Breakfast had not been hot. Breakfast been, at best, lukewarm and greasy. And that had just been the porridge. Despite her promise to eat plenty, Mildred hadn't been able to stomach much. And she wasn't the only one.
"They might have warmed up the bake beans at least." Ruby winged as they sat in the potions lab after wards for register.
"Or drained the oil off the fried eggs!" Jadu agreed.
"Cold burnt toast should be illegal." Maud grumbled.
Monsters, it seemed, still had food quality standards.
"Do you suppose its leftovers from Group A?" Mildred asked.
"I think it was leftovers from last term." Ruby huffed.
"I'd rather have had the squashed frogs." Maud chipped in.
"Was there any?" Mildred teased.
At that book suddenly cuffed her on back of the head.
"Ow! Hey! What was that for?!"
The girls behind Mildred denied all knowledge. Just the book fell open on a page about frog dissection.
"Oh ha ha." Jadu deadpanned. Maud and Ruby gave their best wicked glares at the back of Ethel's head.
"What?" Ethel said turning around. "Didn't your mother teach you not to stare?"
"Didn't yours teach you not to throw things?" Maud muttered.
"I did no so such thing!" Ethel snapped her face going from innocent into the most horrid of looks.
Mildred had a feeling it was most defiantly Ethel. But couldn't prove it. Again. She was getting quite sick of that. They'd been lots of bullies at her old school but at least you could see them throwing things at you. Mildred rubbed the bump on her head and decided to ignore the fairy witch, unaware it wasn't a good idea.
"It's a witch school, isn't it?" she sulked, going back to the food discussion. "Why couldn't they magic up a decent breakfast?"
"Yeah!"
"Agreed!"
"Because Mildred Hubble,-!" Came a voice that made them all jump and look about.
"-Modern witch craft is a serious professional business," Miss Hardbroom continued as she materialised at the front of the class, ticking off her register. She cast a very dark look over them that lingered on the ordinary worst witch, "And is not to be used for selfish or trivial ends. Is it?"
"No Miss Hardbroom." Mildred and the class said.
"Hmm. Now girls," Miss Hardbroom began, her mood brightened. She even almost smiled. Which looked very out of the ordinary on the Vampire. Especially with the grey sunshine through the window. Mildred was completely thrown for a moment!
"As I said at your last form lesson, much of your first two weeks will be taken up with practicing and preparation for your Cackle's Broomstick Aptitude Test. So, we better not waste any time."
She clapped her hands twice sharply, sending her first years all scurrying to their seats. Except for Ethel who, dragging Drusilla along, brazenly walked out of the room!
A rather gobsmacked then awkward silence followed.
"…Where are you meant to be heading?" The vampire asked, good mood gone.
"Oh!"
Maud and few others got the hint and scurried to the door. Miss Hardbroom gave Mildred and the rest of them another unimpressed look.
"Outside." She reminded them. "You have less than ten minutes. Go."
Mildred remembered, her stomach sinking and churning up her afternoon breakfast. But she reluctantly joined the mad scramble to the door. It was twenty past two. Almost two thirty, 'straight after breakfast and roll call'.
It was time, for Broomstick Training.
dun dun duuuuuun
also I just realized Broomstick Aptitude Test spells BAT. Goddammit.