The Villainous Children Retire

Chapter 2

The day the twins would use their powers and get caught happened sooner than they thought it would.

Everything happened in an unsteady course after they had been told that they would be going to school.

"The two of you are going to school." That's all their grandfather said.

The twins knew they couldn't complain, though. They were already past the age when children were supposed to start school. The only reason they hadn't was because the circumstances didn't allow them to, but things were different now.

Esther flopped down on her bed and asked, "Are we really going to school?"

"Seems like it," Eli answered dustily.

Although they did act differently compared to their previous lives, in a way, Eli acted the same. The only difference was that he was a little less aloof than before.

Esther turned her head to look around the tiny room. There wasn't much to look at.

They had been told that they could decorate it to their liking, but they never did.

Esther's eyes focused on the tiny closet.

"Should we go ahead and pick out our outfits for the first day?"

Eli only gave a dumb look in response.

"I guess not."

"It doesn't matter what we wear," Eli replied annoyedly.

"You only say that because you aren't fashionable," Esther replied, turning away from him.

Irene had always been fashionable, it was what she had prided herself on since she was a noble, but Esther was not. There was no reason for her to be so concerned about fashion, but habits were hard to break.

"Do. . . do you want to match?"

Esther was surprised by her brother taking a sudden interest.

She smiled, as she answered, "Yeah, that would be nice."

* * *

The next morning, they got up bright and early. They ate their breakfast that their grandfather prepared for them, french toast and eggs, put on their brand new bright red backpacks, and had their grandfather tell them goodbye before they left.

The twins couldn't help but worry about their dear grandfather. After all, he hadn't been left alone in the house since they had first arrived to live with him.

They didn't know what their grandmother had been like; they had never gotten the opportunity to meet her. It was a blessing in its own way that Esther and Eli were even able to meet their grandfather at all.

If their father hadn't left the house and never came back, and if their mother had never decided to abandon them at their grandfather's, the twins were certain that they wouldn't have ever met the old man.

"Will he be okay?" Esther asked. "Without us, I mean."

"I'm sure he will be," Eli replied. "We'll only be gone for a few hours."

"True."

"Now, let's get a move on. We don't want to be late on our first day."

"Yeah, that would be evil of us, and we're retired from that."

The twins hurried down the road; it was mostly still grassy since the people in the town hardly drove. The town was safe to walk alone in because of that, even for children.

It was more common to see children walking around if there were any people to see outside.

Everything was in close range and decent walking distance.

The twins hurried until they could see the sign for the elementary school. The other two schools were stretched out a bit away from the elementary. The middle school was more towards the end of the town, and the high school was in the middle of the grocery stores. When thinking about it, the twin's house was quite possibly the farthest away from any place in the town. Whether that was because their grandfather liked his privacy or if he just wanted to be left alone, they weren't entirely sure.

'Ready?' Esther asked. 'From here on out, we'll have to talk like this if we don't want to be heard.'

'And don't be smart and answer every question correctly.' added Eli.

'Right.'

They had had every intention of acting like normal kids, but every time the teacher asked a question, they blurted out the correct answer.

To them, the questions were dumb and tedious, which led them to subconsciously shouting out all the answers to them.

By the time Esther and Eli realized what they were doing, the class was already over, and they were being praised by their teacher after everyone had already been dismissed.

"My," said their teacher, Ms. Dunley, a lean woman of stature with brown hair that curled at the ends and pastel blue eyes that peered through her black glasses. "You two seem to know everything. It's a wonder if I have anything left to teach you."

Esther and Eli exchanged looks with one another tensely.

"My, dare I even say that the two of you could skip a few grades?"

"We don't want to," Esther quickly interjected. "We like being in your class, and we wish to stay."

'Fix your speech,' Eli warned. 'It doesn't sound like the speech a kid would use.'

"We want to," Esther said child-like. "We really really want to!" She turned to her brother. 'You say something too! Help me out here!'

Eli fixed his expression to look like a pleading child and said in a sorrowful voice, "Please, Ms. Dunley, we didn't mean to cause any trouble. Please don't kick us out of your class." He had made sure to lisp along the way.

Esther turned to Eli begrudgingly. 'You're a brat.'

'Am I?'

Esther could tell by the tone in his voice that he was being snarky about it.

'That's a good thing then; it means I'm convincing.' He couldn't help but add, 'Unlike you.'

Esther wanted to tell him she wished that he would go back to being silent like before, but she couldn't do that. She didn't mean it. Not really.

Calling him a brat again was what she settled for instead.

When they both looked at Ms. Dunley to see what reaction she would have. They knew that by seeing her saddened-like expression and trouble in figuring out what to say to them, that Eli had been convincing.

"Oh, children," she replied. "I didn't mean to make it sound like I was trying to kick you out of my class. I just thought you wouldn't like being in here since you two seem to know everything already."

The twins ' bodies both jolted. They realized they hadn't just made a few mistakes; they had made a monumental error. They didn't want to be seen as special children; they just wanted to be ordinary. For the sake of their dear grandfather and for the sake of themselves, they just wanted to live a semi-normal life.

"It's okay," Esther said slowly. She and her brother both looked up at the teacher. "We want to stay here, in your class, with the other kids."

She felt her brother reach for her hand and hold it tightly; he hadn't done that in a while. Not since their mother had her explosive fits of rage.

"Like normal kids our age."

The teacher looked shocked. After thinking it over for a moment, she exhaled, pushed her glasses up, and agreed to let them stay in her class.

Ms. Dunley showed the twins out the back way since it was faster. After watching them head up the trail back to their house, she muttered quietly to herself, "Those two are remarkable seven-year-olds."

* * *

The twins marched upward on the trail, still tightly holding hands.

Esther wanted to console her brother, but she wasn't sure she knew how.

He was still shaken, it went deeper than simply trying to let a first-grade teacher let them stay in her class.

They didn't want to gain any attention in any way, and they didn't want to repeat the same mistakes they had in their previous lives.

Eli had been the one holding the tighter grip, but now it was Esther, who had done too much thinking about it on her part.

Eli, who felt the sudden pressure, turned to his sister, surprised. The surprise didn't last long; he knew what she had been thinking.

"It's okay," he said quietly. "It won't be like the last time."

Esther nodded quietly. It was all she could do to keep from feeling anything more.

Just as they were about to get on the path to take them home, they heard some twigs and leaves c***k, and then a big kid emerged from in front of them.

The twins stopped walking, and all their thoughts ceased. They were only focused on the kid in front of them.

He was bigger than both of them in size and build. He had a bright short-sleeved red shirt on that almost matched the color of the twin's backpacks, blue jean shorts, long tight white socks, and dirty tennis shoes. His hair was dark and wiry, and he had freckles in about every place a freckle could go.

He stood in front of the twins, back straightened and arms crossed with a smug grin on his face. Immediately, the twins knew what was happening.

'Hey,' said Esther. 'Is this what I think it is?'

'Yeah,' Eli responded. 'I think it is.'

Their guesses were only proven correct when the boy opened his mouth.

"Heh," he laughed even more smugly. "You two probably think you're all so smart and cool, don't cha?" He moved his head back and laughed again. "Well, I'm here to tell you guys you aren't. The one who's the super duper coolest kid around is me! I'm also the smartest kid too." He wagged his finger at them. "Don't even think that you guys are the cool kids just cos you're twins. That only means there are two of yous, and no one thinks that's cool. I'm still the coolest."

The twins stared at him blankly.

'This is it, isn't it?' asked Esther. 'Bullying.'

'Yeah.'

'You know, this feels kind of. . . nice?'

'Esther!'

'Well, we've bullied a lot of people before. We've never been on the victim side of it. I've always wondered what it must be like to be bullied. It's actually kind of refreshing.'

'Esther!'

However, the refreshing feeling quickly left once the kid shouted at them again.

"Hey, shorty and ugly!"

The twins went completely silent and still.

"Hey," Esther asked, turning to her brother. "Which one of us do you think he called short and ugly?"

"I don't know," Eli replied a bit angrily.

"Huh?" asked the boy loudly. "Who do ya idiots think I meant? The short one is obviously that short kid and the ugly one is the ugly girl beside shorty pants!"

The twins looked at him before looking back at one another.

"I'm an i***t and ugly, huh?"

"Not to mention, I'm a short pants."

They decided not to engage with him as they resumed their walk uphill to the path back home.

"Hey!" the kid shouted as they walked past him. "I'm talking to you losers!"

'Just ignore him,' said Eli. 'He'll keep going forever if we let him.'

'Yeah, I don't plan on saying anything to him, even if I am a little mad.'

Just as they had passed the boy quietly despite his ever-growing vocabulary of insults, the boy shouted at them again before he lunged forward, wrapping a wad of Esther's blonde hair in his hand and yanking her backwards.

With a cry, Esther fell backwards; the force and momentum pried her hand from Eli's. Esther fell down on the ground. She tried to minimize the impact by using the hand that got pulled away from Eli's to hoist her body up to keep from completely falling on the ground, but all that did was earn her a badly scraped-up hand.

"Ow," she cried as she moved it to look at it. Her hair was tangled and messy from it being pulled by the kid. Her head, much like her hand, throbbed from it too. Against her better judgment, she began to cry. She couldn't help it since her body was being ruled by a child's brain.

Without wasting a single second, Eli darted towards her. "Esther!" he cried. He got down on his knees and took her hand. He was enraged at the sight of blood that nearly completely covered her whole hand.

"I'm okay," she replied in between sobs. 'It's this body that's reacting so strongly.'

She tried to convince her brother she was okay, but he was only seeing red.

He slowly let go of her hand and walked over to the kid, who looked a little nervous about what he had caused.

'What are you doing?'

'Hold on.'

Esther could see the energy slowly forming around his tightened fist.

'Wait!' she cried. 'Stop! Don't do it! He's only a child!'

'A child who needs to learn better before he grows into a wicked adult like we were.'

'A stern talking to will do just that! We can scare him with our words, not our powers!'

Esther tried to persuade him, but it was too late. When Eli's fist connected to the skin of the kid, he was blasted backwards a far feet away from him. Esther watched the trees sway to and fro due to the fearsome force of her brother.

"Eli!" Esther shouted. She got up and hurried over to check on the kid. "He's just a kid!"

The adrenaline was all too much for Eli's tiny body. He knew he would regret his actions later, but not now.

Esther squatted down to look at the kid. He was fine; the only thing Eli's punch had done to him was knock him out cold.

'Did you really need to use your powers for this?'

'I couldn't help it. He was too big for me to knock out from strength alone.'

'Why knock him out in the first place? He's only a child. We're adults; we should know better.'

'He's only a child, so he needs to be taught young.'

'And so extremely?'

Eli was about to protest more when Esther suddenly said loudly, "We agreed we wouldn't use our powers anymore. You promised!"

Esther's words gave Eli some time to calm down a little. "Esti," he said slowly. "I'm sor-"

The twins both turned in horror when they heard someone gasp. Was it the teacher? Had she heard the commotion? But no, it was far worse; it was another child.

A young girl stood in front of them with her hands covering her mouth in shock.

The twins didn't know what to say. They didn't know what they could say to get themselves out of this mess.

Slowly, when the little girl took her hands off of her mouth, she said in a hushed whisper, "I saw everything. . . you guys have magic!"