Lunette || ONC 2024

5 - Harriet's First Class

Lunette and Harriet sprinted back down the hall. 
"The shop's there, right?" Harriet panted. 

Lunette wasn't sure. They'd had dashed to class so quickly that morning. 

The tuck shop wasn't at the same spot it had been yesterday, and Lunette yeowled in alarm, but then spotted it on the other side of the gate. 

"Oh, thank goodness!" Harriet stumbled up to the open window. "Mr. Featherby? Are you--oh, there you are."

"Mrs. Featherby," corrected the owl stiffly. She wore rose-tinted cat-eye spectacles and a sunhat. 

"Right, I'm so very sorry. Do you have any cod liver oil left? I really need it for class."

"Two pounds." Mrs. Featherby tapped the cash box with her talon. "Will that be all?"

"Right, right." Harriet dug in her pocket. "Maybe I'd better get two. It might take a couple tries to get the spell right."

"Get one and see how you go," Mrs. Featherby advised kindly. "You only need a spoonful or so for that spell, I believe."

"Thanks awfully," Harriet said in earnest. 

+ Cod Liver Oil

- £2
= £39

Oil obtained, they dashed back to the classroom. Lunette hoped she'd get to have a taste after all, if there was plenty to spare. 

The hallway was empty when they got back, all the other students apparently having found a way in. 

"Toads, toads, toads, toads," Harriet muttered under her breath like a curse. She plopped down in the middle of the hall and Lunette skidded to a stop next to her. 

"Okay, okay." Harriet rummaged through her ingredients bag for one of her freshly-sharpened feather quill pens. "What was it again? Hair of cat...oh. Lunette, do you have any loose hairs I can use?"

Lunette licked her own shoulder and several hairs floated free. 

"Awesome, thanks!" Harriet snatched one up and laid it on the quill, and uncorked the bottle of cod liver oil. She carefully poured a trickle of oil onto the gray goose feather. 

"Hair of cat and oil of fish,
Open any door I wish!"

The hair and oil disappeared in a sizzle of light. The feather remained. It now had a distinct silvery sheen. 

Lunette sneezed. The magic made her nose tickle. The feather fluttered, glimmering, and Lunette had to resist the urge to pounce on it. It was so very chaseable. 

"I think that worked, Lu!" Harriet snatched up the feather. "Oops. I guess I used too much oil."

There was a feather-shaped puddle of oil remaining on the floor. Lunette happily licked it up. 

"Oh, you like cod liver oil? I'll have to remember that. But first, let's get to class. Aaah, we're already late!" 

Harriet poked the tip of the quill into the lock of the classroom door and turned the handle. There was a faint click and the door swung open. 

☀︎

Beyond the door was a small, bright classroom. Fewer than ten students sat scattered around the tables, all of them from Solar House. Lunette spotted her brother Oregano sitting on the table next to his student, Arthur. 

"Hello, dearie. Glad you could join us." 

At the front of the classroom, a little old woman sat on a tall, ornate stool. Her face was so wrinkled it was hard to see her twinkling black eyes. She had a large, colorful head wrap that hinted at masses of hair, and Lunette thought she smelled like the forest. Several books floated in the air in front of the woman. She made a note in what looked like a ledger. 

"I think that's everyone. Come have a seat with the others. As I was saying, I'm Ms. Applewight. Today we'll be looking at one of many, many kinds of growing spells. One of the nice things about this spell is that it involves bottled sunlight. Can you guess what that means?"

Harriet had only just slipped into her seat, but she flung up her hand. "Oh! It's a Solar spell?"

"Correct!" Ms. Applewight's brown, wrinkled face beamed. "For that reason, most of you should find it a breeze. If not, don't fret. That might just mean that your Solar alignment isn't as strong as your classmates'. That doesn't mean you'll struggle with every spell. In fact, once you start learning, say, freezing spells, you might find you have an easier time of it than your other friends in Solar House."

Ms. Applewight swiveled on her stool to face the blackboard, and a piece of chalk floated up to write in looping cursive:

Sunlight
Mushroom
Egg

Water

"We'll be using oyster mushrooms today. Almost any mushroom will do, but of course some mushrooms are quite poisonous, while others can have unintended side effects. Oyster mushrooms are both effective and perfectly safe--even tasty, in my opinion.

"The eggs are included for their growing potential. Again, it doesn't matter what kind of egg. Some people use seeds instead, but you have to be mindful of what kind of seeds you use. We'll be using unfertilized chicken eggs from the kitchen. I promised the cooks we'd have a nice bunch of veggies for them in return, so we'd better get cracking!"

 Ms. Applewight laughed creakily at her own pun, making some of the students smile--more at the sound of her laugh than the pun itself. 

"First, collect your basic ingredients. You never want to start a spell without making sure you have everything you need. After that, we'll go over how to bottle sunlight. Fortunately it's a nice, sunny day."

Students and familiars got up and darted around, collecting their ingredients. The basket of eggs was at the front of the room, along with the bucket of oyster mushrooms and an assortment of seed packets, flower pots, and potting soil. 

"Oh, Lu, could you grab some pumpkin seeds before they're gone?" Harriet asked, filling her pot with soil. 

Lunette wove through the crowd of students and familiars crowding around the seed packets. Solar House students tended to be passionate about plants, and some were finding it tough to make a decision. The pumpkin seeds were a popular choice, but Lunette managed to snag a packet in her teeth and dash back with it to their table. Harriet selected an egg and filled a beaker with water, while Lunette retrieved an oyster mushroom. 

Having assembled their other ingredients, everyone gathered by the window with their bottles. 

"Oof! Just let me get over there in the light..."  Ms. Applewight stretched, and one of her stool's three ornate legs stepped past the teacher's desk toward the window. Creakily, the rest of her followed. 

The students and familiars who had never seen a dryad realized that Ms. Applewight had not been sitting on a stool, but in fact had three long wood-like legs. 

"One moment, children, I'm moving slower and slower these days. Doesn't the sun feel nice, though, on a day like this?" Ms. Applewight moved into the sun. Deep within her dark eyes, a green light twinkled. 

Lunette felt she was right. It was the perfect sort of weather for curling up in the sun and having a nap. 

Ms. Applewight demonstrated how to bottle sunlight. Soon all the students were holding their brightly glowing bottles. 

"There! Isn't that lovely." Ms. Applewight beamed. "Now, you'll want to chop the mushroom up fine, and crack the egg into the water. Then stir in the sunlight slowly. If you tip it in all at once, it'll all go up in a fizzle, and we don't want that. Oh! And I almost forgot to write the spell on the board." She waved her hand, and the chalk traced its looping cursive again. 

Lunette jumped up on the table. Harriet gave her some of the mushroom to shred, and it was pretty satisfying to tear at it with her claws. Not as satisfying as scratching a rug or a chair leg, perhaps, but it was nice to scratch something to smithereens in a useful way. 

They put the shredded mushroom in the beaker of eggy water. Harriet carefully stirred in the sunlight with a wooden spoon and recited the spell:

"Sun above and earth below,
Secret, sleeping might
Help this little seed to grow,
Flourish in the light!"

☀︎