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For wherever there are greater hopes, there is also fiercer envy, more dangerous hatred, and more insidious jealousy.
- Lucian -
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Mildred stepped from one foot to the other and fervently blew onto her cold fingers. Rubbing her hands together, she glanced around the misty courtyard where her classmates were huddled together to absorb as much warmth from one another as possible.
Miss Hardbroom was standing in the midst of them and repeated, once again, which plants they were going to gather, and which ones they were not, under no circumstances whatsoever, to touch.
Enid sighed impatiently. "I don't see why she keeps droning on," she whispered. "We went through this a hundred times. Does she really think any of us are going to touch Urtica ferox after the talking-to she gave us the other day? These are at least another ten minutes we could have spent in bed!"
"Enid Nightshade! If the potential dangers of the plants you are about to encounter are not something you think merits your attention, then keep chattering, by all means. But do not come whining when you have a rash on your hand because you could not listen!"
Enid pulled a face that was a perfect imitation of HB's stern expression, but shut up nonetheless. She was not nearly awake enough to be getting on the bad side of her already.
Miss Hardbroom's eyes swept over the assembled girls one last time, and she gave a small nod. "Very well then. If there are no more questions, we'd better not waste any more time. Ethel, lead the way."
She watched as the girls dripped out of the school gate in twos and threes, taking care to be the last one to go. There was always at least one who thought that she was particularly clever and tried to sneak back into her warm bed.
But the courtyard was satisfyingly empty, and she shut the gate with am emphatic thud. Miss Hardbroom allowed herself a small smile. Trying though it always was, she was ready to face one of her favourite days of the year.
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Drusilla took another step and slipped. "Toads and Warthogs!" she hissed. "Why does HB chase us out in the cold after it's been raining for two weeks? I'm soaked!"
Ethel rolled her eyes. "You have to be more careful, Drusilla. If you kept your eyes open, you wouldn't be sitting in the mud. Now get up. You still need to get me some pondweed." She impatiently gestured in the general direction of a nearby puddle.
Drusilla glowered, but scrambled to her feet anyway. The advantages she had from her allegiance with Ethel were by far too great to be tossed away over a little mud.
That did not keep her from cursing under her breath as she stalked towards the puddle. She did this with great expertise and variety, and any one who might have listened would have noticed that this was a girl who spent a lot of her time muttering words of questionable decency just out of earshot. She was well aware that she was Ethel's minion, but she had always questioned the tradition of minions labouring away in silence. Everything was a lot more bearable with a healthy curse on the tongue.
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Maud was worried. Granted, she was easily worried, up to the point where she worried again that she might be a spoilsport, but surely it couldn't go well when Enid and Mildred were standing knee-deep in the water, their almost-empty little herb-baskets forgotten, and throwing pondweed at each other? Even if it was just for good fun? Surely, any minute now, HB would notice their screaming and screeching and would swoop down on them like the great black avenging angel she probably imagined herself to be? Or worse, Ethel would notice and tell HB. That would change nothing about the swooping down part, but Ethel would get to look smug. And Ethel was unbearable – well, more unbearable – when she got to look smug.
As Maud threw another anxious glance across her shoulder, her heart dropped.
It might not be HB. It might not even be Ethel.
But it was the next worst thing.
Stumbling down the hill, and very much absorbed in her own private conversation, came Drusilla.
Maud drooped. Perhaps now was a good time to worry about how long it would take her hand to de-cramp after the detention that she could see looming on the horizon.