Fantastic Schools: Volume One (Fantastic Schools Anthologies Book 1) Read online

  Fantastic Schools

  Volume One

  Edited By

  L. Jagi Lamplighter

  And

  Christopher G. Nuttall

  Fantastic Schools: Volume One

  Edited by Christopher G. Nuttall and L. Jagi Lamplighter

  Wisecraft Publishing

  Copyright © 2020 by Christopher G. Nuttall and L. Jagi Lamplighter

  All rights reserved. No part of the content of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database retrieval system, or copied by any technology yet to be developed without the prior written permission of the author. You may not circulate this book in any format.

  ISBN: 978-0-9976460-7-8

  Edited by: Christopher G. Nuttall and L. Jagi Lamplighter

  Cover art by: Paul Maitland

  Formatted by: Benjamin Wheeler

  Copyright Notices:

  “Little Witches” by Mel Lee Newmin.

  Copyright © 2020 by Mel Lee Newmin

  “Path of the Phoenix” by Emily Martha Sorensen.

  Copyright © 2020 by Emily Martha Sorensen

  “A Firm Hand” by Aaron Van Treeck. Copyright © 2020 by Aaron Van Treeck

  “Asymptote at Three O’Clock” by Steven G. Johnson. Copyright © 2020 by Steven G. Johnson

  “Practical Exercise” by George Phillies. Copyright © 2020 by George Phillies

  “The Ascendant Cup” by Thomas K. Carpenter.

  Copyright © 2020 by Thomas K. Carpenter

  “Doom Garden” by Benjamin Wheeler. Copyright © 2020 by Benjamin Wheeler

  “Crucible” by Frank B. Luke.

  Copyright © 2020 by Frank B. Luke

  “The Last Academy” by G. Scott Huggins. Copyright © 2020 by G. Scott Huggins

  “Finals” by Bernadette Durbin.

  Copyright © 2020 by Bernadette Durbin

  “Metamorphosis” by Roger D. Strahan. Copyright © 2020 by Roger D. Strahan

  “How To Get Into Magic School” by Erin N.H. Furby. Copyright © 2020 by Erin N.H. Furby

  “Deep School Tuition” by Denton Salle. Copyright © 2020 by Denton Salle

  “Gennady’s Tale” by Christopher G. Nuttall. Copyright © 2020 by Christopher G. Nuttall

  Contents

  Fantastic Schools

  Little Witches

  The Path of the Phoenix

  A Firm Hand

  Asymptote at Three O’Clock

  Practical Exercise

  The Ascendant Cup

  Doom Garden

  Crucible

  The Last Academy

  Finals

  “Metamorphosis”

  How to Get into a Magic School

  Deep School Tuition

  Gennady’s Tale

  Afterword

  About the Editors

  Fantastic Schools

  A Note from the Editor

  It is common to claim that Harry Potter started the ‘magic school’ genre and all other books in the field are naught but pale copies of the original. This is untrue. The first true ‘magic school’ story, at least in the form Harry Potter made popular, was The Wall Around The World by Theodore Cogswell, which was written in 1953. This was followed by a multitude of others, including—most notably—A Wizard of Earthsea (1968) and The Worst Witch (1974), which included a surprising number of characters that clearly inspired their Harry Potter successors. (Miss Hardbroom and Professor Snape, for example, have an awful lot in common.) Harry Potter did not start the ‘magic school’ genre. It would be more accurate to say that Harry Potter made it popular again.

  Indeed, the ‘magic school’ genre owes much to the ‘British Boarding School’ genre, which followed the adventures of boys and girls who were sent away to boarding school by their parents. These included the sugar-sweet Malory Towers series (Enid Blyton) and the far more sinister Tom Brown’s Schooldays (Thomas Hughes), as well as the more humorous Molesworth or St. Trinian’s stories. The majority of the stories isolated the kids from their parents, pitting them against unpleasant teachers (many of whom were not as bad as the more notorious characters in the real world) or struggling to survive, beat one’s rival team at games or other challenges, from the mundane to the fantastic. Rowling might have devised a magic school, when she invented Hogwarts, but she drew on many older tropes. Indeed, as one cynic put it, “to everybody’s great surprise Harry turns out to be a natural Seeker so in some respects the school story has not changed.”

  Stories set outside Britain tend to draw on local traditions and schools, although there is a strong British influence. Lost in Translation(Margaret Ball) and the Shadow Grail series (Mercedes Lackey and Rosemary Edghill) are more American in theme, although the former is set in an alternate version of France. The Rachel Griffin series (L. Jagi Lamplighter) draws its inspiration from the unique practices of St. John’s College (Annapolis, MD and Santa Fe, NM) and its “Great Books Program.”

  These stories, for better or worse, have largely died away as British society changed, in ways both good and bad. On one hand, boarding schools have become far less prominent (particularly for younger children). There’s less scope, now, for parents who have to leave the country for long periods, leaving their kids behind as they do. On the other, a great many scandals have enveloped boarding schools and thoroughly discredited them. Parents don’t want to let their kids out of their sight for long periods, regardless of the school’s reputation. It’s harder to trust teachers these days.

  But magic boarding school stories have continued to rise in popularity. The Worst Witch has a number of television shows, ranging from a TV movie to two separate adaptations of the book material. The Magicians, a trilogy of novels that blend Rowling and CS Lewis, has grown into its own TV show. My own Schooled in Magic and The Zero Enigma stories have been quite successful. Part of this, of course, is that Harry Potter encouraged writers to follow the trend—in some cases, deconstructing or reconstructing Rowling’s universe—but that doesn’t explain all of it. What is behind the trend?

  There was a question, asked a long time ago, if someone would really want a Hogwarts education for their kids. Would they? On one hand, the simple answer is no. Hogwarts has a very limited curriculum, really little more than a practical education in magic. There’s no room for plenty of topics Muggle schools cover as a matter of course, giving the wizards a very limited education (and, of course, pretty much all the teachers in Hogwarts should be sacked and probably thrown in jail). But, on the other hand, Hogwarts teaches the skills wizards need to fit into their society, as well as introducing the kids to everyone their age in the community. A wizard parent would have to send their kids to Hogwarts unless they wanted them to remain untaught or isolated.

  And it cannot be denied that Hogwarts is a great deal more practical than real-life Muggle education.

  Harry Potter and his friends are doing more than just learning magic. They’re learning skills that are immediately practical, rather than memorizing facts long enough to get through the exams before they’re forgotten again. They can look at their work—be it a successful potion or transfiguring a pencil into a needle—and know they made it. An incompetent tutor will rapidly make a buffoon of himself, if he’s teaching a class that demands he show off his skills. Look at how quickly Lockhart lost the respect of his students! In the real wor
ld, an incompetent teacher can pass unnoticed until it’s too late (don’t pay any attention to what educators say about applying for jobs, really). Hogwarts doesn’t have that problem.

  It’s true enough to say, as my teachers did, that success in school will—eventually—lead to success in life. True enough, at least. But that success is many years in the future, if it comes at all. Kids—even teenagers—are more focused on the immediate results than something in the distant, utterly unimaginable, future. Why study when the immediate rewards are scant? Why waste time memorizing facts that could easily be looked up on one’s smartphone, if one cared enough to bother? But practical work, work designed to produce something one could take home and show off, is far more interesting. Students respond well to trying something—cooking, for example—and discovering that it actually works.

  I can’t really describe just how important it is to feel, deep inside, that you’re actually getting somewhere. Math is important, later in life, but it’s hard to make a connection between figures that give you a headache and the real world. It’s a lot easier to work—to learn—when you do draw that connection. Why study maths? Well, you’ll need it to make sure your employer isn’t cheating you when you enter the working world.

  Indeed, one thing lacking from many modern schools is a sense of responsibility. The days of prefects and head boys (and girls) are largely gone. Students are treated as sheep, not as embryo adults. They move from having everything done for them to having to do everything for themselves, for which they are often woefully unprepared. This isn’t true of old-style boarding schools, where parents are absent. The kids are encouraged to develop a sense of independence, and self-reliance, that is lacking from kids today.

  And, at base, modern schools are boring. Most of the excitement is gone, swept away by increasingly-absurd health and safety laws. There’s no fun at school, no sense of excitement, even when schools engage in champion sports. When all get prizes, the prizes are worthless. And those careers? Most of them are boring too. Who wants to spend their lives working towards a boring career, then performing that boring career?

  But Hogwarts is exciting. Harry is more than just a student, he’s the ‘boy-who-lived.’ He’s yanked out of a boring household—the Dursleys are not as bad as fandom paints them, but they’re still bad enough—and propelled into a world where he’s a star. He gets to ride on broomsticks, cast spells, aim for the heights of a glorious career ... and, needless to say, skirmish with the Dark Lord. Everything happens to Harry ... and millions of young boys want to be just like him. The same could easily be said of Mildred Hubble, even though she doesn’t have a dark lord breathing down her neck. Cackles is an exciting school ...

  And yet, in many ways, both Cackles and Hogwarts are familiar ... but different. The combination of lessons, exams, bullies, teachers and adolescent hormones with magic and mystery adds a spark to the school that real schools lack. Malory Towers was fantastic because the vast majority of girls would never get to step inside such a school, let alone stay there. Hogwarts has the same air of wonder. Why not? It comes from another world, with just enough familiar to make us think we could fit in there.

  The stories in this collection are all set in different magic schools. Mine—Gennady’s Tale—is set in the universe of Schooled in Magic, although roughly fifteen years before Schooled in Magic takes place. Others are set in different worlds: some in universes created and explored by other writers; some in universes created for this collection. We’ve done our best to make them as stand-alone as possible, but we hope you’ll take the time to look up our other books afterwards.

  Come with us, if you please, into worlds both fantastical ... and very human.

  Christopher G. Nuttall

  Edinburgh, 2020

  Little Witches

  Mel Lee Newmin

  When Miranda Winters, headmistress for a school for exceptional, magical girls, travels to London in search of funding, she is rudely rejected by the Grand Abracadabran of the Guild of Witches and Wizards. Instead, he informs her he’ll be providing only grants to his nephew Randal Stevens’ Junior Warlocks Academy. Word of the rejection reaches her students who immediately decide to obtain revenge for this slight. What could possibly go wrong when thirty-two little witches pitch an assault against sixty-four junior wizards in the middle of the night?

  Little Witches

  With a final gut-shaking jolt and a hiss of steam, the train jerked to a stop. The exhausted monster huffed its smoky breath, adding charcoal dust to the already murky fog that embraced Charing Cross Station. Miranda Winters grasped a brass pole with a gloved hand to keep from being thrown as she stood in the aisle waiting for her chance to detrain. Planting her feet wide, she used an arm to straighten the large-brimmed, feathered hat perched on her head because her free hand clutched a beaded purse, parasol and satchel. Still seated nearby, a gentleman in a Derby, his collar points so sharp they could draw blood from his neck, twitched his bushy mustache and harrumphed something about demmed females.

  Miranda forced a smile at the old fossil, then with a twitch of her lips, sent a shock of magic through the elderly man’s glass of bourbon. The liquid sloshed over the rim. With a cry of dismay, the man half-rose from the plush velvet seat and desperately wiped the drops of bourbon from his trousers. Unable to hide her pleasure, Miss Winters sashayed off the train to a swish of rose- and yellow-striped skirts.

  Stepping down onto the platform was no easy task given the dense fog that blanketed London that cool, fall evening. Fortunately, an immaculately uniformed conductor stood at the ready. He grasped her elbow and aided her down.

  “Good heavens!” she gasped, looking around. The magnificence of Charing Cross was lost in the gray sea. Miranda could make out the amorphous balls of gaslights marching into the distance and the dull golden glow of the station, but little else. “I’d heard London fogs could be dense, but this is positively bewildering.”

  “Unnerved by our beloved institution?” asked an amused male voice with a clipped British accent.

  Miranda whirled around to watch a dark shadow emerge from the murk. She scowled, knowing the voice long before she recognized the man.

  Randal Stevens was tall enough to look down on Miranda, which was saying a lot because she was a tall woman. He was dressed, as always, in the pink of fashion, black frock coat over fawn breeches and a dazzlingly white shirt. His cravat was exquisitely tied in the latest fad called a Hungarian Knot. His dark hair was cut short and smooth beneath a soaring stovepipe hat.

  Dark eyes glimmered as he swept the hat from his head and bowed, all elegance and conceit. “What a delightful surprise, Miss Winters. Had I known you were on my train, I would have sought you out.”

  “I would have avoided you,” Miranda muttered.

  Her words didn’t deflect the Brit. “I must say, I’m a tad surprised to find you discomforted by a little fog.”

  Miranda raised a brow. “And why would that be, Mr. Stevens? I’m not accustomed to this…” she waved a glove in the air… “soup. Texas isn’t known for its fogs.”

  Randal placed his hat back on his head with a tap of his fingers. “Quite. However, since you are a water witch, I would expect you’d simply wave your dainty little hand and make it all go away.”

  Miranda’s blue eyes narrowed. “My hands are hardly dainty. And don’t call me a water witch. I’m a liquid enchantress, thank you.”

  “Enchantress…” Randal rolled the word around in his mouth as if tasting it. “Rather a stiff word for an American hell cat.” Before she could launch her next volley, he asked, “What would you call the likes of me?”

  Miranda couldn’t stop the snort from erupting out of her nose. “Fire lizard.”

  Rather than take offense, Randal grinned. “Fire wizard, my dear. The word is wizard.” He exaggerated the pronunciation. “Poor Americans and your terrible English.” He laid a hand over his heart. “I rather prefer the word warlock myself. Has a certain flair.”

&n
bsp; Miranda rolled her eyes heavenward and vented a rather unladylike word, earning herself a strangled laugh from Randal.

  “What brings you to our fair city?” he asked.

  “The same issue that brings you, I’m sure.” Miranda gazed around, wondering where to find a hansom cab. The platform was deserted. Mist eddied thick, mixing with the puffs of steam from the still huffing locomotive. Deciding the fog was ridiculous, she selected a spell, murmured the incantation and opened a tunnel through the fog. Not giving Randal Stevens another thought, Miranda marched ahead with beaded bag, parasol and satchel in hand. Her half boots stomped loudly on the platform.

  To her dismay, the sound of longer strides followed her.

  Near the locomotive itself, she whirled around, parasol raised like a bat. “Do you mind?”

  Randal came to a smooth stop. “Not at all. I rather like that you’ve opened up a corridor through the mist. You’ve changed my thinking, Miss Winters. I thought water witches were useless compared to fire wizards. But I see you have the occasional valuable talent.”

  Miranda’s hand tightened on the parasol. She calculated her swing. “In Texas, which is dry country, my talent is valued beyond price! I was quite in demand, I assure you.”