Chapter 4: Rubber Ducky
"And then the classroom blew up!" Lily finished, waiting for her friend's reaction.
"The classroom…"
"BLEW UP!" Lily said again.
"Wow. And then the whole class went to the hospital wing?" Sierra asked. Her fifth year friend had heard the commotion, but wanted to hear the story from somebody that was there.
"Nobody was seriously hurt, but Danielle had gotten detention," Lily told her.
They were in the common room sitting in chairs by the fireplace. Lily was sitting cross-legged on the chair facing Sierra and Sierra's legs were thrown over the side of hers. Sierra's big brown eyes widened.
"Danielle? You mean perfect, rule-abiding, sixth year prefect Danielle? Our best friend, Danielle?" Sierra exclaimed, "Now, I could see you getting a detention, but Danielle? Wow… the world as we know it is ending…"Sierra said shocked. Lily laughed, acknowledging the unlikely-ness.
Out of the three girls, Danielle was the, quote and quote 'goody-goody'. She was Prefect and obsessed with her grades. Sierra, on the other hand, was the adventurous one. Sierra was always getting in trouble and loved to have fun. Lily was the klutzy one who loved cracking corny jokes, laughing, eating cookies, and making a fool out of herself. She was average in pretty much everything, but everyone loved her because she was unafraid to be herself. Lily was always getting them out of trouble and the three of them were called the 3 musketeers.
The only reason Sierra was in 5th year and not 6th was because she had gotten into so much trouble last year that they were going to expel her but didn't because her parents were very rich and helped the school out of tight spots. Even so, she spent most of her free-time either thinking up some way of getting into trouble or serving a detention. It was an endless cycle really; think of a prank, pull a prank, get new idea for prank while serving detention.
Lily heard the portrait hole open and saw Danielle walk in. however, she tripped on the tug and her wand flew out of her open backpack, across the room, bounced off a chair, collided with the wall and landed back on the chair which did not explode into a fiery mass of fire. Instead it turned into a giant rubber ducky. The first year who had been sitting on the chair, however, ran out of the room screaming.
Danielle looked at the rubber duck then burst into tears. She was lying on the floor on her stomach and she buried her head in her arms. Sierra and Lily exchanged alarmed looks, then hurried over to the honey colored-hair girl.
"Hey, Dani? You okay?" Lily asked softly, shaking Danielle's shoulders.
"Go away," Danielle sobbed.
"Danielle? I know you got a detention, blew up a classroom and turned a chair into a big, yellow, duck, but it's not the end of the world… really!" Sierra piped up. Lily shot Sierra an odd look then, as she turned back to Danielle, something caught her eye. It was James Potter and his three friends. Lily could have cried.
"Dani, honey, we've got to go!" Danielle didn't move. Sierra looked at the four advancing boys and her eyes widened.
"You get her legs, I'll get her arms. On three we'll carry her up the stairs to the dormitory. One… two…three!" The two girls lifted and started off, carrying the hysterical Danielle by her shoulders and legs. However, they didn't' quiet reach the dormitory due too… James stepping front of Sierra and Sierra tripping over James! Her wand flew out of her hand, and hit James on the head, ricocheted off onto Lily's new, fuzzy, purple blanket, which burst into a fiery mass of fire. Lily dropped Danielle's legs and rushed to her blanket.
"NOOO!" She cried. Sierra dropped the rest of Danielle and ran over to Lily. Danielle fell onto James and they collapsed to the ground.
James said to Danielle, "Would you mind getting up?"
"Uhh, James, believe me, I would, but my foot is stuck on something," Danielle murmured. K
Turning her head, she saw that her foot was stuck under the rubber ducky, which had expanded in size so that its yellow head was now 7 inches from the common room ceiling. Danielle started to try to pull her foot out, but she might as well been trying to teach an earthworm to dance the foxtrot for all the good it did.
Meanwhile, Lily had begun to cry over the smoldering remains of what had been a fuzzy mass of fuzz. James tried to lift or shift Danielle so he could move, but failed miserably. Sierra, Sirius, Peter and Remus all exchanged dismayed looks. Then, Sierra walked to the duck and tried to life it. It didn't work.
"The duck seems to have an immovable charm on it!" Sierra exclaimed.
"What?" Danielle screeched, "you mean we're stuck like this FOREVER!?"
"It would appear so," Sirius mumbled.
"I have an idea!" Lily spoke up eagerly.
"Well?" the group asked.
"We could destroy the Rubber ducky!"