Chapter 1 – Welcome to the jungle

It all really began a few weeks after Miss Cackle's birthday celebrations.

Mildred had mentioned one day to Maud and Enid that she had a problem when it came to getting out of bed, which often caused her to be late for breakfast.

"I'm not really a morning person." She had lamented.

The problem being that, morning person or not, Miss Hardbroom would wait for no pupil. Especially not Mildred Hubble.

Thus began the series of events that would later be known as: 'Enid's shock tactics – get Mildred out of bed quickly!'

It had sounded innocent enough when she said it (as most of her ideas did at first), Enid had proposed to wake herself up a little earlier and help Mildred to get out of bed, that way HB would have nothing to complain about. Knowing how persistent her friend could be, and deciding that this attitude could help with her problem, Mildred agreed to the idea almost immediately.

She regretted it much later on of course.

Having explained the general idea to Mildred, Enid left her friend's room that night with the promise of an early morning start.

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"Mildred, it's time to get up."

Enid's sing-song tone of voice interrupted the restful sleep that Mildred had been enjoying and she quickly felt herself returning to consciousness. Mumbling something incoherently back to her friend she burrowed herself further into the bed sheets.

"Come on Mildred get up, he's not going to wait for you all day."

'He? What is she talking about?'

As Mildred puzzled over just what her friend had said, she slowly became aware of several things; there seemed to be an unusually heavy weight on her chest, a faint hissing sound was coming from somewhere near her head and Enid herself sounded like she was trying not to giggle at something.

Deciding to open her eyes to see where the noise was coming from and what Enid found so funny, Mildred was met with the alarming sight of a pair of amber coloured eyes. It took a moment for her to register that said pair of eyes was attached to the head of a rather large snake, the rest of which happened to be draped across her chest, and who seemed intent on staring at her with a hungry sort of expression.

Once she realized this, everything seemed to happen at once. The snake gave an almighty hiss which was all it took for Mildred to turn white as a sheet and let out a great shriek, throwing herself out of bed towards the far wall. The movement propelled the snake off the bed and into the air, where it hung for a moment before landing with a soft flump on the floor.

The whole series of events couldn't have lasted longer than ten seconds, but it was all Enid needed to lose control completely and she quickly descended into full blown laughter.

"Oh Mildred," she gasped between breaths, "You really are the limit, I didn't think you'd jump so wonderfully out of bed like that!" By now, there were tears of mirth running down her face and she was almost doubled over laughing.

"That wasn't funny Enid!" Mildred choked out, her face was now deathly pale and she had sunk down to her knees on the floor in shock.

The door chose that moment to slam open and Maud rushed in, half dressed and alarm all over her face, which only doubled once she took in her friend's face and sunken form.

"I heard Mildred scream, what's going on?"

Enid only proceeded to laugh harder and weakly pointed to the snake still lying on the floor by way of explanation.

The reptile blinked lazily back at Maud, who took in the sight of the animal with a puzzled expression before carefully stepping over it to get to Mildred, who had not yet moved from her position on the floor.

"Millie?"

Maud knelt down and gently shook her friend by the shoulder, which seemed to break her out of the surprised stupor she had fallen into as she began to shakily stand up once more, using the wall as a support.

"What was the idea of putting a snake on my chest while I slept all about?" She demanded of Enid, who had taken the time to calm herself down and was gathering the snake up in her arms.

"You asked me to wake you up and I did." Enid replied, a grin on her face. "You didn't say how you wanted me to get you up."

"But…a snake?! Where did you even get it from?" Was the reply from Mildred, as she eyed the animal in her friend's arms cautiously.

Enid shrugged, "Oh him? The same places I get all my animals from, I improvise." She muttered a spell under her breath and Maud and Mildred watched as the sleek snake in her arms was surrounded by a whirl of magical sparkles, vanishing to reveal Enid's black cat.

"I thought you'd stopped trying to make a menagerie out of your cat." Maud sighed. "Half the corridor's wondering what's going on. They thought someone had attacked Mildred."

Enid looked like she was seconds away from falling into hysterics once again, so Mildred hurried across the room and started to usher her out of the still open door, noting with some annoyance that most of the girls passing by the door and looking into her room curiously were fully dressed and on their way down, whereas she still had to get ready. Maud also then seemed to realise her own state of half undress, so she said hurried goodbyes to her friends and rushed back to her own room.

"Looks like I'm late again." Sighed Mildred wearily as she watched her friend go.

She was about to close the door and turn to get ready herself when Enid turned to her, cat in arms and a cheeky smile on her face.

"So, same time tomorrow?"

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AN. I'm trying my hand at humour this time, perhaps I'm my own worst critic but it doesn't seem as funny to me now as it did in my head, but hopefully I've managed to keep the three girls in character. I'm intending this to be a multi chaptered fic, mostly centered on these three, but with other characters coming in and out from time to time.
Chapter 2 is in progress, but I'm slow so updates might be a while apart.
Hope you like it~