Soul Music

got picked for teams. Even fat girls with spots got picked before her. It was so infuriatingly unreasonable, and she could never understand why.
    She’d explained to other girls how good she was, and demonstrated her skill, and pointed out just how stupid they were in not picking her. For some exasperating reason it didn’t seem to have any effect.
    This afternoon she went for an official walk instead. This was an acceptable alternative, provided girls went in company. Usually they went into town and bought stale fish and chips from an unfragrant shop in Three Roses Alley; fried food was considered unhealthy by Miss Butts, and, therefore, bought out of school at every opportunity.
    Girls had to walk in groups of three or more. Peril, in Miss Butts’s conjectural experience, couldn’t happen to units of more than one.
    It was certainly unlikely in any case to happen to any group that contained Princess Jade and Gloria Thogsdaughter.
    The school’s owners had been a bit bothered about taking a troll, but Jade’s father was king of an entire mountain and it always looked good to have royalty on the roll. And besides, Miss Butts had remarked to Miss Delcross, it’s our duty to encourage them if they show any inclination to become real people and the king is actually quite charming and assures me he can’t even remember when he last ate anyone. Jade had bad eyesight, a note excusing her from unnecessary sunshine, and knitted chain mail in handicraft class.
    Whereas Gloria was banned from Sport because of her tendency to use her ax in a threatening manner. Miss Butts had suggested that an ax wasn’t a ladylike weapon, even for a dwarf, but Gloria had pointed out that, on the contrary, it had been left to her by her grandmother, who had owned it all her life and polished it every Saturday, even if she hadn’t used it at all that week. There was something about the way she gripped it that made even Miss Butts give in. To show willing, Gloria left off her iron helmet and, while not shaving off her beard—there was no actual rule about girls not having beards a foot long—at least plaited it. And tied in it ribbons in the school colors.
    Susan felt strangely at home in their company, and this had earned guarded praise from Miss Butts. It was nice of her to be such chums, she said. Susan had been surprised. It had never occurred to her that anyone actually said a word like chums.
    The three of them trailed back along the beech drive by the playing field.
    “I’ve don’t understand Sport,” said Gloria, watching the gaggle of panting young women stampeding across the pitch.
    “There’s a troll game,” said Jade. “It’s called aargrooha .”
    “How’s it played?” said Susan.
    “Er…you rip off a human’s head and kick it around with special boots made of obsidian until you score a goal or it bursts. But it’s not played anymore, of course,” she added quickly.
    “I should think not,” said Susan.
    “No one knows how to make the boots, I expect,” said Gloria.
    “I expect if it was played now, someone like Iron Lily would go running up and down the touchline shouting ‘Get some head, you soft nellies,’” said Jade.
    They walked in silence for a while.
    “I think,” said Gloria, cautiously, “that she probably wouldn’t, actually.”
    “I say, you two haven’t noticed anything…odd lately, have you?” said Susan.
    “Odd like what?” said Gloria.
    “Well, like…rats…” said Susan.
    “Haven’t seen any rats in the school,” said Gloria. “And I’ve had a good look.”
    “I mean…strange rats,” said Susan.
    They were even with the stables. These were normally the home of the two horses that pulled the school coach, and the term time residence of a few horses belonging to gels who couldn’t be parted from them.
    There is a type of girl who, while incapable of cleaning her bedroom even at knife point, will fight for the privilege of being allowed to spend the day shoveling manure in a stable. It was a magic that hadn’t rubbed off on Susan. She had nothing against horses, but couldn’t understand all the snaffles, bridles, and fetlocks business. And she couldn’t see why they had to be measured in “hands” when there were perfectly sensible inches around to do the job. Having watched the jodhpured girls who bustled around the stables, she decided it was because they couldn’t understand complicated machines like rulers. She’d said so, too.
    “All right,” said