The Founders

Chapter 9

Kyra sacrificed most of her homework time that week in favour of practising spells in the DADA library, which, in hind sight, was probably not her best decision. She spent hours in the upper room, sprawled on the cushions and reading, or trying to practice spells, until the candles lit themselves and the air blowing in through the open windows became chilly.

Sometimes, Oscar and Grace would join her, but they tended to slow down the process.

"So, how do you feel about giving Alexander acne?" Oscar asked, while looking at a page on the furnunculus curse.

Kyra sighed, and lay flat onto the ground. The open window above her let in currents of cool air that raised prickles against her skin. They had spent their entire free time after dinner researching spells and it was now approaching curfew, without any results to show for it. "This is hopeless," she complained. "I need actual practise with someone, I can't just theoretically learn all these spells."

"I mean, we do exist," Oscar said with a gesture between himself and Grace, cross-legged in the corner. "We do, also, have wands." Kyra gave him a look, which was awkward from the angle that she was lying.

"Rude," he said with a wagging finger in Kyra's direction. "You English people are much too direct, you know."

"Oscar, you grew up in England," Kyra said laughingly.

He shrugged, ignoring her. "You'll just have to wait for your next DADA lesson for practice." He dropped the massive book to the ground with a thump and began rubbing his arms ostentatiously.

Kyra rolled her eyes, pulling a lime green cushion that had once been Travels with Trolls towards her. She rolled onto her front and crossed her arms under it, resting her head.

There was silence for a moment, just the rushing sound of wind shaking the trees, a candle sputtering low in its wax.

"You want to know something cool?" Kyra asked. Oscar let out a quiet groan. "Isn't it weird how some things which are so cheap now were once some of the most valuable goods in the world? Like, aluminium was once more expensive than gold. And cinnamon was insanely expensive because true cinnamon only grew in Ceylon. There was a huge monopoly on it, and one of the main reasons why Columbus wanted to 'discover' America was to find another source for it, to break the monopoly."

Grace, sitting in the corner and experimenting with the colours of her nails, looked up with a vaguely indulgent smile.

"La Canela was the search for the valley of cinnamon. On one of the expeditions to find it, some people got separated, Francisco de Orellana, Friar Carvejal, those are the only ones I can remember. Anyway, they went downstream the Napo River to the Amazon River and were the first Europeans to follow the river all the way to its delta.

"Orellana was actually the one who named it the Amazon, because they battled some female warriors who he thought were like the Amazons. But the short of it is that the Amazon River is called that because some people got lost while looking for cinnamon. Pretty cool right?"

Because Oscar loved baking, she deliberately read books about ancient ingredients or recipes, in an attempt to get him interested. He rolled onto his back and flung an arm over his eyes. "Can we please talk about something interesting." Kyra kicked him, which again was awkward from her stretched out position. "More interesting," he amended. He grasped desperately. "Hey Grace, what's up with Michael?"

"You would fail the Bechdel test," Kyra said to Oscar at the same time that Grace sank against the wall behind her, abandoning her nails and dropping her wand.

"Nothing. Absolutely nothing," she said blankly. Kyra had been forced to witness their painful exchange yesterday outside the dining hall, before they could escape to the dungeons. Grace had pulled out her Evermore CD that time.

Kyra crawled over to her and sympathetically took hold of the hand that had three putrid orange nails, and two neon pink ones, squeezing it. "Well, this is the boy who got a U in Magical Creatures. He's so thick he wouldn't notice a good thing if it slapped him in the face."

"Yeah," Oscar chimed in, "and he looks like a rat."

Grace looked mildly offended. "He does not look like a rat."

"He looks like a ginger rat."

Grace looked at Kyra for support. Kyra, lounging back on the ground, shrugged elegantly. "De gustibus non disputandum est."

"Shut up," Oscar said, turning back to Grace. "Look," he started. "The boy looks like a rat. With a thatched head. And he's also so stupid that he fell into the lake trying to find out if the giant squid was real or not. He had to be fished out by Hagrid. In third year." Grace picked at her putrid nails, starting to smile. "Now on another note, who wants to go on a lovely trip this weekend?" Oscar asked. "We could go apple-picking?"

Kyra grinned up at him. "Stop acting all selfless. You just don't want to be the loner in an apple-tree."

Oscar threw Gadding with Ghouls at her.