Chapter 237

I survived another week in the Academy without being maimed or killed, which I considered a win, though I continued to be harassed. BJ’s minions hadn’t given up trying to bump into me

in the corridors or trip me in the classroom. I also often found dead rats or live scorpions inside my locker, and once I found a doll that looked like me being cut with knives and pinned with dozens of needles. The gang even resorted to voodoo stuff and painted “cursed” with pig’s blood on the wall of my locker.

To spare myself the grievance and avoid whatever nasty surprise lurked in wait, I no longer opened or used my locker. Everything went into my heavy backpack, and I carried it everywhere.

Despite my burdens, I never forgot who I was—Pip, the prankster, who never sat on the sidelines and never let anyone push me around. I liked good jokes, so I responded eagerly to BJ’s mental warfare.

It helped that I discovered an uncanny ability for using prank magic. Somehow, I could always track and single out my attackers to cause unfortunate “accidents” to those evildoers. The water would run cold or run out when they were in the middle of their showers, or maybe their boyfriends couldn’t get an erection just before they got down and dirty together. This was the only time I felt like the universe was on my side and actually listening to my calls, because birds always knew right where to pick their next shitting spot—mostly on the heads of BJ’s cronies.

Now, most of them, including BJ, either wore a broad hat or carried an umbrella with them at all times.

 My magic couldn’t do real damage, that I’d learned, but it could annoy the hell out of my adversaries, which made me giddy. All I had to do was picture a deed, and my magic would make it happen.

Maybe I should practice making my mind-over-matter magic bigger and more lethal, so I could tackle any foe.

BJ and her goons became increasingly frustrated since my retaliations were always worse than their harassments. They were sure that I had something to do with the pranks, but none of them could prove anything. All they could accuse me of was saying that nothing strange or bad ever happened to them until I came to the Academy.

After a while, they ceased to harass me but resorted to glaring instead, but I always smiled back. Yet I wasn’t fooled into thinking they’d stopped plotting against me. When their revenge came, and I knew it would, it would be big and deadly.

Despite my feud with BJ, I liked my life at the Academy. I had shelter, food, and friends. I even felt relatively safer. BJ’s shenanigans were peachy compared to the horror I’d experienced at the hands of the mage hunters, and I’d only caught a glimpse of my treatment.

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I DRAGGED a large piece of pepperoni pizza onto my plate.