Chapter 3: Vous savez quand vous avez léché assez de poissons quand vous commencez à évoluer des ouïes - You know when you've licked enough fish when you start evolving gills.
"Good morning Harry!" Ron said in a cheerful voice as Harry crawled from his bed to the bathroom.
He put his school robes on and set off down the stairs to the common room. The deserted room was totally silent, the embers in the fireplace glowed gently, the sun shone through the window, illuminating the room softly. Ron clambered through the portrait hole and set off towards the great hall for an early breakfast, taking a shortcut to avoid Peeves who was floating around the main corridor. He made his way to the Gryffindor table where he sat down next to Harry.
"Wait a minute!" Ron cried, falling backwards onto the floor. "You haven't gotten up yet!"
"What! Of course I have." Harry frowned. I've been here for a good ten minutes."
"But you were in our tower back then, I saw you."
"Buggrit! Rumbled..." Harry stood up and left the great hall, discarding his half eaten muffin sandwich as he left. It sailed through the air and landed in a small Ravenclaw's soup.
'What the hell?' Ron thought, picking himself up from the floor. 'And now my robes have got filth all over them, mother is going to kill me.' He grabbed a pumpkin pie and was about to take a bite when he felt a hand on his shoulder.
"Harry?" Harry said to him quizzically. "I saw you walking up the stairs just a second ago. How comes you're here?"
"What the...?" Ron said, omitting the expletive for fear of being told off by his mother.
"What do you mean?" Harry asked him.
"What are you on about, Harry?"
"I'm Hermione, why are you calling me that?"
"No, you're Harry, I can see that."
"Oh shut up silly, you're Harry."
"Hi guys!" Called a voice from behind them. The pair stopped bickering to look round.
"Harry!" They exclaimed in unison.
"No, I'm George. Why do you two look identical?"
The three of them gazed at each other in bewilderment, then Hermione took a mirror out from her robes and looked into it. She screamed and threw the mirror away, running for the nearest exit but instead finding a wall. A very solid wall.
Ron fainted.
George sat down, feeling slightly dizzy.
Harry walked into the hall.
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Sebastian breathed a sigh of relief as the sea entered their sight and trudged onwards, towards their ever nearing goal. Charlie was still wondering how Sebastian could read the dictionary that now sat safely back in his pocket.
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"Chips!" Said Dave.
"Chips!" Replied Steve.
"Chips!" Dave repeated.
"That will do." Steve sighed, munching on his own portion of soggy chips. The sheer amount of vinegar made him cough, but still, there was no point in having chips if you didn't get every complimentary item on offer. So beneath the mound of salt, pepper, ketchup and mayonnaise there lay a few soggy chips, fermenting in the pool of vinegar. Dave looked up from his own feast, a drip of ketchup falling into his lap from a half consumed chip.
"Yummy, 's very nice." He mumbled, dribbling more sauce down his front. Steve frowned at his companion and continued to eat, considering it worthless to reprimand him on his poor eating habits. It's not like he could afford to eat out anyway. The life of a Ninja was a herd one indeed.
Not much of a banquet later Steve pulled himself free of his chair and walked to the window.
"Hey! Since when did we have a window in this hovel?" Dave asked, looking puzzled.
"Oh, I smashed a hole through the wall this morning. I thought that maybe it was a bit gloomy in here." Mused Steve, looking thoughtfully outside.
"True, but isn't that kinda a supporting wall?"
"Could be."
"Then isn't it a bit dangerous to put a window in?" Dave queried.
"Good heavens no!" Steve said, taken aback by Dave's lack of faith in his engineering skills. "I crafted this perfectly, this wall will never crumble." He gave it a slap to reinforce his point. A chunk of masonry fell from the ceiling. Dave gave him a dubious look. "The wall is a solid as a stone!" He defended himself.
"It is stone. The ceiling isn't though." Dave commented. Then, seeing his master's glare he quickly shut up and got back to eating the chips.
Outside the sun was setting, an ominous fog was settling upon the city, obscuring even the light of street lamps. Mariachi Steve settled back down in his chair and pulled out a fresh book of puzzles from his desk. The dim light of the room illuminated the paper, the shadow of Steve over it. He began scribbling numbers into the squares, desperately trying to get them to add up. The scratching sound of the pencil on paper carried on through the misty night, displaying the true incompetence of the Ninja Sudoku players so amazingly well.
Far off a car horn beeped. It was followed by a sickening crunch and then more beeping. A cry of pain echoed through the all but deserted streets, bouncing off the walls till it reached the abode of the Ninjas.
"Sounds like we got another fatality." Dave chuckled.
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Charlie repeatedly poked the recumbent form of Sebastian with a rubber chicken. It squeaked. The monkey on the floor grumbled something about 'bananas.' It seemed that the shock of finding out they were now exactly 300 miles from their intended destination had been too much for the aging circus monkey to take. Especially at this time of the month.
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