Danny's Demons Chapter 29 (Early Preview) (Patreon)

Chapter 29: Public Education

Monday Morning

Casper Middle School

The cold morning air brushed past students. Lockers slammed and voices echoed through the halls.

Danny rubbed his eyes as he walked in. Tucker appeared beside him, and they slapped a lazy high-five without looking at each other.

"Think we'll ever be old enough to cancel Mondays?" Danny asked, still squinting at the lights overhead.

Tucker pushed up his glasses. "Only if we get permanent Saturdays out of the deal."

Danny opened his locker and fished through the clutter until he found the grammar worksheet. It was bent at the corners and dotted with faint pencil smudges. He tried flattening it against his folder.

Tucker glanced over. "You finished it?"

"Barely," Danny said. "It's a miracle I remembered how to use a semicolon."

The intercom buzzed, short and crackly. Doors started closing. Teachers began herding kids toward homeroom.

Room 2B was already filling up. Mr. Cobble stood at the front, holding a clipboard and looking like someone had interrupted his breakfast.

"Cafeteria's out of chocolate milk again," he said without preamble. "Band still needs trumpet players. Also, stop stuffing trash into your lockers. That includes banana peels, gum wrappers, and whatever I smelled last Thursday."

Danny slid into his usual seat near the back, head tilted just enough to look awake. He stared out the window and tuned the rest out.

Cobble checked his watch. "Back in a sec. Don't break anything."

Then he was gone.

The moment the door closed, students started drifting out. Some moved quickly, others took their time. Danny didn't bother. He gathered his things slowly. No reason to rush.

A quiet laugh broke through the background noise.

He didn't have to look.

"Fenton," Dash said, stepping into the space beside him, flanked by the usual two. "Look at you. Bright-eyed. Homework in hand. Trying something new?"

Danny stayed still. "Just want to get to class, man."

"Yeah, same," Dash said. Then he grabbed the folder.

Danny held back his fist.

Dash tore the paper once and let it fall to the floor.

One of the cronies snorted. The other nudged a desk with his knee, like he was gearing up for more.

Danny raised his hand slightly, fingers moving with practiced ease. He whispered something soft enough to activate.

"Mr. Baxter."

The voice came from behind them.

Dash froze. His friends spun around.

Mr. Cobble stood at the back of the room, arms crossed.

"Anything you want to share with me?"

Dash blinked hard. "Nope. We were leaving."

He moved fast. One crony tripped over a chair. The other was already gone. Dash yanked the door open and vanished.

The door swung shut behind him.

Danny let out a breath. The illusion shimmered, then faded. He crouched and started collecting the torn pieces of his worksheet.

The real Mr. Cobble walked back in, drying his hands on a paper towel. He looked around the room.

"You good?" he asked.

Danny stood, paper scraps in hand. "Yeah."

Cobble nodded once and went back to his desk.

1st Period - English/Language Arts

Students filed into Mrs. Arling's classroom with the kind of energy usually reserved for waiting rooms and dentist chairs. Backpacks sagged. Conversations barely stirred above a murmur. The walls didn't help. Faded posters urged them to "Read More!" or made puns so groan-worthy Danny had to look away. A row of author portraits watched the room like a jury of ghosts. Most of them looked like they'd died disappointed. Looming above the whiteboard, a quote in loopy cursive read: "Darkness there, and nothing more."

Danny took his usual seat in the middle row, the two halves of his ripped homework pressed flat against his notebook. His pulse picked up as he glanced at the front of the room. No sign of Mrs. Arling yet. Probably still in the lounge, wrestling with the printer or pouring her third cup of coffee.

He ducked his head, unzipped his backpack, and eased the torn paper into his lap. The rip was straight down the center, clean but obvious. Dash had made sure of that back in homeroom. The crease was still visible, a faint scar in the middle of his assignment. Danny pressed the halves together and inhaled slowly. 'Okay. Focus on the page, not the problem.'

Hands low, he whispered the words under his breath. Magic shimmered faintly between his fingers. A thread of silver light wove through the paper, pulling the fibers back into place. In a few seconds, the tear vanished like it had never been there.

Danny exhaled through his nose and allowed himself a quick smile. He slipped the now-intact worksheet onto his desk just as the door opened and Mrs. Arling strode in.

"Good morning, everyone," she said, clapping her hands once. "Hope you all had a restful weekend. Today, we're jumping into our Gothic fiction unit."

A few groans stirred in reply. Low, half-hearted.

From the back right corner, Sam Manson raised a hand before the handouts even reached her row. Arms crossed, black choker in place, eyeliner sharper than her tone. "This version's sanitized," she said flatly. "This one just clips the good parts."

Mrs. Arling didn't flinch. "Thank you, Sam. Let's stick to the curriculum."

Danny bit back a laugh and flipped open the booklet. The story started with a traveler arriving at a crumbling estate surrounded by mist and secrets. Normally, this would be his kind of thing. Lately, his life felt more haunted house than high school. But the words didn't hold him.

His pencil drifted across the margins. He didn't think much about what he was drawing. Curves and angles filled the space, broken up by the occasional odd shape. It was just something to keep his hands busy.

Halfway through the lesson, Mrs. Arling clapped again. That same spark in her eyes meant trouble.

"Before we move on... pop quiz time!"

Danny groaned under his breath. Of course.

She passed out half-sheets. Comprehension and grammar from last week. Danny glanced down at his newly restored homework and gave himself a mental high five for re-reading it over breakfast.

2nd Period - Math

As the bell rang and students funneled into the hallway, Danny headed toward Mr. Hendricks' math class. He weaved past two kids lobbing paper balls over a row of lockers and sidestepped another who was loudly rapping about pi.

Sliding into his seat, Danny reached into his backpack, then immediately recoiled. "Ugh. Seriously?" He pulled out his math homework, soaked through and curling at the edges. The ink had already begun to bleed.

His water bottle must have leaked during the last period. Great. First Dash, now this.

Danny glanced around. No one was paying close attention. He slid the soggy paper under his desk, focused, and whispered the incantation. A soft shimmer pulsed through the page. The moisture vanished. The fibers flattened. The ink returned, sharp and legible.

Tucker, sitting a row over, leaned in and narrowed his eyes at the now-pristine worksheet. "Didn't that look… drenched, like, five seconds ago?"

Danny shrugged without missing a beat. "Lighting in here sucks."

Before Tucker could press him, Mr. Hendricks clapped twice at the front of the room.

"Alright, settle down. We're kicking things off by reviewing the homework. Try to contain your enthusiasm. After that, we're jumping into fractions and their relationship to decimals."

A few groans rumbled in response.

"And yes," he added, already writing on the board, "this is all going to show up on the test. There is no mercy."

The class ran through a few sample pre-algebra problems. Then Hendricks handed out worksheets and split them into small groups.

Danny ended up with Emma, who stayed quiet and kept her focus locked on her paper. A kid across from him wouldn't stop tapping his pencil. Tucker was already halfway through question three.

"If I finish quickly, I get more time to grind Dino Duelers," Tucker muttered, eyes locked on his sheet. "Speed is strategy, man."

Danny nodded but wasn't listening. As the others worked, his attention drifted. He started mentally overlaying the math problems onto some of Stolas's spell diagrams. The lines and curves helped him picture the equations better. Fractions became arcane circles. Ratios twisted into runes.

Not exactly conventional study habits, but if it helped, he wasn't going to complain.

3rd Period - Physical Education

Students dragged themselves into the Casper Middle School gym like the building had personally offended them. The air carried a permanent mix of floor polish, sweat, and forgotten sneakers, clinging to the walls like a second coat of paint. At the center stood Coach Brenner, a tank of a man with a whistle he wore like part of his anatomy. His sun-bleached cap looked like it had survived more than just summer, maybe a wildfire or two.

Before warm-ups, everyone stopped by the lockers to change. Danny approached his locker slowly, already bracing for the worst.

He cracked it open and instantly gagged.

The smell hit him hard. Rotten egg and mildew, thick enough to sting his eyes. He yanked back, one hand over his face. "What the, what died in here?"

Inside, a warped sandwich container oozed yellow sludge down the metal. A note stuck to it, barely hanging on: From your pal, Dash. Judging by the smell, it had been rotting in there since the previous week.

Danny glanced over his shoulder. Nobody was looking. He muttered a short spell and gave a small twist of his fingers. It disappeared in a blink, replaced by something faintly citrusy. At least it didn't smell like a compost bin anymore.

"Good enough," he muttered, slamming the door shut and heading for the court.

Maybe, just maybe, today's biggest hassle would be dodging a basketball to the face.

Coach Brenner's whistle sliced through the noise. "Let's go! High knees! Lunges! Touch your toes, not your ankles! This isn't brunch with your grandma!"

The class groaned in collective misery, scattering across the floor to start stretching. Danny took his place near the back, moving just enough to blend in. He didn't hate PE, not exactly. But Dash and his friends had a way of turning every game into a contact sport, and Danny wasn't looking to get flattened before lunch.

After a few rounds of jumping jacks and a half-hearted jog, Coach called out the day's activities.

"Basketball and volleyball are set up. If you still owe me laps, the pacer's running. You know who you are."

Another shrill blast from the whistle, and the teams were assigned. Danny found himself on the opposite side from Dash and Bryce, which felt like a rare stroke of actual luck. No elbows, no trash talk. At least, not immediately.

As he jogged across the court, a different idea started creeping in. One he'd been pushing aside for a while. Stolas had told him not to use magic for trivial things. But what counted as trivial? Helping out a little in gym class? 'What if I tried just one spell? Nothing major. Just a boost.'

The ball bounced his way after a missed shot. Danny caught it clean and scanned the court. He was past midcourt, too far to take a shot unless he wanted to look ridiculous. A defender closed in. No time to drive forward.

He hesitated for a breath, then whispered the spell. Something flickered behind his eyes. He pivoted, feet planted, and launched the ball in a smooth, high arc. It felt right the second it left his hands. The angle, the spin, the release, something in him had adjusted all of it without thinking.

The ball sailed through the air and dropped through the hoop with a swish.

The gym fell into an odd hush. Even the squeak of sneakers and the thump of bouncing balls paused for a moment. Bryce stared. Coach glanced up from his clipboard.

"Nice shot, Fenton," someone said off to the side.

Danny gave a quick shrug, trying not to smile too hard. But he felt it bubbling up anyway. 'So... True Strike works on sports, too.'

He drifted back into position, his heartbeat elevated from the realization.

This changed things.