Tenthé woke, not completely sure where he was. As he sat up, his head rammed into something, and it took a bit of time until he realized he was under the bed in his dorm room. He slithered out and stood so he could stretch, yawn, and scratch. He washed his face and went through the rest of his usual waking routine. At least he didn’t have to walk down an alley to pee.

As he opened his door, he halted. It was a lot noisier now, with several older boys lounging in the open doors of the other rooms. They eyed him.

One called out, “Hey kid! Whatcha doing here? This is for students only!”

Tenthé yelled back, “Yeah! That’s me, I’m a student! This is my room.”

He shut his door behind himself and walked to the lounge. For some reason, the other boys followed. He crossed to the heat box, opened it, and pulled a veritable feast from his cloak.

“I’m hungry. Anyone else want some?” he offered as the food piled up.

Various mumbles of, “Huh?”, “Where’d he get all that from?”, and “Must have a Pocket.”. Also, “Anything good?” and “Looks like half the buffet.”.

One of the bigger kids spoke loudly, “Hey! Who are you, really? You’re kind of small to be here.”

“Yeah, I know. Headmaster Thomas’ carriage ran me over. When I got out of the clinic, he let me stay.”

Tenthé started cramming food into the heat box, then called over his shoulder, “Anyone have any idea if this is going to s’plode?”

The guy who had been talking pushed next to him and pressed a glyph Tenthé hadn’t noticed.

“There, that’ll make sure each thing heats properly. No s’ploding.” He chuckled.

Tenthé held out his hand. “I’m Tenthé,” and they shook. “And this is Bear,” he added, as he pulled out the stuffed toy.

Revealing Bear hadn’t been his first choice, but the way things were going, it was only a matter of time until someone saw him. Best to deal with the issue quickly, plus it might keep the group from asking more difficult questions.

Once they spotted Bear, everyone started laughing, which only increased when the toy jumped to his feet, brandishing the crochet hook.

Annoyed at the lack of fear, Bear growled, “Next one to laugh will find his brains being pulled out of his nose with my de-braining tool, here!”

“Look at that! Is it a pixie?”

“No, I bet he’s an enchantment.”

“Maybe some type of faery?” And so on.

Just then, the heat box door popped open. Someone scrounged up dishes and helped Tenthé serve the food. Bear was left waving his weapon at everyone’s back as they grabbed something to eat.

He muttered, “Yeah, you better run. I could’a taken you all.”

The boy who had spoken earlier introduced himself. “I’m Nikolaus Schu. I started here last year, this is my second. What family are you?”

“I got none, just Bear here.”

They both looked at Bear, who was still menacing everyone with his crochet hook.

Nikolaus asked, “So, what is he? I have to admit that’s not something we’ve ever been told about.”

“Dunno. I’ve had him forever. The body’s new, though.”

They both watched Bear, who’d found a piece of cake and was proving that his mouth didn’t work for eating. Eventually, he threw the cake to the floor in disgust and sat, doing a good impression of pouting.

A voice came from the entrance to the common room. “Ahem! Excuse me. Gentlemen!”

Everyone turned to see an older boy returning their looks with a haughty gaze.

“My name is Joseph Swan-Hughes. Yes, of those Swan-Hughes. To the ones of you who are new, I am the SA, that is Student Administrator, for this dorm. I am here to help you work through your every problem. My door is always open.”

Nikolas muttered to Tenthé, “I don’t think we saw him at all last year and no-one knows for sure where his room is.”

“I assume you all have gone through your documentation, so there shouldn’t be any questions. In any case, I’m confident that your bright little minds can figure out whatever you have to.

“And, for your amusement, we have a bit of a deviation from the usual. I have a rather interesting message to pass on.”

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

He proceeded to pull out a parchment, which he read in a loud voice.

“There is a new student here, named Tenthé. On a scholarship. I have been asked to advise everyone under my care that he is sponsored by Magister Thomas and you should treat him as if they were kin.

“In addition, he is suffering from a curse which keeps him looking like a ten-year-old, but he is probably much older than that. Blah, blah, blah… a rehash of the rules of behavior, no physical violence, simple spells only… read it on your own time. Oh yeah. Another part of the curse is that he is very hard to remember. Tomas and the other Magisters are working on ways to circumvent this issue.”

He looked up. “Other than this bit of drivel, understand that I am here for you and have a good year.”

With no further ado, he spun around and exited.

As one, everybody turned to look at Tenthé.

Who didn’t understand the reason for the announcement, but it put a big target on his back. Even he could figure out that the boys housed here were from the less affluent families, and telling them he was somehow privileged wasn’t going to go over well.

Nikolaus pushed to the front and loomed over him, with many of the others right behind.

“So,” the older boy growled, “You’re some creepy old man pretending to be a kid? Why would you do that?”

“What?” Tenthé sputtered. “How did you figure that out? I’m just a kid!”

“The announcement said so! You’re, like, old!”

“No, I’m not! I’m, uh, ten… or something.”

“What do you mean? Are you, or aren’t you?”

“I don’t know! I can’t count.”

“What?”

“I don’t know how old I am! The College said I’m old! I don’t know anything about that.”

“Yeah, well, if Tomas is your sponsor, you gotta be rich. You think you can just move in here and order us around!”

“I don’t even want to be here! Like I said, Tomas ran me over with his coach. I’m not rich, I only got, like, a penny on me! That’s it. I eat at the Mission and sleep on the street!”

The boys were starting to look confused. Maybe there was a chance…

Elishua, with an epic sense of timing, picked this moment to walk in. “Oh! What do we have going on here? Little kids playing at being tough? Wards! Clamp down!”

Suddenly, everyone was frozen in place. Even Tenthé found he would have to exert a bit of effort to shake off the effect.

“Hey, kid,” Bear’s voice resonated in his head. “This might be the answer to our problem.”

“Uh…”

“Gods, you’re dense.” Bear said, being his normal diplomatic self. “Take the heat and get the others off. You don’t know it, but she can assign a lot of punishment if she feels like it.”

Tenthé ate the magic holding him.

“Elishua,” he said. She jumped and rounded on him.

Ignoring her glare, he went on, “It’s not their fault. Any idiot could see what was going to happen after the College told everyone about me. Are you guys really so stupid?”

Elishua’s face turned red. “It was decided at the highest levels,” she responded huffily. “We expect the students to follow our decrees without question.”

“Yeah, good thinking,” Tenthé replied. “You’ve made it so everyone’s after me, now. Thanks. That worked out real great.”

Then Tenthé froze her and ate the magic to unfreeze everyone else.

When the Guardians didn’t step in, he announced, “Guys, let’s go get breakfast. I’m buying.”

The boys looked at Elishua, then at Tenthé, then at each other, obviously unsure about the situation.

Tentatively, Nikolaus asked, “Uh… what just happened? Why is she frozen, and not us? And, why aren’t the Guardians doing anything?”

Tenthé had no idea. He didn’t know what was allowed and what wasn’t. Maybe it was in the guide or whatever it was called. He’d have to get Bear to read it to him later.

Speaking of Bear, the toy took that moment to speak up. “Yeah, I agree with the big guy, that’s unusual. I know! I bet the College wants to see what magic you have. Probably a good idea to be more careful from now on.”

Tenthé looked around. The boys were rubbing the pins and needles out of their arms and legs, warily watching the frozen figure of Elishua. After a moment of nothing happening, a few opted to head out, and when they didn’t die, the rest followed. The general consensus was to go to the dining room for a proper breakfast. Tenthé joined in, walking next to a blond boy.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

“What’s your name?”

“Me? I’m George.”

“So, how’d you get here? Into the College?”

George paused, obviously debating what he would say. After a moment, he said, “I showed some small signs of power, so here I am. My family’s one of the LePoiterice vassals, so I’ll end up working for them. But, a magic user has some clout, depending on how strong he is.”

“Yeah… I know it’s rude to ask, but what can you do?”

Sounding somewhat peeved, George responded, “I don’t know! Testing said I could move magic around, but no matter what, I couldn’t make it do anything! They’re going to see what happens after I take a few classes.”

Tenthé looked at George with both his eyes and found that it was true. His ability was all tangled up in itself. It didn’t look wrong, just strange.

“Right now, I can’t see what you got, either. If we work on it, we might be able to figure something out. I wouldn’t put too much hope in the College. For a lot of things, they’re kind of useless. At least, I think so.”

“Really? This is one of the better schools. It’s done pretty well for itself over the years. Although… that was when we had a Dreamer. But, whatever happens, if I could get my magic going, I’d never have to pick a tuber again!”

Tenthé looked George over. Before he came here, he would often team up with some other kid because two pairs of eyes were better than one. It might be a good thing to do that here. Pairing with a magic user would be different. Something to think about.

As the group reached the small dining room, some big guy shoved through the crowd waiting in line, and as he went to push Tenthé, he stumbled as Tenthé moved out of the way. Regaining his balance, he growled and grabbed at him, then, somehow, became airborne. After flying quite a distance, he slammed down on the floor, flat on his back, obviously dazed. Almost immediately, a large number of Guardians materialized and began yelling at everyone.

After a short while, just as things were settling down, Elishua burst out of a hallway, failed to stop, and crashed into the crowd, bringing down quite a number of other students. After sliding to a halt, she extracted herself from the pile and scanned the crowd until she found Tenthé, surrounded by Guardians. The boy smiled and gave her a little wave.

She didn’t appear to be any too happy.