Hermosa/wtm/

4

My Mom Teaches Me Bull Fighting

"What the fuck?!"

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We tore through the night along dark country roads. Wind slammed against the Camaro. Rain lashed the windshield. I didn’t know how my mom could see anything, but she kept her foot on the gas.

“Good.” Neville sighs.

Every time there was a flash of lightning, I looked at Grover sitting next to me in the backseat and I wondered if I’d gone insane, or if he was wearing some kind of shag-carpet pants. But, no, the smell was one I remembered from kindergarten field trips to the petting zoo- lanolin, like from wool. The smell of a wet barnyard animal.

“Ew…” most of the girls in the hall went, accompanied by Blaise.

All I could think to say was, “So, you and my mom… know each other?”

“They do.”

Graver’s eyes flitted to the rearview mirror, though there were no cars behind us. “Not exactly,” he said. “I mean, we’ve never met in person. But she knew I was watching you.” “Watching me?”

“Keeping tabs on you. Making sure you were okay. But I wasn’t faking being your friend,” he added hastily. “I am your friend.”

“No you aren’t!” Potter shouted.

“Yes he is!” Neville shouted back.

The boy turned to him, “He is a creep. I would make a much better friend.”

“No he is not, she is his best friend to the end.” Neville sighed, done with Potter’s bull.

“She would hate you.” Luna sighed dreamily.

“Urn … what are you, exactly?”

“That doesn’t matter right now.”

“It doesn’t matter? From the waist down, my best friend is a donkey-“

Grover let out a sharp, throaty “Blaa-ha-ha!”

I’d heard him make that sound before, but I’d always assumed it was a nervous laugh. Now I realized it was more of an irritated bleat.

“Goat!” he cried.

“GOAT!?!”

“What?”

“I’m a goat from the waist down.”

“You just said it didn’t matter.”

“Blaa-ha-ha! There are satyrs who would trample you underhoof for such an insult!” “Whoa. Wait. Satyrs. You mean like … Mr. Brunner’s myths?”

“Were those old ladies at the fruit stand a myth, Percy? Was Mrs. Dodds a myth?”

“So you admit there was a Mrs. Dodds!”

“Not the point Seaweed Brain…” Draco mutters.

“Of course.”

“Then why-“

“The less you knew, the fewer monsters you’d attract,” Grover said, like that should be perfectly obvious. “We put Mist over the humans’ eyes. We hoped you’d think the Kindly One was a hallucination. But it was no good. You started to realize who you are.”

“Who I-wait a minute, what do you mean?”

The weird bellowing noise rose up again somewhere behind us, closer than before. Whatever was chasing us was still on our trail.