Permafrost Academy

Chapter Twelve

Fleck followed Dapple, Pepper, and Ben back down the staircase. There was still rubble littering the floors, but there was somehow enough left of the staircase to make their way down. Pepper became quite a chatterbox as she reread the poems multiple times. 

"A plant with armor as strong as steel, and when touched will have a fiery feel. It's quite beautiful, I suppose, but that's not the only perk. This flower glows!"  Pepper repeated. Finally, Fleck lost it. 

"Okay, we already know what the first object is! You don't have to keep saying that stupid poem!" He was tempted to rip the paper out of her hands and tear it to shreds. 

"What about that other one? A bud from the most beautiful tree, one that hides dangers you cannot foresee. I seem to be quite easy to misplace, because once I'm gone, I might as well be in outer space. We have no idea where that might be, or what it might be."

Dapple threw up her hands. "Who cares? That's like, what, the third item down? If you don't realize, we should start with the items we know."

"We only know one of the items. It's a better place to start than any of them," Ben shot back. Dapple put a hand to her chest, insulted. 

"No! There is a library at the center of the school! We can go find that tragic book thingy!"

"I want to find the magical flute, or whatever that thing was," Fleck pitched, mainly to join the argument. 

"Personally, I don't want to find any of these things," Pepper added. "All of them mentioned some sort of danger."

"That's true!" Fleck exclaimed. "How are we going to pluck the...the flower, the one that's on fire? We need something really strong."

Dapple shrugged and opened one of the various notebooks she carried around. "This is my magic notebook," she declared. "I put in all the magical things I found at Permafrost Academy in here. In the lunchroom, there drinks which make you have certain magic effects. Also, the bleeding moon is in here, I wrote it while we were going down the staircase. But I also have the flowers in here. I called them Fire-Flowers." She opened up her book to a page with a drawing of the tall flowers Fleck remembered passing by in his first few days. Under the drawing was a small caption that more or less summed up the flower.

She cleared her throat importantly. "'The Fire-Flower is a very beautiful, tall flower that seems to only grow in warm, sunny weather, and grows in groups. Its petals glow, the fierceness ranging from how tall the flower is. The stem seems to be as powerful as steel and the petals are scorching hot upon contact with skin. The dirt around the base of the plant seems to be tougher and harder to dig, but upon closer research, uprooting it is possible. It seems to be one of the only ways to transport the flower.'"

Pepper blinked. "How much time did you spend around this flower?" She asked.

"A lot. And...I just realized something. Wait here!" She then tore up the hallway, leaving Fleck and the others alone.

After a couple minutes, she returned, winded. In her hands was her backpack.

She opened the zipper and stuffed her hand in. Carefully, she retracted her arm, carrying a small flower in a water cup. Its petals were glowing very faintly.

"YOU HAVE A FLOWER?" Pepper yelled. "WHAT COULD MAKE YOU FORGET? THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT WE NEED! HOW DID YOU GET THIS?"

"Stop, stop!" Dapple exclaimed. "I'll explain everything. I was sitting outside by the flowers when I found this one under the shade of the others. I'm sure it was very young because of its size. I looked around and realized there are actually more of the little ones. The way these flowers compete is by stretching to the sun. Eventually, once the most powerful plants reach a certain height, the sky is completely blocked from the other ones. Those ones don't gain any height at all, meaning their petals aren't powerful enough to burn off predators. The way the littler ones survive is by using the faint light to their advantage. Onlookers notice the taller ones first, and if they try to pluck them, they'll find how tough the flowers are. They'll assume all the flowers are like this, and won't look for any others."

"Boring," Pepper said, yawning. "This isn't a science lesson. Well, now what do we do? We have the flower, right?"

Fleck nodded, realizing something. He pointed at the paper. Just as he suspected, "Object One" was crossed out. The check Pepper had drawn earlier turned green and glowed faintly. 

"Wow," Pepper breathed.

"Well then! Next stop, the library!" Ben declared.