Lucky Rabbit

The door opened just a crack, revealing a wary brown eye that probably belonged to Timon, judging by the red hair visible above it. “Is it all right for this k- uh, student to come in? I can send him away.”

Timon spoke in a rush, and the door was already closing again before Pandy said, “No! I mean, yes, it’s all right if he comes in, but not you. I mean, I guess you could come in, too, but it’d be better if it’s just Thaniel and me. Not that I want to be alone with him, but-”

Thankfully, the door opened the rest of the way at this point, cutting off Pandy’s increasingly awkward flood of words, and Thaniel slipped in before closing the door in Timon’s face. He didn’t even seem to realize he was doing it, and the look on Timon’s face just before the door closed was almost worth it all. Well, no, it wasn’t, but Pandy still felt that he deserved it after the way he ignored poor Thaniel while the boy was recovering.

Once Thaniel was inside, he stopped, pressing his back against the door as his eyes searched Pandy’s face. “Ms….Wellington?” he asked cautiously.

Pandy thought, and in a moment she sat in a puddle of satin robe, blankets, and, unfortunately, what had been neatly wrapped bandages. It was totally worth it, though, as Thaniel ran forward and plucked her from the swathes of cloth, snuggling her against his chest.

“I knew it was you,” he whispered. “Mr. Blackwood brought Miss Cupcakes to Geri, an’ he said Ms. Wellington was back, but she didn’t feel good, so she wouldn’t be teaching us for a few days. But I knew it had to be you.” He held her away from himself, attempting to look stern. “You shoulda come and got me! What happened?”

Pandy wriggled, and, reluctantly, he put her back on the bed. She burrowed beneath the blankets before thinking,

Shifting Faces has already been used today. You have 00:32:20remaining. Would you like to use it?

Pandy thought, and the bed creaked as she returned to her human shape. She’d gotten turned around beneath the blankets, but soon enough she managed to sit up, clutching the blanket around her.

Quickly, she explained what had happened, reveling in the fact that she could use words, only to find that Thaniel didn’t actually seem to be listening to those words. Instead, he stared at her, blue eyes wide and unblinking, before finally reaching out and poking her cheek with a finger.

“Are you really my Bunny?” he asked, frowning.

Pandy started to remind him that not only had she already answered that, but he’d just seen her change, when she thought better of it. For all that Thaniel was smart and unexpectedly mature at times, he was also six. “It’s magic,” she told him.

He gave her a look that said he knew that, but he nodded anyway, as if he’d really just wanted her to confirm it one more time. “Are you gonna be Ms. Wellington from now on?” He asked in a matter-of-fact tone, but his lower lip was beginning to quiver, and there were definitely tears welling up in his eyes.

Pandy shook her head. “No!” Then, realizing she’d probably spoken a bit too loud, she lowered her voice and whispered, “No. As soon as Timon goes away, I’ll become Bunny again, and come back to you.”

Thaniel sniffled, then said, “Okay. But…it would be kind of fun if you were my teacher. We could have tea parties and play pirates every day!”

Pandy started to shake her head, then paused. She opened her mouth, then let it hang there as she tried to figure out what to do with the thoughts and emotions that were swirling through her.

She could…be a teacher. Just for an hour or so a day, and only for five students, but she could do it. How hard could it be? She’d certainly had several teachers who were less competent than she would be. Probably. Maybe. She even had a general idea of what the kids needed to learn, since she’d read all the books in Gacha Love several times.

And she might even get paid. Because that was how that worked, right? She did a job, and someone paid her. With money, she could buy her own clothes, and food, and maybe save up enough so that when the three years, nine months, and however-many-days she had left were over…maybe she would have a way to survive.

Pandy was under no illusion that she would be a particularly good teacher, but Ms. Wellington hadn’t been a good teacher, either. At least Pandy would be nice to the kids, and she wouldn’t mind a tea party or two. Best of all, if it went wrong, it was Ms. Wellington who would get in trouble, not Pandy herself. Pandy could always go back to being a pampered pet, but this time she would have a little cash squirrelled – rabbited? – away.

But no. That was a very, very bad idea. Because Ms. Wellington wasn’t just a teacher, was she? She was also a member of the Shadow Exchange, hired by someone with nefarious designs on children just like Thaniel. If Pandy tried to take her place, even for a short time, someone was bound to figure it out when she didn’t, say, abduct small children or try to warp their impressionable young minds.

And then what? Well, the most obvious answer was that someone would try to either kill or abduct her. But Pandy wasn’t just any rabbit. Not anymore. She was, as far as she could tell, unkillable, at least in any meaningful manner. They could stab her, poison her, maybe even cut off her head, and she would just…just…

Her hand lifted to her throat, and she swallowed hard, looking down into Thaniel’s excited little face. She would, maybe, be able to figure out what was going on. If she was on the inside of their little cabal, surely she could at least survive long enough to get a few clues, and that would allow her to protect Thaniel better than if she had no idea what was going on. Which she didn’t.

At the very, very least, she should be able to figure out what the chancellor was up to. She didn’t think it was anything criminal, at least not on the level of kidnapping or brainwashing children. Not with how adamant he was that a teacher’s first responsibility was to protect their students. And how was she supposed to do that as a rabbit?

“But if I’m a teacher, I can’t also be Bunny,” she whispered, half to herself. “Someone would notice-”

“I’ll just tell ‘em you’re in my room,” Thaniel said airily. “Ms. Wellington didn’t even do that much. You could stay with me for homeroom, and then I’ll just tell them I didn’t want you to go to Govr’ance, so that mean ol’ Micah can’t try to steal you.” His face crumpled, and Pandy realized he must have been a lot more upset by what happened the day before than she’d realized. The later events had wiped it from her mind, but clearly not Thaniel’s.

Impulsively, Pandy hugged him, and to her surprise, the boy allowed it, even leaning into her as hot tears soaked through the blanket, increasing her Corruption Points back to ninety-five. Pandy didn’t have a lot of experience with hugs, but the process seemed to be fairly instinctual, because she found that her cheek came to rest on his head as she stroked his hair, and he curled up beside her on the bed.

“I won’t let him steal me,” she told him. “No one can, I promise. But…that would make sense. If you took me to your room after lunch, then I could sneak out again and teach your class. But,” she bit her lip, pondering, “Ms. Wellington was at lunch sometimes, too. I can only change shapes for an hour at a time, so I couldn’t teach and glare at people while they ate.”

Thaniel giggled, probably at the mental image of Pandy glaring, which was pretty ridiculous. No matter whose body she was in, Pandy was Pandy, and no one had ever been worried about what she thought of them before, so she doubted anyone would start now.

“You don’t have to teach the whole class,” Thaniel said. “You could do like Mrs. Lovett does, an’ say somebody’s the leader, and then leave.” He looked up at her through his dark lashes. “You could say I’m the leader. I’d be way better than Mean Micah.”

Pandy could practically hear the capital ‘M’, and suspected Micah had just acquired a nickname that would take a long time and a lot of effort to get rid of. “Do you want to be the leader?”

Thaniel hesitated. “Isidor is a little bossy,” he confided, settling against her again. “But I don’t think I wanna be the boss, either. I just want to play.”

Pandy smiled at him. “Then if you were the boss, you could just tell everybody to play, right?”

“Right!” Thaniel said, sitting up so abruptly that he almost bashed the top of his head into Pandy’s chin. Then he sank back down. “But what if they don’t want to play?”

“Then they don’t have to,” Pandy said. That made sense to her. Sometimes you wanted to have fun and be silly, but sometimes you didn’t.

Thaniel nodded. “Let’s do that, then,” he said. “Can we?” He turned the full force of the blue eyes on Pandy, and she almost melted beneath them.

No, no, think this through. She could get caught. Worse, an adult could find out that she wasn’t just a rabbit – even a possible slightly-possessed or demonic one – and take her away from Thaniel. That was definitely the worst-case scenario. If she wasn’t there to keep Keros’ magic from trying to make things ‘right’, Thaniel would be in even more danger than he already was. Could she risk it?

On the other hand, she really wanted to know what was going on with Isidor, the chancellor, and the Shadow Exchange. Who had hired Ms. Wellington? Did they have some way to know she was dead? Would they send someone to replace her?

It was this thought that made Pandy sit up straight, jostling Thaniel so he looked at her, startled. Who would replace Ms. Wellington? Not only as a teacher, but as a spy, or whatever it was she’d been hired to do?

Ms. Wellington had told that strange, rough voice that the Exchange would send another Shadow. Whoever that voice belonged to knew that Thaniel was a Dark mage, and they would want that other Shadow to complete the mission Ms. Wellington hadn’t. And while anyone new to the school would be the obvious suspect, the position that person would be most likely to fill was Ms. Wellington’s. Which would, in turn, make him or her Thaniel’s teacher. Again.

“All right,” Pandy said, a little startled by the firmness of her own voice. “I’ll be your teacher. But Thaniel,” she set her hands on the boy’s shoulders and looked into his eyes. “You have to listen to me. If…if I’m a teacher, that means I have to take care of my students.” And if someone tried to hurt Thaniel or any of the other children, Pandy needed to know that they would listen when she told them to run. She could take care of herself, or at least distract the enemy while they chopped her to pieces, but not if she had to worry about the kids, too.

Thaniel’s lip poked out just a bit, but he nodded. “I s’pose so,” he said. “But I still want to play sometimes.”

She smiled. “Then that’s exactly what we’ll do.” Some of Clara’s lessons had actually sounded like fun. Surely Pandy could adapt them for younger students. After all, there were only five of them, and they were good kids. How hard could it be? Had she already asked herself that once? That seemed like a bad sign, but Pandy ignored it.

Thaniel climbed back down off the bed, heading for the door, but hesitated and looked back at Pandy. “Can you come back tonight?” That look was in his eyes again, and Pandy didn’t know what to do. How could she sneak out while Timon was in the office? But if the doctor’s assistant treated this assignment like he had taking care of Thaniel, he’d probably either wander off or fall asleep at some point.

“I’ll try,” she told Thaniel, and the boy nodded, only sniffling a bit as he opened the door to reveal Timon, standing just on the other side, with his ear turned toward them. How much had he heard? Not too much, apparently, because he looked more frustrated than concerned, and Pandy could only imagine what anyone who didn’t know she was actually Thaniel’s undead pet rabbit would think.

Pandy clutched her blanket around her a little tighter. It was still firmly in place, which was unusually good luck for her, but something about adding another set of eyes made her uncomfortable. Apparently Timon felt the same, because he looked away with almost insulting speed, and didn’t even bother to speak to her before closing the door behind Thaniel. Either Timon was rude as well as a bit lazy, or people really didn’t like Ms. Wellington. Pandy was willing to bet it was the latter.

That didn’t matter at the moment, however. What did matter was that she was finally alone, and she had some investigating to do.