E-Book, Englisch, 352 Seiten
Rozakis The Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher Association
1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-83541-141-4
Verlag: Titan Books
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
E-Book, Englisch, 352 Seiten
ISBN: 978-1-83541-141-4
Verlag: Titan Books
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
Caitlin Rozakis has had too many career changes, including mechanical engineering (cut short after the murderous robot incident), finance (amortizing tequila receivables is not as fun as drinking tequila), and the American Museum of Natural History (who knew emus had birth certificates?). Now she specializes in tech marketing and lives in Jersey City with her husband and son. Her short fiction has been featured in multiple anthologies and publications including Cast of Wonders, Aurealis, Daily Science Fiction, Weirdbook, and Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine. She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and won LUMINA's 2018 Speculative Fiction contest. Dreadful is her first novel. Visit her online at www.caitlinrozakis.com.
Autoren/Hrsg.
Weitere Infos & Material
1
Sep 5 10:04 AM
Thank you for joining MINDR, the official Grimoire Grammar School Notification System. These notifications will help you stay on top of school closings, event reminders, and other important information about your child’s class. We look forward to a great year! Reply @STOPALL to cancel.
Sep 5 10:05 AM
If you wish to receive updates via mental summons instead of text, please envision the CONTINUE glyph now.
Maybe it was the bite-sized gingerbread man that waved merrily at her from the half-eaten tray of its fellows, or maybe it was the impossibly elegant woman with the delicate gills at her neck, but as soon as Vivian arrived at the Grimoire Grammar School Back-to-School picnic, she knew bringing the brownies had been a mistake.
Daniel had teased her, both about making something so whitebread American and about making it from scratch instead of using a box mix like a normal person. He’d voted to buy a box of Entemann’s chocolate chip cookies and call it a day. But Vivian was already feeling insecure, and she’d wanted to make a good impression. She’d thought brownies were the perfect compromise—down-to-earth enough not to be ostentatious, yet homemade with high-quality ingredients to show she’d made the effort.
But, just as one should not bring a knife to a gunfight, one should not bring brownies to a magic school picnic.
“Oh,” said the woman behind the table. Up close, her skin had the faintest touch of shimmer. Her voice held haunting resonances that Vivian would have happily listened to for hours. “Brownies. How… quaint.”
It didn’t matter how gorgeous the voice, Vivian knew a slight when she heard one. Her cheeks warmed but she soldiered on anyway. “Well, it wouldn’t be a potluck without them, would it?” she said cheerily. “I’m Viv.”
The elegant woman left Vivian’s hand hanging in the air. “I suppose you can put them over in the corner.”
Vivian lowered her hand, blushing harder. She edged over to the Corner of Shame, and wedged her knock-off Tupperware where it wouldn’t stand out too much. She’d just abandon it, she decided. She certainly wasn’t going home with a full container under her arm, and as Daniel kept reminding her, it wasn’t like their daughter could have chocolate anymore. Next to it was a plate of iridescent cupcakes that were literally glowing and a container of what looked like raw meat carefully cut into hearts. The shape, not the muscle. Although, come to think of it, if someone had cut heart shapes out of cow hearts, she wasn’t sure she would be able to tell. No one was going to notice the brownies.
“Are those brownies?”
Vivian’s ears were hot now. She turned around, waiting for another condescending look.
But the smiling white woman with the mass of brown curls peered around her, eyes lighting up. “They are! No one ever brings chocolate to these things—the werewolves always complain too much. I say, if your child is going to throw up if they eat chocolate, maybe if they throw up a couple of times, they’ll figure out they should stop eating it. You’re very brave. I think I’m going to like you.”
Vivian had not meant to be brave. “Crap, is it that much of a faux pas? I mean, I knew about the werewolves not eating chocolate—my daughter can’t have it—but I thought as long as we stayed away from nuts and alliums it was allowed?” Aria also couldn’t have eggs, according to the last allergy test they’d been able to do before everything got turned upside down, but these weren’t for her. Vivian had a vegan carob thingy in a baggy in her purse for Aria. It was also organic, Fair Trade, sweetened with applesauce instead of sugar, and tasted kind of cardboardy, because apparently people who bought egg-and chocolate-free desserts expected them to be penitential. But she’d also discovered the hard way, with the first round of allergies, that if she brought desserts Aria could eat to a potluck no one else ate them, and she hadn’t had time to make two batches of brownies.
“Most people won’t mind, but you won’t win any friends with the militant crowd.” The other mom’s eyes twinkled. “Tell you what, you and I will disappear these and no one need know about it. I’m pretty sure I can find them a home. I’m Moira, by the way.”
“Viv,” she replied, a little overwhelmed.
“New to the neighborhood, are you?”
“Last week.” It wasn’t proving to be the friendliest of places.
“What class are you in?”
“Uh… Mandrake Room?” Vivian had gone to public school, where her classes had been called the teacher’s name, the room number or the grade level. She’d remembered some of her friends, from before, who had older children in Montessori schools cooing or laughing over classes named after plants or animals. She’d thought it was charming, if a little twee. She didn’t think twee covered this.
“Really? You’re a kindergarten parent?” Moira lit up. “My daughter Cara is in Mandrake, too!”
“Really?” Vivian echoed. Oh, thank God. No one had talked to her since they moved, and she’d started to believe that their little family were going to be total outcasts.
“Oh, this is perfect. Cara will be delighted. She’s known most of the class since they were all born, and she’ll be so thrilled to have a new friend. Where’s yours? Boy? Girl? Something else?”
“Oh, ah, girl, Aria. I mean, her name’s Aria,” Vivian fumbled. She hadn’t been this nervous since freshman year. Frightened, yes, terrified, definitely, heartbroken and lost, too much. But not nervous. Nervous was almost a relief. That the worst to be scared of was what other parents thought of her. “She’s over there, with my husband. Daniel. Is my husband. I mean.”
Moira looked over where Daniel was standing near the playground, a surprisingly normal-looking assortment of twisty metal bars and platforms and plastic slides in primary colors, in the shadow of a school that looked less like the medieval castle Vivian felt a magic school should resemble, and more like the gray stone Neo-Gothic of an elite American university with an endowment and a desperate wish to cosplay as Oxford. The sun caught on his raven hair and gently tan skin, and Vivian had the familiar astonishment that someone so dashing could be hers. Aria was peering longingly at the other kids from behind his legs. She had Vivian’s reddish-brown hair and heart-shaped face, but the same eyes she’d seen in photographs of Daniel’s own father.
“So she’s…” Moira trailed off, fishing. A little boy with an Elmo guitar swung over his shoulder beckoned to Aria. She shook her head and ducked farther behind Daniel’s legs.
Same question as every time. “Quarter Japanese, yes.”
“Ooookay, that’s nice,” Moira said. “But, uh, what I meant is, you guys are…?”
Oh. Even better. “…married?”
The Elmo guitar kid had wandered closer, leaning around to see Aria. Aria yelped and jumped back.
And abruptly rippled, whining in the back of her throat. Her back arched and her knees cracked and there was a weird shiver in the air around her and suddenly instead of a little girl there was a reddish-brown wolf pup sitting in a puddle of shredded clothing.
“Oh,” said Moira. “That answers that. Going with the chocolate so you’re not tempted to break your diet?”
And that was why they were here, at Grimoire Grammar. Because the looks the other parents were giving Daniel were the same kind you’d give the parent of a kindergartner who had just wet themselves—pity mixed with condemnation. Judgment, and relief that the judgment was being rained down on someone other than them. But not horror, or screaming, or fainting, or throwing up, or calling animal control. All of which had happened before. Vivian felt somewhat inoculated to “my kid would never” and “there but the grace of God go I” looks, as long as no one called her child a demonspawn or ever tried to run her over with a truck again.
But. There was another misapprehension there. And as much as Vivian wanted the safety of being accepted in the community, it wasn’t like she could keep up the pretext long. Better to nip this in the bud. She said, dragging it out over her reluctance, “I’m not. And neither is Daniel. Just… just Aria.”
“Oh.” That was what it took to finally dampen the ebullient Moira. “Huh.”
“It was nice to meet you,” Vivian said mechanically. She should have known it would be too much to ask to make a real mom-friend. What did she have to offer anyone? She started to go help Daniel. Aria was cowering behind him once more, now with a literal tail between her legs. Tonight was a full moon, after all, and she seemed to have even more trouble than usual turning back the day of the full moon.
“Let Dad take this one,” Moira said, surprising her. “Hon, you need a drink.”
“Here?” she asked, startled. “I mean, I couldn’t, I should…”
Elmo-guitar boy had settled down on his haunches, holding out his hand like someone familiar with dogs. Aria peered around Daniel’s legs and tentatively took a sniff. The boy waited patiently, as the wolf cub shyly took a step towards him, and then another.
“See? She’ll be fine. Evander’s charming with animals, he had half the birds in the neighborhood following him around by the time he was three. C’mon, you need to hit the wine and cheese table. And maybe skip the cheese.” Moira grabbed her arm and steered her around.
Vivian managed to catch...
