She snuffled and wiped her nose across my shoulder, marring Betty Boop. I cringed, but didn’t say a word or let up my hold.
Roberta nodded. “Ma Rammer, ma Raider, and ma Raker. They joined ma Rasper.”
I didn’t know what to say. Those were the rabbits I’d met. All suited to the cast of a paranormal interpretation of the film Goodfellas. They nailed gangster. I’d never felt comfortable around a single one of them.
I didn’t really feel comfortable around Roberta, but she needed me. And whether I liked it or not, she was my second bestie.
I was going to hold off in telling her that I now had a third.
Val sank to his butt on the grass beside us as our moment drew out, and Sadie, Damon, and Orangesicle waited respectfully on the path. Finally, I awkwardly patted the rabbit on the back, careful to not let Egg slide, and took a step away.
She stared up at me with those dark eyes now shimmering with unshed tears. Her shoulders sagged, but she visibly gathered her strength, eventually tilting her chin up at me.
“Ya here for good now, chicky?”
“Yep. Only place I’m going now is to kick some Gorky Gower fucker ass.”
She nodded sharply, making her floppy ear bounce. “If ya see him afore I do, ya kill ‘im good for me, ya hear?”
“I will,” I said, and I meant it.
“I’m hopin’ to find ‘im first. He and I got biz’ness to attend to.”
And I hoped never to find myself involved on the wrong end of that kind of “business.” My shift might be one of the swiftest and best of the academy, and my skunk might be three times the size of the normal animal, but this was Roberta. No one messed with the rabbit matriarch and lived for long.
“I’ll be rooting for you,” I told her. “And I’ve already decided. I’m not going to wait to finish my last three terms at the academy. I’m going to join the Enforcers. They need the help now, not after I graduate. No one’s gonna talk me out of it.”
Why whimpered in my hold. Without thinking of witnesses, I kissed him flat on the mohawk, now an iridescent rainbow of bright colors. “Don’t worry, boy,” I whispered to him. “I’ll make sure you’re safe.” How, I didn’t know yet, but my responsibility to this magical community extended beyond caring for Why and now Val and Egg.
Roberta looked me up and down. I hadn’t seen a mirror in seven months; I was sure I looked rough, like I’d survived a murderous pendant and a parallel dimension perfectly poised to drive someone like me insane.
Everyone must have changed in my absence. Well, I’d changed too.
“Ya look ready, girl,” Roberta finally said. “And I think ya’ll find that nobody’s gonna be tryin’ ta talk ya outta anythin’.”
“What do you mean?”
“Y’ain’t the first ta think that. And ya prob’ly won’t be the last.” She shook her head. “We all be in a fierce fightin’ mood. Ain’t that right, Sadie?”
Sadie moved parallel to us along the path. “That’s right, though I think her mom might have something to say about it.”
Roberta threw her head back and groaned. “I don’t know how I did it, but I done plumb forgot ‘bout her ma. I must be more outta it than I thunk. Her ma will def’nitely have somethin’ to say ‘bout it. She has somethin’ ta say ‘bout everythin’.”
I sighed, annoyed that my mom should be so irritating, and equally touched that she was so eager to tear down mountains to keep me safe. “I guess I should call her.”
“For all of our sakes, definitely,” Sadie said.
But first, I peered around Roberta. I’d never seen so many rabbits there at the academy. My first term here, just Rasper had defended the gate. After the attack that had led to his death, three of his siblings had taken his place, and then Roberta had shown up. Now there were, what, maybe two dozen of them? Now that they’d seen the connection their mom and I shared, they’d approached some. They were close enough for me to notice that, like their mother, the claws of their paws were painted bright, bold colors.
Which meant that the female rabbits were now defending the academy.
Roberta herself had once told me that her daughters were mean. She’d never said that about her sons, and her sons were professional intimidators.
I had no interest in getting to know the female bunny crew. But if Roberta wanted it, I wouldn’t deny her. Not after what she’d gone through. I just hoped she wanted to keep me all to herself. Knowing her, it was likely. She was oddly possessive of our friendship.
“Ya can meet ma girls later,” Roberta said, ratcheting up my unease. “I told them all about ya, didn’t I, girls?”
Her “girls” moved closer. They nodded, and one hollered, “That’s right, Ma!” Like her brothers, her voice was low and raspy, like she chewed on broken glass to keep her reflexes sharp.
Val rose back onto all fours and pressed himself against my leg again. Squeezing Egg under my arm, I reached down to scratch between his ears, mindful of his stubby reindeer horns.
It was a testament to how odd the creatures within the Magical Creatures Academy were that none of the rabbits had stopped to stare at Val yet.
I knew that once I entered the gate, I’d immediately want to find my friends, so I really should call my mom and get that over with. But first, there was something niggling at me.
I had no idea how the pygmy trolls were related to each other. They were secretive and reticent in general, and not one of them had done a thing to endear themselves to me. But I did know they were a tightly-knit community, and that they’d be feeling the loss of their own acutely. I was starting to feel like I’d been a dick to receive news of the death of Orangesicle’s friends without offering any sort of sympathy. So before I could change my mind—and if I thought it through, I most definitely would—I turned and marched right up to the pygmy troll whose fro-hawk came up to my waist.
His eyes widened in alarm and he stumbled backward. I ate up the rest of his personal space, crouched down, and hugged him with one free forearm.
Yes, the way I was bent over his back like that gave me an up-close-and-personal look at his two little round butt cheeks. And yes, it was nearly impossible not to stare. But for once I managed it, holding him tight, doing what I could to avoid smooshing his face into my boobs or smooshing any of my strays.
Seeking inspiration on what to say, I reached for my memory and repeated what I’d heard my parents say before. “I’m so sorry for your loss.” It didn’t sound like me, but it did help me feel like less of an asshole, and that was something.
As the condolences left me, the tension fled Orangesicle’s body, and he wrapped short, stubby arms around my legs, hugging me back for a few seconds.
“Who’d you lose?” I asked.
He cleared his throat gruffly. “Cascatch and Poompoom.”
I had no clue who they were. All the pygmy trolls looked the same with their round bellies, stubby extremities, and thong-like loincloths. Every one of them displayed a disgruntled little old man face. The only thing to distinguish them was the color of their otherwise uniform fro-hawks. To understand who Cascatch or Poompoom was, I had to know either the nicknames we’d given them, or the color of their fro-hawks.