"Woah sis, that was a great movie!" Madelyn exclaimed, as she picked up the remote placed on the couch. The two of them had been in Velma's room watching a scary movie.
"Yeah. I didn't think I'd like a vampire movie with as corny of a title as A Fit Night Out for Bats, but it was pretty decent." Velma admitted.
"That's so cool we already got a day off…well, the students anyway." Madelyn commented.
It felt odd to Velma to already have a day off, especially after only teaching for a week. However, Whirlen wanted to have all the teachers report for a staff meeting. Velma wasn't exactly sure why, but she supposed somebody who hired a teacher three days before the semester started wasn't exactly a forward-thinker.
"At least the teachers got the morning off." Velma shrugged. "I have no idea what Whirlen wants to train us on."
"Well, I guess you'll find out momentarily. Look at the time!" Madelyn pointed to the clock on the microwave in Velma's room, reading 10:42.
"I better get to that conference room so I'm there by 11. Thanks for watching with me, Mads." Velma replied. "If you want to come with me later, I think I'm going to talk to Marlin Merlin to see if he's got any more insights on the ghost of his ancestor. Some things just aren't adding up there."
'Yeah, that was super scary last week in class!" Madelyn said. "Merlin's never done anything more than leave a grouchy message on the board or turn off some lights. I don't know what came over him!"
"I don't know either, but I'm going to get to the bottom of it." Velma vowed.
Velma found her surroundings to be very modest upon walking into the conference room. A large conference table with around 20-30 chairs was in the center of the room, which was otherwise simply a bare brick wall. Velma noticed she was one of the first people there, with the exception of Whirlen and a few others.
"Great to have you here, Velma!" Whirlen greeted. "I'd like you to meet everybody that's here: this is Matt Hawkins, our Magical Technique instructor."
"Hi." a man in a blue button-up shirt greeted.
"Doris Rumbridge, the Magical Technique instructor." Whirlen introduced.
"The pleasure is mine, I'm sure!" Doris exclaimed in a shrill high-pitched voice that Velma found to be a bit irritating. She donned a flowery dress that looked like something Velma's grandma would wear.
"Sam Spangles, the Magic and Citizenship instructor." Whirlen continued introducing.
"Nice to meet you." he dutifully replied. He wore a fancy black suit and dress pants.
"And lastly, Parry Winkle." Whirlen pointed to a man who was fittingly wearing a periwinkle shirt and pants.
"I like your outfit, Parry." Velma smiled.
"The name demands it." Parry said. "But sometimes…the crushing expectation just feels like too much. Every night for a half hour before bed, I lie awake wondering if I'm Parry Winkle enough."
"I'm sorry to hear that." Velma apologized, although she found the man's comments very odd.
"It's okay. I know one day I'll be Parry Winkle enough; it will just take an immense amount of work. A Parry Winkle never fails!" Parry proudly exclaimed.
"My name is Mikayla." a woman in a suit greeted.
"I'm Amanda." another woman wearing a red dress introduced.
"I'm Joseph." another man in a short-sleeved dress shirt said.
A few others introduced themselves, but it was such an overload of names and faces that she knew she'd never remember them all.
"Now, I'd like to introduce the brand new teacher I've just hired here at The Me School of Magic." Whirlen said. It took Velma a moment to realize he'd replaced his name with 'me' when saying the name of the school. "Her name is Velma Dinkley and she is our new Magical Literature teacher."
"Nice to meet you." Sam replied, in the same monotone, overly formal voice he had before.
"What happened to Staunchameister?" Matt inquired.
"I heard he had plans to lead an uprising of monkeys to take over the school!" Parry shared.
"I heard he switched political standings so quickly that he was ejected from every country on Earth." Sam presumed. "On Mondays he was a Republican, on Tuesdays a Democrat, then on Wednesdays a Communist, on Thursdays he was in the Tea Party, and by Friday he was a full-blown Socialist."
"Hello, I'm Dan Walters." a man in a red sweater came in and greeted. "I heard he perished after finally answering the age-old riddle, how many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop? Turns out, the answer was too many."
"Everyone, please stop speculating." Whirlen requested. "What happened is that Mr. Staunchameister said a horrible word no one should ever say, leading to his dismissal from these colleges."
"I thought this was a boarding school for high school students." Dan pointed out.
"It is. What he said was so bad, no college will ever accept him should he choose to go back to school." Whirlen's face got gaunt.
"Oh mercy…is it the 'p' word?" Amanda gasped.
"Wait, you mean…pneumonia geezer?" Parry whispered.
"Oh my god!" the entire room erupted in uproar.
"Parry, I'm afraid your horrific words have led to no other choice but for me to dismiss you from this institution immediately." Whirlen snarled. "Now, pack up all your stuff so I may walk you out of these hallowed halls of learning in disgrace. Be sure to put everything you need on a cart, because you'll be leaving here in chains."
"Alright." Parry regretfully sighed, as he hung his head and marched towards his office.
"While he's enjoying his last hour as an educator after his unforgivable transgression, let's continue with the meeting." Whirlen said. "I wanted to talk about the school policies."
Velma felt herself tense up a bit. She hadn't looked much into the school's policies, other than she supposed the ones that Eric broke, so she didn't know if she'd have anything intelligent to contribute to this type of conversation.
"So…you guys like all the policies? Are they all cool with you?" Whirlen casually inquired.
"Umm…" Dan raised his hand.
"Yes, Dan. Go ahead." Whirlen encouraged.
"I was wondering if teachers could get a thirty-one minute lunch break rather than a thirty minute one." Dan suggested. "Sometimes, if I'm feelin' naughty, y'know, I like putting an extra slice of ham on my wrap, and it takes me an extra minute to eat that."
"Okay, motion to pass Dan's wrap suggestion." Whirlen said. "Say nay or aye."
"Aye." the whole room said. Velma thought it was quite a silly suggestion herself, but she didn't want to be the nay-sayer.
All of a sudden, a horse appeared outside of the window and began braying enthusiastically.
"Jonathan, I told you can't bring a horse outside just to give you extra votes." Whirlen scolded. "Either come to the meeting or don't. This is worse than the time you had that pirate come to give you extra 'yes' votes."
"How would that horse vote?" Velma whispered to Matt.
"What do horses say?" Matt muttered back, as if it should have been obvious to the glasses-clad teacher. Velma mentally facepalmed when she realized that horses say neigh.
"I wanted to talk about my quarters." Sam inquired.
"Yes, what about them?" Whirlen asked.
"I'd like an upgrade for my quarters. Instead of just the regular eagle-head ones, can we get those fancy new state quarters?" Sam wondered.
"I have no issues with it. State quarters would be cool. I hear people are collecting them, too." Velma pointed out.
"Excellent insights, Velma! Does anybody disagree?" Whirlen wondered.
There was a brief moment of silence.
"Wonderful. Motion passed!" Whirlen exclaimed. "Anything else anybody would like to bring up?"
Once again, nobody spoke for a moment.
"Alright, meeting dismissed!" Whirlen exclaimed. "I hope you all found this meeting to be productive and fruitful."
"Umm, sir." Dan raised his hand. "I don't mean to cause a bother, because I found the meeting productive…but I didn't find this meeting particularly fruitful."
"Oh, darn!" Whirlen gasped. "That's because I forgot the fruit!"
Whirlen hurried into the break room next door, and returned with a bowl of fruit.
"There. Now you should all have found the meeting incredibly fruitful." Whirlen said, placing a large bowl with apples, oranges and bananas on the table.
"You all must like literal humor around here." Velma pointed out.
"Oh really? How's this for literal humor?" Matt said in an annoyed voice. "It's kind of funny how the current governmental administration isn't doing all that much about poverty, isn't it?"
"That's a bit too literal for my taste." Velma admitted.
Except in the literal sense, Velma hadn't found the meeting to be particularly fruitful, given it was spent discussing pointless details. She supposed the one benefit was meeting her coworkers, but the get-to-know-each-other session went so quickly that she felt like she'd forget half their names by the end of the day. Regardless, she had her class prepped for tomorrow, and she was thankful that she got to go back and relax with Madelyn after tracking down Marlin Merlin.
"Thanks for coming with me, Mads." Velma appreciated.
"Of course! Always happy to help out my sis." Madelyn smiled.
The two of them were climbing all the way up the stairs to the castle's tower. That was an area of the castle that Velma had never explored before, but she supposed she would have had to go up there sooner or later. She didn't know who was responsible for cleaning the place, but whoever it was clearly had forgotten to dust this place. The dry air and dust in the passageways was causing her to feel like she had to sneeze.
"I think he's up in that room working." Madelyn pointed to the top of the stairs, where a small door could be found. Velma considered herself to be short and it looked like there would be barely enough room for her to fit, so she had no idea how a person of normal height would be able to fit through that door, much less a tall person.
Once the two sisters reached the door, Velma lightly knocked on it.
"Hello?" a meek voice inside could be heard.
"It's Velma Dinkley…the new teacher here at Whirlen Merlin. I just wanted to talk to you."
"And Madelyn, too!" her little sister chimed in.
"Oh…come in." the voice replied.
Velma opened the door to see a somewhat heavyset man wearing glasses, jeans, a white button-up shirt and a tie.
"Hi. Marlin, I presume?" Velma guessed.
"Yep, that's me." Marlin nodded. "I was just working on this silly lock. Seems to be not functioning correctly."
Marlin held up what appeared to be an electronic lock. It flashed all the colors of the rainbow, leaving Velma and Madelyn in awe.
"That's really cool, Marlin!" Madelyn smiled.
"Thanks! So, what can I do for you?" Marlin inquired.
"Well, we were wondering some more about the ghost of your ancestor, Merlin." Madelyn informed.
Velma felt she should add a caveat as to ensure she was not coming off in any way rude to the man. "If you don't mind me asking, that is."
"Oh…not at all. I've actually done quite a bit of research into my ancestor." Marlin said, rushing towards a bookshelf he had near the table he was working at. The room was quite impressive-looking, in the sense that it looked like every type of tool known to humankind was there. There were tools hung on the walls, placed in boxes, and lying on the floor. In addition, there was a large computer perched on the desk that Marlin was working at. "What is it exactly you'd like to know about him?"
"Well…he interrupted my class twice last week." Velma informed Marlin.
"That's nothing to worry about. Sometimes he just gets a bit grouchy, that's all." Marlin assured.
"That's what your brother told me too…but then on Wednesday, he left a threatening message on the board and flew through one of my students." Velma continued.
"Oh…I was afraid of this." Marlin sighed.
"Afraid of what?" Madelyn eagerly questioned.
"Well, it's the 1,500th anniversary of Merlin's death in four months, and legend has it he's supposed to return with a vengeance exactly 1,500 years after his death. I never believed it myself, as I'm a man of technology and science, but about a week and a half ago, Merlin came to me and warned me of his return. He said he was going to possess someone in this school, and eventually, cause them to be trapped in the spirit world forever if we did not listen to his demands." Marlin explained.
"Wait a minute…" Velma gasped. "Could that be why the person I replaced left? The excuse Whirlen gave seemed a bit tedious…no offense."
"Perhaps. I'm not really sure. I've been trying to keep what I know about Merlin a secret, though." Marlin replied. "That isn't hard to do, since nobody really notices me to begin with."
"Aww…well, we noticed you." Velma smiled. She didn't quite know how to comfort the man, but his sentiment was sad enough where she felt it was the right thing to do. "We came all the way up here to see you, so don't feel discouraged.
"Why are you trying to keep it a secret?" Madelyn wondered.
"Well, with this being a school of stage magic and all, we're already ridiculed pretty heavily by society." Marlin admitted. "Unfortunately, Whirlen has me read all the mail, and every now and then we get a hate letter."
Marlin dug through a pile of letters and pulled out a crude drawing of the school, which read Whirlen Merlin's School of Tragic.
"And there's this one too." Marlin pulled out another letter and handed it to Velma.
It was another drawing of the school, with the words Whirlen Merlin's School of Stupid Stinky Garbage Rubbish written across the front. A note was written at the bottom of the drawing, reading 'I hate this school so much I didn't want to gratify it by mocking the name with a clever rhyme.'
"Awful, isn't it? People can be so judgmental about ways of life they don't understand." Marlin sighed.
"They sure can." Velma nodded. "Anything else you know about Merlin? Do you know how to stop him if what's prophesied is actually going to happen?"
"I'm afraid not. I'll tell you what though, you seem nice. I'll keep doing some research on Merlin for you, and I'll track you down if I find anything." Marlin promised.
"That's very nice, but you don't have to do that just for me." Velma remarked.
"No, it's no trouble at all. I was doing research on Merlin anyway, so I don't mind keeping you in the loop." Marlin assured.
"Thanks. That's really sweet. It was really nice to meet you, and thanks for the info!" Velma smiled.
"Yeah, thank you!" Madelyn added.
"My pleasure! Come back anytime." Marlin waved, as Velma and Madelyn began descending the stairs. Velma didn't want to pry, but she could have sworn she saw a bed up there, making her wonder if that was his living quarters. If so, that would be a very sad, isolating place to live.
It was a bright and sunny Tuesday, and the students were beginning to trickle into Velma's classroom. The orange-sweatered teacher recognized quite a few of their names. She hadn't memorized them all yet, but she was beginning to. The brunette wearing the gray sweatshirt was Ashley; the kid with the red hair was Mike; and she was pretty sure the dirty blonde that just walked in was Sabrina.
After a weekend of leisure, relaxation, and if she was frank, course prep, Velma felt her old worries about not entertaining the class enough slip back in. Her anxious mind counted down the seconds to 1:00pm, wondering if there was an element of her lecture and activity for the day that she should change to be more entertaining or informative to the students.
She felt the immense pressure of being fully responsible for her students' learning. After all, once they passed her class, the students would never have another Magical Literature course in their academic careers. Whatever she taught them is the only chance they would have at knowledge of magical literature for the rest of their lives.
Velma had to shake these thoughts from her mind. If she allowed them to fester, she knew would never be able to channel the courage necessary for educating her students.
The sound of the school bell served as Velma's moment of truth: she had no more time to change anything. What she'd come up with would have to be enough.
"Greetings, class." Velma smiled. "Today we're going to start reading a piece of literature that documents magical sport. Gridditch through the Years by Whennilworthy Kisp talks about an ancient magical sport named Gridditch. Through giving a history of the sport, he argues what ultimately led to the sport's demise in popular culture. Can anyone paraphrase what his full argument is?"
Ashley raised her hand.
"Yes, Ashley?" Velma called.
"He was arguing that it was too dangerous, so it didn't make sense to do it anymore." Ashley said. She looked like she thought her idea was amazingly insightful. Velma didn't particularly find it enlightening, though. It was an oversimplification of Kisp's central argument, which was that the sport itself was completely impractical. He provided a number of reasons for this, mainly that there were too many moving parts and players, leading to general dysfunction and extreme difficulty.
"Sorry, that's not right, Ashley." Velma corrected. "Would anybody else like to give it a shot?"
Ashley looked a bit dejected and slunk down in her seat. The rest of the class gave Velma a bit of a blank look.
"Nobody wants to volunteer? Guess I'll call on somebody then." Velma said. She noticed Jake, looking bored and like he'd rather be anywhere else than in this class. This would be a good learning moment for him. "Jake?"
"Oh…yeah…" Jake stuttered. "His argument was not to continue the sport because it was too complicated."
Another oversimplification of the argument. Didn't anyone understand this relatively simple book?
"Umm…sort of. Go deeper with your analysis." Velma pushed.
"Sorry. I skimmed it. Guess I didn't understand it as well as I thought." Jake shrugged.
Velma tried to push down her frustration. None of her students grasped the arguments Kisp was trying to make. She supposed she would have to go with plan B, which was to get on her soapbox for the next 50 minutes and explain the arguments without asking for the students' interpretations. It seemed that was the only way the students would learn.
Velma could feel the butterflies in her stomach as the seconds ticked down to starting another class. Her fear of screwing up was now more immense than she'd ever remembered. The sound of the school bell served as the glasses-clad teacher's cue to begin.
"Alright, I'm about to begin class here." Velma said, just as she heard a rip. What frightened her the most is that she didn't only hear the rip, she also felt it. A quick look down below caused her to gasp: her trousers had ripped. A small strip of her underwear was showing to the entire class!
"Here? More like rear!" a female student whom she didn't recognize mocked, as the whole class erupted in laughter.
"Sorry about that." Velma said. She didn't have anything to cover up the rip in her pants with, so she had to continue. "Today's book is Coast to Ghost by Rankor Dimp. I - uh…."
Oh no. She'd forgotten what she was going to say. She stood there, frozen in trying to recover her lost thought from the depths of her memory. The students patiently looked back at her, waiting for her to say something, anything.
"Dimp? More like wimp!" the same female student chuckled, causing the whole class to laugh.
"As I was saying…" Velma said, right as she felt a big sneeze coming on. It wasn't just a small, catlike sneeze though - or even a modest sneeze - it was a big, stringy, messy one that splattered everywhere.
"Saying? More like spraying!" the female student delivered another one-liner.
"Hey…wait a minute, you're not even in this class." Velma pointed out. "Why are you here?"
"Eh, I don't know. Just like comparisons, I guess." the girl shrugged, as she got up and walked out of class.
Velma tried to regain her footing and remember her train of thought. However, she couldn't seem to think of any words, and she was coming off like a bit of a mess.
"I - uh - umm - urr." Velma stuttered.
"Boy, what a mushmouth!" she could hear a red-haired student, whom she didn't recognize the name of, blurt.
"C'mon everybody, let's all go play hookey while we do a good old competition of pinochle!" another student suggested.
Everybody began racing out the classroom before Velma could think of the words to make them stay.
"Wait! I can teach you things!" Velma pleaded. However, it was no use. She was all alone in her classroom.
She sat in complete solitude for a moment, pondering upon where she went wrong and what could have been. Quickly, she realized she didn't need any of these ingrates. Clearly this group of youths weren't as passionate about learning as they should be. If they didn't want to learn, that was on them.
Velma quickly awoke and realized that the whole thing was no more than a mere dream. No students had left her or mocked her, she hadn't screwed up in class, and her pants weren't ripped. What a relief. Now she understood why she didn't recognize anybody in class, they were just figments of her imagination that her dreaming brain had made up.
However, she was thankful that she had this dream, because it reminded her of how lazy some of her students were. Students like Ashley and Jake needed to step up their game and engage with the readings more meaningfully. Maybe Velma didn't need to be afraid of teaching or letting students down as much as she had been. If this dream had taught her anything, it was that she needed to take charge of their learning. What was she afraid of, after all? She was completely knowledgeable in all of these subjects, so she had no need to doubt herself. These were her students, and it was her job to make sure they learned.
"Uhh…I'm not really sure." Owen mumbled.
That was the wrongest answer Velma had heard yet in the course.
"Well, if there's one thing I'm sure of, it's that you didn't do the reading." Velma called Owen out. "As a reminder, this course requires you to read the materials every day."
Owen simply looked away and disengaged from Velma's gaze.
"Since everyone should have read the rest of the book today, I would love to hear what others took away from the final chapters." Velma asked her class.
Kara raised her hand.
"Yes, Kara?" Velma pointed.
"Kisp was arguing that the sport itself is simply impractical, and has a history of danger attached to it. Thus, he believes that's ultimately what led to its demise in popular culture." Kara responded.
"Excellent! You're exactly right!" Velma breathed an internal sigh of relief. At least somebody got it.
The rest of class had passed quickly, and Velma was very satisfied. The rest of the students were pretty lackluster compared to Kara, but she hoped that they found her lecture exciting and compelling. She desired to recapture the energy of the first day's introductions, where everybody seemed enthusiastic (except Jake, of course) and eager to begin the class. When she took on teaching, she hadn't expected the youth of today to be so much less responsible than when she was growing up. It hadn't even been that long ago that she was in school, which was all the more surprising. Admittedly, it bothered her a bit that even her own sister, Madelyn, rarely spoke up in class.
"Hey sis!" Madelyn exclaimed.
"Hey. So, what did you think of class today?" Velma inquired.
Madelyn suddenly got a bit awkward. "Oh…it was good."
"I've noticed you never really talk much…is there any reason?" Velma asked. She quickly backtracked when she realized that she might come off rude or demanding. "I'm not judging, I'm just curious."
"Well…sometimes you kind of come off a little like a know-it-all, sis. I read the book, and I thought Ashley had a great answer. I think people are just a little intimidated by your expectations." Madelyn said, seeming worried. "I'm sorry, but I had to be honest with you."
"Oh…no, it's okay. I don't think my expectations are that high. Maybe it will just take you all a while to get used to the class." Velma shrugged off.
She didn't think she was being unreasonable in any way. If anything, the students were being unreasonable by thinking they could get away with such shoddy arguments that required little critical thinking. Teaching was a tough thing to get the hang of, but Velma felt like she was finally finding a rhythm for it.
Velma was in her classroom once again, about to teach in front of the class. During previous class periods, she had been timid about wasting the students' time. However, she felt this no more. It was clear the situation at Whirlen Merlin's was dire. These students were completely clueless about the wonders of literature, and it was her job to teach them. She'd always hated it when anybody remarked this before she began teaching, but now she realized: the youth of today were becoming dumber by the millisecond. There was no sense of accountability anymore, as demonstrated by Jake's clear lack of reading the materials. Moreover, Ashley's cursory job of doing the readings was shown loud and clear. She wasn't reading for comprehension; she was reading to do the bare minimum. It would probably age her ten years to think this thought, but the kids of today had no sense of responsibility. In her day, the teacher would have interpreted such lack of preparation as a sign of disrespect.
"Alright, who can tell me the main arguments from The Warlock of Wimbledon by W. Anthos?" Velma springboarded her lecture with a question.
Nobody raised their hand at first.
"Oh goodness, didn't anybody do the reading?" Velma sighed. "I guess I'll just have to call on somebody. Jake?"
"Oh, he's saying that magic is everywhere." Jake said.
A poor summary of the arguments at best. Velma would have no choice other than to correct his mistaken, lazy argument. It was her job, after all.
"That's wrong!" Velma challenged, frustration present in her voice. "Who can give me the right answer?"
"I've got it!" Ashley responded, lots of hope and excitement in her eyes. Surely she had the answer.
"Yes, Ashley?" Velma called on her pupil.
"He's saying magic is amazing, because it can regenerate everywhere." Ashley said. "No matter what you do, magic is always going to follow you wherever you go, so you need to know how to use it."
What a silly, useless argument. Anthos was arguing for magical responsibility. He believed one could not strip themselves of their magical identity, because the magic was intertwined with their mind and body. 'Magic is amazing so you need to know how to use it.' How ridiculous. Was everybody in this class illiterate?
"WRONG!" Velma shouted at Ashley. She was angered by her student's lack of comprehension. Surely Ashley would ultimately flunk the class for her simplistic arguments.
Then, her brunette-haired student did something she never would have expected…she began to cry.
"Stop disrupting my class!" Velma screamed. "No crying in my classroom!"
Velma felt the frustration surge through her veins so much that she almost couldn't control it. These students were dumb as rocks and she knew she needed to keep them in line…and that's when she woke up.
Velma sprung awake, her heart pounding from the exhilaration. She felt horrible about the dream she'd just had. She never could have imagined herself as a sadistic, ruthless tyrant commanding the room like that. She always considered herself a woman dedicated to learning, who was compassionate for helping students grow in their knowledge.
What was perhaps most terrifying is that she saw a shred of truth in her terrifying dream. It was all coming to her incredibly vividly. Thinking deeper about it, there was some wisdom in what Ashley had said in class yesterday. Her argument about Kisp believing Gridditch was dysfunctional due to it being overly dangerous was, in essence, a correct interpretation of the text. It didn't state it in the perfect, eloquent way Kisp would have, but Velma now realized Ashley certainly had grasped the material. Moreover, although Jake's answer was a bit of an oversimplification of Kisp's argument, he did at least make an effort, even though he wasn't quite there yet. In both cases, Velma shut the students down and essentially told them they weren't enough.
For Ashley, it could mean feeling dejected and not wanting to contribute in class anymore. For Jake, it could mean far worse. He rarely ever showed any interest in learning, and saying he was wrong the one time he made the slightest effort in trying to be engaged in class could lead him to become completely disinterested in school, or perhaps even drop out.
Her next thought was that Madelyn was right earlier today. She was being too harsh on the students, probably ruining their view of her forever. They might never be comfortable speaking their minds or engaging with the content willingly in class anymore.
Velma had never felt more ashamed of herself. Maybe she wasn't so far detached from her monstrously aggressive self in the dream. The self-deprecating thoughts continued to fester in her mind until she ultimately came to the conclusion that she most feared when first taking this job: she was a bad teacher who was unfit for this role.
Author's note:
So it's probably not necessarily the direction you were expecting this to go. I will admit that this chapter was a bit lighter on the Merlin mystery than most others will be, but I hope you enjoyed the little plot diversion nonetheless.
Once again, we have a couple different references from both Scooby-Doo and pop culture. The title of the movie Velma and Madelyn watched, A Fit Night Out for Bats, is the name of a short from The Richie Rich / Scooby-Doo Hour. Moreover, the name of the book from Velma's first dream, "Coast to Coast," is the title of an episode from The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo. The author's first name, Rankor, is the name of the villain from that episode. The book in Velma's second dream, The Warlock of Wimbledon, is the name of an episode of The Scooby-Doo Show. The author, W. Anthos, is a reference to the villain of that episode, the Warlock Anthos.
Continuing with the Harry Potter references, Gridditch through the Years by Whennilworthy Kisp is a parody of Quidditch through the Ages by Kennilworthy Whisp (which is a famous book within the Harry Potter universe). Doris Rumbridge is a reference to one of the characters from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Dolores Umbridge.
Speaking of Velma's coworkers, Sam Spangles is a reference to the character of the same name from the 1979 Rankin-Bass film Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July.
I hope that you enjoyed this chapter and that you're looking forward to the next one!