Infiltrating G.A.T.O.

Ten Years Later

Black smoke swirled out from the flask in front of Isadora. The stench of sulfur burned her nose and she waved her hand in front of her face before coughing. Tears pricked at her eyes as she realized she’d just failed at another potion. By the looks of it, this one would either kill someone or at least give them serious heartburn.

Her grandmother would be disappointed with her failure to once again make a proper potion. A tear streaked down her cheek and dropped onto the worktable in front of her. Sebastian helped the best he could but his abilities only stretched so far. When it came to her abilities as a witch, her prowess with spells could hardly be matched, but her potions were just plain horrible.

Isadora needed to master both spells and potions in order to be a well rounded witch, at least that’s what her grandmother said. Until she mastered both, her grandmother refused to buy her a car. With Isadora leaving for college soon, she really wanted the car.

With a heavy sigh, she slumped onto the table and knocked into the potion. A few drops of the potion splashed onto the table next to her. She lifted her head at the sizzling sound of the tabletop dissolving. What had she managed to make with that potion?

The thump of four legged creatures running down the stairs into the basement brought a small smile to her face. With her ability to make disastrous potions, they’d moved the lab where they made their potions.

 She lifted her head to stare at the foot of the stairs. Sebastian skidded into the room as he ran towards her and jumped onto Isadora’s lap. Dobey flopped onto his dog bed in the corner and both animals closed their eyes and pretended to be asleep. How Sebastian trained Dobey to fake sleeping was something she’d never know.

 She giggled when she heard Dobey snoring. What had the two of them done now? Dobey jumped and barked at the stairs when he heard the sound of Francis stomping down. This time an angry nine year old boy stood at the bottom of the stairs glaring at the two animals.

“Look. At. What. They. Did.” Francis said, as he held up a shredded baseball jersey and a chewed up and drooled on baseball glove. “Don’t act like you didn’t do it. I know it was you!”

Sebastian had stood and stretched like he had just woken up. He sat on Isadora’s lap and with his head tilted to the side, Sebastian looked at Francis. “Mer-eow?”

“Maybe if you stopped terrorizing them, they wouldn’t destroy your things.” Isadora shrugged before she turned back to her potion book. “Oh, and they were both asleep, so how could they do it?”

“It’s not like a random dog and cat just walked in and destroyed my things!” Francis shouted.

“Well, we do have dog and cat doors so technically they could have.”

“If that’s the case, our animals suck at protecting the house.” Francis grinned triumphantly. “I think we should get new ones so we’re better protected.”

“How dare you?” Isadora faked shock and horror. “Dobey, did you hear that? He said you suck at protecting the house.”

Dobey flattened his ears and bared his teeth at Francis with a low growl rumbling from his chest. It took all of a minute for Francis to raise his hands and take a step back. With his stubby tail wagging, Dobey let his tongue loll out as he looked at Isadora and Sebastian. Isadora bit back her giggle, but she did wink at Dobey.

“If he is such a fierce protector and didn’t let any other dogs in, he had to be the one to chew up my glove.” Francis waved around the soggy piece of leather.

“Maybe that’s because you locked all of his toys in the shed out back.” Isadora’s dad’s voice came from halfway down the stairs. That old man had gotten stealthier with age. “How many times do I need to tell you that he needs things to chew on?”