all over my skin. My uniform was ruined for sure. Tennyson Wilde was never going to let me live this down. He was probably also never going to let me in his pocket. Still, I had to keep going, I was more than halfway there and I didn't want to be left stranded if they finished practice.

I broke into a bit of a jog as I headed for Tennyson Wilde. It kept me warm and I was hoping if I started sweating, maybe the poo would come off. Whenever I'd tried to wear make-up before, it had sweated straight off in minutes, so I hoped poo would be the same.

It wasn't.

I reached Tennyson Wilde after what felt like running a marathon. Maybe it was, I was too exhausted to try to do the math. He was so busy bossing around the polo guys, making them run sprints, that he didn't notice me at first, no matter how much I jumped up and down on his shoe. Then he wrinkled his nose, his eyes went huge and he looked down at me.

He gave his whistle one last long blow.

"Hit the showers," he told them.

Even from there, I could hear the polo guys grumbling, and I bet Tennyson could pick out every word. Still, that was not my problem.

"Why are you here?" he asked when everyone was in the locker room. "Why do you smell like that? You couldn't stay out of trouble for one hour?"

"Somebody knocked me out of your coat," I said. "And then I fell in poo. I need a shower and some new clothes. And to get unshrunk. We need to find whoever did this and then drop them in poo and see how they like it."

"I am not touching you," he told me. "Stay on my shoe and try not to get any of that stuff on me."

I grabbed hold of his shoelaces, holding tight as he walked. It wasn't the worst way to travel, but I made sure to smear as much poo over his shiny shoes as I could. I knew it wasn't his fault, but still, I figured you could be a bit vindictive when you were covered in poo.

And it was nothing to what I would do to the spellcaster when I finally found them.

"I can still smell you," said Nikolai, hiding his nose inside his sweater.

I sat in the middle of the table, freshly washed and dressed in a handkerchief, which was wrapped around me like a toga. I'd bathed in Althea's sink, with all her fancy toiletries, and I thought I smelled pretty darn good. Like fruits and flowers. Really expensive fruits and flowers. Nikolai was obviously just being dramatic. The four of them stared down at me with unreadable expressions. Well, they might not have been that unreadable, it was hard to look at the whole of someone's face when you could fit inside their nostril.

"That's creepy," I told Nikolai. "And I smell awesome so shut up."

"I think that two things about this situation are becoming apparent," said Althea. "The first is that none of you are capable of keeping a tiny human safe —"

"Hey!" said Nikolai. "Nothing bad happened when she was with me!"

"Your ugly hat says otherwise," said Althea.

"And you can hardly blame me for someone else's poor decisions." Tennyson Wilde humphed and folded his arms across his chest.

"And secondly," Althea said, ignoring him. "This isn't a situation that is sustainable in the long-term. We need to find a solution, as soon as possible."

"I agree," said Sam. "Do you think she's getting smaller?"

The four of them tipped their heads back and squinted down at me, as if that would help them judge my size.

"Maybe?" said Nikolai. "I've never really looked at her much to tell."

"We need to know," said Althea. "It will help determine what type of spell it is."

"You're researching?" Tennyson asked, sounding surprised. "But we have people to do that."

"Inept people," she said. "How do you even know they're really working for us? Somebody on the inside must have helped steal that orb, I don't think we can assume the loyalty of anyone outside of this room."

I was kind of sleepy after my bath, and the four of them seemed to forget I was there and kept on with their conversation. I wondered what would happen if I kept shrinking. Would I vanish completely? Would I just get smaller and smaller until I was tinier than an atom? The world would be completely unrecognizable to me if that happened. It was strange enough now. Well, let's be real, it was strange enough when I was at full height. But if I was just a speck — as spick on the back of a speck — I wouldn't be able to communicate with anyone, wouldn't be able to function in the same way, use things the same way. I'd have to relearn everything in my whole life.

When they finished talking, Althea moved to pick me up, but Tennyson Wilde stopped her.

"Did you not look at the schedule?" he asked her. "I didn't just make it for fun."

"Is this because Mother wouldn't let you have a Barbie doll?" she asked, but withdrew her hand.

Tennyson blinked at her. "Mother subscribes to some very arbitrary notions about gender," he said, sounding more stern and dignified than ever. "And she didn't just not let me have a Barbie doll. She took my
Wedding Stylist Barbie
and burned her at the stake. She had a career, you know. And dreams. She deserved better."

"Maybe we should ask Lucy what she prefers?" Sam said, cutting off what looked to be a lengthy monologue from Tennyson Wilde. "We're home now, it's not as if we have to cover her class schedule now."

I really would've preferred to go with Althea or Sam, but something in Tennyson Wilde's voice when he talked about his Barbie really got to me. He was trying to sound so formal and cold, but he wasn't fooling anyone and I knew what it was like to lose something important to you and pretend as if you hadn't. It was about more than just the Barbie.

Wow, I never in my life expected to sympathize with Tennyson Wilde. Maybe it was because my brain was now the size of a pea.

Still, I couldn't say outright that I picked Tennyson Wilde. That would just be too weird for everyone.

"I'm not a doll," I told them. "And I'm definitely not a wedding stylist. And I don't need babysitting. I can just stay on that big comfortable cushion over there."

Sam raised his eyebrows and turned away. It made my heart sink a bit but I couldn't have chosen him, not when I kept putting my foot in it and messing with his wolfy calm or whatever. I didn't exactly want to get munched on in my sleep and I had no defenses against him. I wanted to spend time with him, all my time, but I didn't know how to make that something possible.

Althea just shrugged. "Okay, but if you change your mind, just yell out."

The four of them settled in to do their homework, but I had no way to study. I couldn't read books or type or use a touch screen. My future looked grim and full of boredom. Maybe I could rig something up so I could use a laptop at least, but I'd need all my equipment, and that was in my room. I'd need help.

Sam was engrossed in a book. When I looked more closely, I realized it was the book from my bag, the one written by our parents. He was so absorbed in it, his face all crinkled up in concentration, that I didn't want to disturb him. And he was probably a bit too volatile for this kind of high-stress mission anyway. There was no way I was asking Tennyson Wilde for help and I didn't want Althea to get into trouble if she got caught. That only left one person.

"Psst," I said to Nikolai. "Hey, I have a business proposition for you."

"Sorry," he said. "I can't hear you over the smell."

It was kind of hard going, but I managed to climb up onto his arm, scale up to his shoulder and flick him on the ear.

"Look," I said. "I know you've got a bit of a thing for my roommate, Hannah."

I couldn't see his expression because I was sitting on his shoulder, but his neck grew a bit pink.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he muttered. "Shut up."

"It's okay, she's very cute and nice and probably too good for you. You know she thinks you're a dickbag though, right? How about you help me out and I change her mind about you?"

I left out the bit about how she wasn't speaking to me and probably thought I was the #1 dickbag in the world. That was just a temporary thing and therefore not relevant.

"What do you propose?" he asked.

*

It wasn't getting into the Red House that was the problem, Nikolai had my keycard out of my bag and the security wasn't half as tight as for the Golden House. It was that Nikolai Volkov was very recognizable. Especially when wearing a mustard-colored top hat. Nobody said anything, but there were stares and whispers, and as he made his way down the hallway to my door, people were gathered in doorways, peeking out. I heard the snickety-click or more than one photo being taken. When he leaned against my doorjam, the whispers broke into outright muttering. He knocked on the door with one knuckle and waved nonchalantly to the people gathering in the hall.

"Don't spook them," I whispered. "You don't know how ferocious they can be."

We waited a moment for Hannah to open the door but there was no answer.

"You can't just sneak in with them all watching," I whispered. "It's too suspicious."

He banged on the door with his fist. "Come on, babe," he called out, loud enough for everyone to hear. "Don't be like this! Don't throw away everything we have!"

The crowd seemed to creep forward, closing in on us.

"That is the opposite of helping," I told him. "Also, make sure they know you're talking to Hannah and not me. The last thing I need is more rumors."

"Hannah!" he called. "My baby turtledove!"

I snorted but luckily Nikolai was banging on the door loudly enough to cover the noise. He seemed to be really getting into it, actually. A bit too much, even.

"You know I can't live without you!" he wailed, clutching at the doorframe. "Don't leave me like this!"

His dramatics were only egging on the crowd. This was going to be all over the internet within minutes.

Then it started.

"
You are my sunshine
," Nikolai sang. "
My only sunshine
."

The crowd immediately began to back off. Wow, with all of the Volkov fortune, Nikolai could not buy a tune. Within seconds, the hallway was clear. I envied them their ability to run away, clutching at their ears.

"Works every time!" Nikolai said, chuckling as he swiped the keycard and opened the door. "Woah, people actually pay money to stay in these rooms? That's criminal!"

"Don't be a jerk and help me find my stuff," I told him, then directed him to my side of the room, telling him which things I needed and which weren't important. I got him to log into my desktop computer and send a message to my brothers to say I was sick and couldn't talk for a few days.

"You know, you could hire someone to be your errand boy," he said as he typed. "I am actually far too busy and important for this kind of thing."

"Oh, put a sock in it, loser, and watch your spelling. What's the point of your fancy education if you can't tell 'then' from 'than'?"

"My charms are beyond spelling and grammar," he said, hitting send.

"There are no charms beyond spelling and grammar," I told him. "Come on, we should go before she gets back."

Just as I said it, the door began to open.

"Quick, hide!" I hissed.

Nikolai did this elaborate drop and roll under the bed that nearly knocked me unconscious but managed to hide us in time. I didn't know if anything would happen to him if he was discovered inside our room, but there would definitely be questions asked, and we didn't have any good answers for them.

Someone walked into the room, slamming the door shut behind them. I could tell just from the footfalls that it wasn't Hannah, she walked very lightly and this person was a clomper.

"Yeah, the room's empty," the person said. They sounded as if they were on the phone, but that wasn't possible at Amaris, there was no cell signal. But that wasn't even the strangest thing. It was a male voice, a deep and unpleasant voice and one I recognized.

Astor.

"There's no way she made it all the way back here. I told you, there's no way she got out of the bamboo forest alive. I put the whammy on her good."

I felt cold all over and a little bit like I was going to vomit.

"Yeah, yeah, I'll look, but it's pointless… Fine, look I'll meet you tomorrow night like we arranged and we can talk about it then… Yeah, at 7PM at the pool, I won't forget."

There was some shuffling, and the sound of Astor moving through the room. Nikolai shuffled forward so that we could see what Astor was doing. He went over to Hannah's side of the room and started going through her drawers. He seemed way too interested in her underwear drawer. Actually, that was the only thing he seemed interested in. It had sounded like he was there to look for me, maybe to finish me off for good, but unless I was hiding in the crotch of Hannah's panties, he wasn't going to find me. The big creeper.

I had no idea what Nikolai was thinking, or how we would get out of this. I knew that if it came down to it, Astor was no match for Nikolai, but I really wanted to avoid any sort of physical altercation.

"We have to get out of here," I said, so quietly it was barely a breath. I wasn't sure Nikolai would hear, I could hardly hear myself, but I had to rely on his super senses.

He gave a little twitch of his head that was probably supposed to signify something, but I had no idea if it was agreement or not. Before I could clarify, he moved. He was faster than the wind and just as unseen, grabbing my stuff and speeding us out of there before Astor even looked up from his panty paradise. Oh man, I hoped he didn't move onto my pantie drawer next. Probably not, I didn't really give off the pretty lace and silk underwear kind of impression, and that was obviously what he was into. Plus, he intended to finish me off, so I was probably safe from his panty sniffing.

As soon as we got clear of the building, Nikolai burst into laugher.

"Did you see that guy sniffing those panties? Oh, that was classic! What a pervert!"

I was less amused. Well, only slightly though, because I'd known Astor was a jerk but now I knew he was a panty-sniffing jerk.

"Did you miss the part where he was the one behind the spell?" I asked. "And not working alone. We need to tell the others."

But man it bugged me that I'd been outsmarted by Astor, of all people. The panty-sniffing jerk.