GED
Hogs Hollow, Missouri wasn't the most expensive place to live, but when you're teaching high school English, you're always looking for a little extra cash to make ends meet. Which is why I was dutifully re-explaining parts of speech to a small GED class in the high school's library at 8 p.m. on a Friday night.
We were in the sixth week of the program, and the late hours were annoying my cat, Skittles, who had voiced his displeasure by peeing in my favorite pumps that morning. I stood at the chalk board in my sneakers, and helped Tricia, a single mom working at the local grocery, tease out the direct object from a sentence.
She finally circled the correct answer, and beamed happily as I praised her progress. Joe, who drove trucks for a living and need the diploma to apply for a managerial position, raised a calloused hand. It was awkward; he was much older than me, but I guess he figured a teacher is a teacher at any age.
"Yes Mr. Harris?" I asked politely.
"Not to speak out of turn," he frowned, "but do people actually use this?"
"You mean diagramming sentences?" I asked.
He nodded, looking a little worried.
"Oh, you never know," I said, leaning wearily on the corner of a desk. "Why just the other day, I was standing in line at the grocery store, and a man runs in with a sheet of paper, and hollers "for the love of God, someone please diagram this sentence!'" I smirked and waited for a response. Joe, Tricia, Jennifer, Clark, Margaret, Chuck, and Mr. Wu, whose first name I could never properly pronounce, all just looked at me, puzzled.
The tall kid in the back of the class chuckled. At least someone got the joke. I shrugged. "In other words, no, Mr. Harris, this is strictly what you need to know to pass the test," I clarified. "No one's using this stuff in the real world."
Joe frowned and shook his head. "Well, that's time," I said. "Please hand in your book reports on the way out."
The older students dutifully handed in their essays, most of them barely legible. I counted seven. The youngest person in the class, the 18-year-old juvenile delinquent who'd been enrolled as part of some sort of probation, avoided eye contact as he tried to skate out the door.
"Harry."
He slouched a little further, like he might be able to blend into the little gaggle of students all at least ten years his senior. "Harry Dresden." I repeated.
He cast me a sullen look through a lock of disheveled dark hair. I eyed him sternly, which must have made him a bit uncomfortable, as he immediately diverted his gaze to the tile floor and loped reluctantly over to the chalk board. If he stood up straight, he'd be better than six and a half feet tall, I reckoned. As it was, he just looked gawky and pale, slouching up to the chalkboard in worn jeans and a faded Aerosmith t-shirt.
"Where's your essay?"
He shrugged.
"Why didn't you write the essay?" I said. "You have to finish it to complete the program."
He sighed. "It was a stupid book," he muttered.
My face felt a little hot. "It's brand new," I said, probably a little defensively. "You said you were into magic."
He rolled his eyes. "It's stupid magic," he said, as if that made sense. "Besides, it's for kids."
I frowned. "Fine, well at least return it, if you didn't like it." He set his backpack on the table and fumbled through it until he fished out my worn paperback copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.
I cradled the offended pages in my palms. "You have to write something," I told him.
"I read all the time," he said. "Just, not a lot of stories."
"What about the Star Wars novels?" I suggested.
He scowled. "They're barely cannon," he grumbled. "Half of them have Leia pregnant, and that's just-" He caught himself. "Anyway, I'm not into the novelizations."
"Well, find something to read and write an essay on it," I ordered. "Otherwise I can't give you credit for the course."
He let out a heavy sigh, as only truly miffed teenagers can muster, and shuffled to the door.
I spent a few minutes grading vocabulary tests before I packed up my essays and binders and moved to turn out the light. The school was quiet, and it was a little unnerving, but big empty buildings are creepy, as a rule. I walked out of the library and gave a little start. Harry was waiting for me in the hall.
"Sorry," he muttered, never looking at me. "It's dark outside."
"Yeah," I said. He didn't seem like a bad kid, but he outweighed me by at least 80 pounds and had some sort of record. My hand immediately fumbled in my purse for my pepper spray.
He noticed it and cocked an eyebrow. "Really?"
"Why are you still here?" I asked.
He sighed. "I'm walking you to your car, ma'am," he said quietly.
"I really don't think that's necessary," I said, keeping a good five paces between the two of us as we set out down the hall.
"Um, it's pretty necessary," he muttered.
He opened the heavy door to the parking lot and waited a moment, as if he expected an RPG to descend at any second.
"Are we clear?" I asked.
"No," he muttered. "There's one out there."
"One what?"
He gave me a passing glance, and his eyes seemed stern, too old for 18.
"Let me go out first, OK?"
"What's out there?"
He ignored the question, and walked outside. Out of the shadows stepped an unshaven man in a weathered raincoat, maybe in his fifties, I couldn't tell. A drifter, maybe. The kid stiffened defensively, and before I could pass Harry straightened his arm, pushing me behind him.
"I need to get to my car," I said sternly.
"Stay back," the kid grumbled. "I'll get him."
"What?"
Before I could warn the unfortunate man, Harry lunged and cold-cocked him straight across the jaw. I shouted something, but the drifter didn't fall. In a whirl of motion, he grabbed Harry by the collar and knocked him to the ground. Harry surely outweighed him, but neither was letting go. I ran to pull them apart. "Run, Ms. Walker!" my student shouted. I was about to argue, only to see the drifter's jaws elongate, and I watched in horror as a fanged snout snapped at Harry's nose. It wasn't human.
I'm sure I said something I shouldn't in front of a student. "Harry!" I choked.
"Get in the car!" the kid yelled. I couldn't take my eyes away from the ghoul. "Run!" Harry shouted. I came to my senses and dashed across the lot, grateful for once I was wearing sneakers, to my blue VW beetle. I unlocked the door and darted into the relative safety of the little bug. I considered driving away. It made the most sense. I could get home, call the constable, and tell him a monster was eating people in the high school parking lot. Sure, no problem. I started the engine, and in the headlights, I could see claws ripping and tearing my student's Aerosmith t-shirt. Harry had the thing by the throat. The kid shouted something, and a flash of light blinded me. I blinked to see the ghoul tumbling over the pavement, singed by what could only have been a flamethrower, I guess. It lay there, smoldering, and I watched Harry stagger to his feet. His jaw jutted out defiantly as he went to inspect the carcass. To my horror, the thing moved, and began to stand for another round. I revved the engine and floored it straight at the monster. The ghoul bounced off the hood, leaving a sizable dent in the trunk and a lot of dark ichor.
I opened the passenger door. Harry ignored me.
"Fuego!" he yelled, sending a wave of flame across the lot. I coughed from the charred asphalt, watching in horror as my student burned the thing to a crisp with his bare hands. After a few moments it quit writhing and lay still, fat crackling in the muggy heat of a summer evening. The beetle's engine was still running, and after a few moments the kid glanced back, as if noticing the bug for the first time. He took a few halting steps toward the VW. He stooped and peered inside. "You ok?"
I nodded. "Get in, Harry," I ordered. "You're bleeding."
He grabbed his backpack from the pavement and managed to fold himself into the passenger's seat of the bug.
"Where's home?" I asked.
"I'm staying at the farm over on ranch road 22," he said. "The McCoy place." He frowned. "I can walk."
"I'd rather you didn't," I said. "Are, are there more of those, things?"
He shrugged. "Probably."
"And, and you burn them?"
Harry nodded. "Yeah."
"Kinda like Gandalf and the Wargs?"
"Who?"
"Gandalf? You know, The Hobbit?"
"What's a hobbit?"
"The Hobbit," I corrected. "It's a book." I fumbled in the backseat as we puttered along the caliche drive. "Here," I said, handing him a paperback copy of Tolkien's classic. "You'll like it. The wizard burns things."
For once, he smirked mischievously. "Burning stuff's cool, I guess," he said. He frowned, staring out the cracked windshield. "Ghoul put a pretty big dent in the hood."
"It's insured," I said. "Maybe insurance will total it, and I can get something newer." I cleared my throat. "Thanks for, uh, walking me to my car."
He nodded. "You might ought to carry salt," he suggested, absent-mindedly leafing through the book. "Better than pepper spray," he added.
I rolled to a stop outside of a farmhouse. There was a hurricane lamp in the window, but otherwise it was dark. "Are you gonna be ok?"
He glanced at me like it was a stupid question. "Yes ma'am," he said. "Thanks for the book."
He climbed out of the bug and loped down the driveway. I considered having a talk with his parent or guardian, but thought better of it. "Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards," I muttered, and shifted the bug into reverse.