Chapter 12
Once various English friends had arranged to get My Little Flying Pony for their European friends, training must begin in earnest for the gymkhana; and Severus had to put a strict ban on when and where pony training might take place since he had rather it did not disrupt mealtimes or hobbies. Those whose current hobby was gymkhanas might use an empty classroom, he decreed, instead of the common room for pursuing their equine endeavours.
Lucy Ingate was pursuing other equine endeavours; Severus knew of her love of horses and had bought her a pony at Christmas, the sister of Rainer's Toffee; on the understanding that her pony was also available to help the Care of Domestic Beasts class. Lucy was not sure if she wanted to enter gymkhanas; but she loved learning to ride her pony! Lucy DID have a classical education; and moreover one that included a lot of myth and legend; and decided that Epona, the Celtic horse goddess was a suitable name. Being a thoroughly generous child she also offered the use of Epona to the others in her year; though not all were keen to do more than give it a go for novelty.
Henik enjoyed himself; it was a freedom the years in a wheelchair could never have prepared him for; and he found it easier than controlling a broom. Liriope Hallow too enjoyed herself and wrote home asking if she might have a pony and could she bring it to school; but apart from Lucy herself, who knew already that she was at home in the saddle through visits to Malfoy Manor, it was Cerellia Yaxley, Sarah Elliot and Johanna Schiff who shone.
"Looks like we might have to start a quidpolo team" laughed Severus. "Six of you here; you only need one more to make a team, and Liriope ready to co-opt as seeker!"
"Not such a bad idea" said Lucy seriously "After all, Gorbrin's organising a charity match this term, Hogwarts versus an amateur scratch team. If Hogwarts want to play more often we might give them a game."
Severus laughed.
"Perhaps Cerellia's step grandfather, being a Withers, might see fit to get her a pony as she's taking an interest in a sport dear to HIS ancestor's heart" he said. "And we'll see; at least Epona has better manners than those mechanical monstrosities indoors!"
oOoOo
The mechanical monstrosities were proving rather difficult to train; but at least it kept their owners quiet during the worst weather; even if they made nuisances of themselves outside on sunny days when the Third Year Pony Club exercised Epona.
Epona was swiftly joined by Merrylegs – Liriope's new pony, which was a Pegasan pony, a dazzlingly white grey, temperamental and delicate, and typical that a Hallow should go for something so flamboyant, and easy to see where Liriope got it from. Liriope adored Merrylegs even though Cerellia had to help her learn to ride the rather temperamental beast.
And Cerellia was delighted and moved and flung her arms around old Abastor Withers when he came in person to bring her another Steppe pony cross like Epona; he considering it the best pony around.
The old man was delighted by his mistress' granddaughter's skill; and declared that he would cover the cost of any riding based extras she wanted.
As Lucius, acknowledging the child to be a descendant of his father, had firmly taken over her school fees so she need not be dependant on a father who kept her and her mother as his shameful little secret, and had also brought her mother Archippa, his sister, to live in Malfoy Manor as HIS pensioner, Cerellia's life had changed; and she might have had a pony from Lucius for the asking, had not Severus thought that Abastor Withers might like to be involved in a pony-mad step granddaughter, since Jemima Yaxley, Cerellia's grandmother, might just as well have been his wife if they had only ever bothered to tie the knot.
Abastor was fascinated that Gorbrin Malfoy was reviving Quidpolo; and was spending time getting to know 'young Lucius' and explained that the great grandchildren of his brother, another Stoddard, would be playing in the informal charity match; and as the oldest had two children he firmly enrolled them with Severus on condition that he might also fund a quiddpolo team at Prince Peak.
Severus was NOT about to turn THAT down; and rejoiced. Especially as the old man had turned half snippy over the My Little Flying Pony herd; and Severus had explained that pony mad little girls had, for the most part, only toys to fall back on.
This seemed terrible to a horse-mad old man; who had promptly agreed to go on a pony hunt from the best stock in Europe.
Cerellia's pony was hers however; and she named him Bayard; not perhaps the best name for a pony even if a good one for a horse; but old Abastor was delighted that she knew her folklore!
oOoOo
Cerellia was rejoicing in having had a Christmas Holiday at Malfoy Manor; Lucius was her uncle by blood and had treated her as his niece. Her mother was happy to have been found a useful job helping the twin part fey mothers of two Hogwarts students to start a hostel for girls; she herself knew what it was like to be the daughter of a supposed scarlet woman bereft of support when her protector had died; Archippa did not even remember her real father, and looked upon Abastor, fifty years older than her mother, as the only father she had ever known, since he had taken Jemima and her daughter into his protection when Archippa was a small child.
And Lucius had engineered a reconciliation with him; because it had been a silly quarrel fuelled by stubborn teenage pride that had led her to try to make her own way and to end up having the unfortunate and secretive affair with Lester McMillan; and then she had been too proud to go home and had been a secretly kept woman with a daughter of her own.
And now dear KIND Lucius had insisted that a brother had every right as well as an obligation to look out for his family when they needed it she had gratefully escaped to his care, and was glad to have a job that was really useful. And Cerellia need not worry about offending her father any more; which as he had never been much of a father she was likely to want to do.
Though not perhaps as much as Lucius had managed to offend him, after engaging to reconcile Archippa and Cerellia with Abastor Withers and Jemima Yaxley, Archippa's mother.
Lucius had greeted Lester McMillan and asked him how his other children were doing at Hogwarts; in front of his wife. Lester had blustered; and Lucius said coldly that a man who seduces a Malfoy must be a VERY brave man to treat his own part Malfoy bastard badly; and that he need not think that Cerellia was at his beck and call any more now he, Lucius, had tracked down his sister and her daughter from the secret penury in which she had been incarcerated.
This was not strictly fair since mother and daughter had been living comfortably enough; but it was penury by comparison to Malfoy Manor.
And Lucius had made sure that now Cerellia knew her Malfoy cousins and her Yaxley cousins – those he would give house room too – and other uncles and aunts; and it was all a bit of a whirl but rather splendid to be able to cock a snoot at her father. And cousin Gorbrin had advised Cerellia NOT to write yet to her half sister Emma McMillan at Hogwarts since the girl was a drip who squawked at everything and even jumped at loud noises.
As Narcissa had recounted to Cerellia and Archippa with glee that Lester McMillan's wife had positively squealed in horror at the revelations Lucius made about Lester fathering a child on Archippa – who had been promptly dubbed Pippa by the Madams Malfoy as less of a mouthful – it looked like it ran in HER family.
She had a McMillan cousin in Albert McMillan, Gorbrin's friend, of whom she might be proud; and he promised her every support and that too he would tell the head of the family, Uncle Herbert – who was Cerellia's uncle too – and see that she got to know at least cousin Ernie and his children.
Cerellia had shared all this with Liriope on the train; and Liriope rejoiced for her friend. It meant too that she would not have to be so careful about what she suggested they might do in the holidays; as Lucius Malfoy's niece would not be as strapped for cash as a despised bastard daughter of a less prominent man was.
oOoOo
The gymkhana for My Little Flying Pony took place one Saturday; and it may have been a bit of a farce – especially the dressage, where Emily declared that the only prize possible was for the biggest turd dropped – but everyone had fun, which had been the whole point.
oOoOo
The Ubiquitous Marauders broke out in mischief shortly after this, not having been involved in gymkhanamania; and the weather keeping them in with nasty storms and high wind. They were no more musical than the Bee Marauders; but unlike their older counterparts they knew their limitations in this respect, and involved Siegfried Snape Von Eiche, who was not averse to the occasional bit of harmless mischief. Siegfried WAS musical and gave the Ubiquitous Marauders some cogent lessons before they began their big enchantment of all the castle toilets.
They were planning on having the toilet pans sing in four part harmony, which was ambitious, but as Siegfried said achievable so long as they did not go for too much complexity.
The bass part was simple; four notes repeated over and over with the words 'pong, pong, pong, pong'; the next part sang 'efluuuvium, effluuuuvium' and the melody was carried on the words 'effluvium, effluvium, carcaceous and fetid effluvium' as a tribute to Severus' vocabulary; and the fourth part was decided to be too difficult to script so was restricted to flushing in rhythm like a mad lavatorial cymbal, as Wilhelm put it, and clattering the seat like castanets.
The whole jape had been Wilhelm's idea; not that the rest had been slow to catch on.
Apart from the percussion inspired stools there was no real disruption; and Severus checked to see how long it was likely to last and found that as the charms would run down after a day or so, people might as well just avoid the percussive stalls and certain voices would just be a little more….muffled…..while they were in use.
The Ubiquitous Marauders were quite surprised to get away with it; but as Severus said, it did no harm and enlivened the dark winter days. He was well aware that harmless mischief was just a part of school life.
Antti Laakkonen complained of course; but Antti had NOT checked which stalls held stools with chattering lids and had very nearly come to grief. His classmates told him not to be a blithering idiot and to use a safe stall next time.
And Leneli Accola, who had a period, asked Krait if she might use the staff loo for the duration in case one of the stalls was turned vampiric by her bleeding.
Krait could see the girl had a very real fear of such a thing, daft though it might seem; and granted permission. It was a small concession for the peace of mind of the girl, and when a girl had a period it was not a good time to start lectures on silly fears.
oOoOo
The toilets soon wound down their musical interlude; and the next piece of excitement could not be attributed to any Marauders at all.
Had not Karin Meyer of the second been the daughter of two muggleborn, she might not have gone to a muggle primary school in Germany and might not have learned about dinosaurs.
And had she not learned about dinosaurs she might not have commented idly that the pigeons who were sheltering from the wind in the crevices of the castle walls were, arguably, dinosaurs because of their heritance.
Birgitta Guttmann also knew something about dinosaurs and an idle conversation of the girls in the second grew into speculation that if pigeons were no more than dinosaurs in disguise then it should be easy to transfigure them.
Birgitta was the best at transfigurations; but she was not alone in the experiment. And as there was only one dinosaur any of them could actually agree to recognising there was soon a small flock – if the term was appropriate – of Tyrannosaurus Rex precariously perched on the wall.
It was perhaps fortunate that they were still the same size as pigeons.
Birgitta started turning them back; the rest of the girls panicked.
One tyrannosaur fell to its death – having no wings – and the rest started cautiously negotiating the wall.
Having climbed down the four feet or so to the ledge two promptly ripped each other to shreds; Birgitta was still trying to rescue the poor creatures from the results of curiosity and a number promptly flew away from the scary toothed lizards that had been their flock mates.
One went out of her sight and Birgitta and friends looked at each other in horror.
"We'll HAVE to go outside after it" said Birgitta.
"I THINK we should actually tell Professor Snape" said Solange.
"I agree" said Evadne.
"We've lost the wretched beast; there's no guarantee we could find it anyway" agreed Germaine, reluctantly.
They trotted off to the Head's office to confess.
Severus sighed.
"One of those 'I didn't think' situations" he said "Well done for returning – how many was it? To their natural forms Birgitta."
"I think it was around a dozen" said Birgitta "Most of them; only four did I fail to do"
"It's not as though pigeons can't be a pest" said Severus. "I'll use a finding charm….."
He was interrupted by a loud but muffled MIAOW.
He opened the door for Stripy the school Leopard; who dropped at his feet the body of a very small Tyrannosaur.
"Gosh Stripy, you ARE clever!" said Birgitta, fussing the big cat's ears. Stripy purred loudly.
Being done about the ears made up for a rather strange and unexpected new toy which had tried to fight back; though this one at least she wasn't in trouble over and she was allowed to catch it. Stripy had been shut out of the room for gymkhana practice after having leaped straight up to catch one of the My Little Flying Ponies which she had spat out in disgust as the springs came through.
"Well that appears to solve the problem of the disappearing Tyrannosaur" said Severus dryly. "I want you each to write out 'for the want of a nail'; only once, and not to hand in, but to keep and ponder on. You did right to come and tell me however; I am pleased with you for that."
Birgitta speculated, though did not say, that had they NOT gone to him straight away they might have been copying the warning poem more than once as punishment. Sometimes trying to sort things out yourself was not a good idea; and she conceded as much.
Sometimes being overcome by curiosity was also not a good idea.
oOoOo
The weather started improving and the higher spirits could be moved outside more often to play quidditch; and too, with the arrival of more ponies, quiddpolo.
Sandalla had been invited onto the team of the second years as she rode the sentient flying horses of Belsornia at home as well as ordinary flying horses and ponies and her adopted twin Svetlana had come to love horses too; and Yelisaveta Koldunova was horse mad. Sandalla therefore pointed out that really, as Mr Withers had provided enough ponies for two teams, as one would need to actually get a game, the juniors should really pick a junior and she, her sister and friend would put together a middle school and senior team.
None of the Grant girls were horsy; but George Ingate turned out to be as good at riding as his sister, indeed better; and Vya too had an unexpected talent, though the Visick twins preferred to cheer on their friends, so that swelled Sandalla's team to five; Rose Hubble, good as she was on a broom was a danger to everyone, not least herself on horseback. Siegfried had, as a nobleman, of course learned to ride; but preferred not to play this new game so long as others could make up the team.
The juniors meanwhile grabbed Paul Ingate to see if his skills equalled those of his brother and sister; and found that he too was a natural.
"I should have got ponies years ago" said Severus to George "I'll write to Jem too and apologise for not doing so to give you four extra skills."
George shrugged.
"We've never missed what we never had; it took Lucy being pony-mad to find out we might have skills. I have to say, I do hope there's likely to be a professional league started because I think I'm actually going to be better at this than at quidditch; and my chances of getting to play professional quidditch were always a little slim, with better players around. It gives me another option; but I say, Severus, don't go feeling bad about it because it would never have occurred to me to ask to ride more than the mucking about we're allowed with the ponies in Lucius' stables."
"Thank you George" said Severus. "And I too hope that you may have a chance to shine if a league is started."
Making up the middle school team was harder; of the fourth years, only Cecilia Villeneuve was interested – and incidentally quite brilliant – though her twin brother declared that horses converted grass to compost to grow potioneering ingredients and why not just use them for that. Batty Dubois had a go and was confined in the sanatorium while Severus chanted over her concussion – twice – and again for the broken arm, at which point she gave up and decided that riding was too dangerous and she'd as soon stick to nice safe occupations like fighting dark wizards.
Fortunately Marius Schreiber in the lower sixth turned out to have a previously unexpected talent; and though he did not shine in quidditch, being neither brilliant nor poor, his skills with a lacrosse stick had him quickly moved to position of seeker. The middle school drafted him firmly.
The upper school decided to put together a scratch team of those with passing interest, to give the younger ones a game – after all, if there were more teams than ponies it did not matter since only two teams would play at once – and Darryl lead a team with Irmi from the upper sixth, and Clementine, Fred Lowther, whose brother declined, Randolph Wright, Muriel and Prudence, who had a surprising level of talent on horse back, for one who had never ridden before.
Of the juniors, having tried out the first years, Bruno and Wilhelm enjoyed the game and were then available for reserves; Wilhem had learned to ride on Eduard's horses. Bruno's sister Leneli just liked to ride, rather than to play; and Roseli had not been interested.
They watched on the newly-invented wide screen that was a partial globe the exciting charity match between Hogwarts and the scratch team; most of the amateur team were Withers-Weasleys or Malfoys. Rose was cheering for the Amateur Team because one of the Withers-Weasley brothers was married to a Hubble; which was fair enough. Those of Malfoy connections laughed and pointed out that they had relatives on both teams as Gorbrin was leading the school team as seeker, and Draco led the Amateur Team.
It was an exciting game; there were frequent breaks, unlike in quidditch, to rest the horses but even so it was fast paced. Draco caught the snitch but a timely tackle from Gorbrin knocked it away to gasps from the audience. Draco however soon had the snitch again; and this time thrust the stick of the lacrosse net back fast so that he could get hand to snitch before being tackled.
"That's a lesson in how to do it" said Marius.
"Yes; but if you're at full stretch to catch the thing, not always practical without dropping the stick" said Paul, who had been promoted to junior team seeker.
"Stick work we can all practise in bad weather in the great hall" said Lucy "Just catching and tackling to give our seekers practice. It's not going to be as good as doing it on a horse, but if we put a barrier charm to hold the snitch low it's at least some practice."
And the blooded felt, after the match, that Lucius and his wives had now decided to be part of the group; and rejoiced in new bloodkin.
oOoOo
Of the quiddpoloists, only George was also in the first team for quidditch and though Emily Grant did not PLAY Quiddpolo she was, as head of games, interested.
"George, you're my successor as head of games as you play both AND take an interest in hurley" said Emily "which being so, I designate you as my deputy with powers of a prefect if Professor Snape will permit that, to be head of quiddpolo."
Severus was glad to agree; George was steady and not likely to abuse the power of being the effective only fifth year prefect.
The first game of the better weather was to be against the Beauvais Broomwonders; and the French team exclaimed to find clear weather above such extremely poor conditions below.
The school team had a certain advantage however; being used to the clear thin air of the horn. The valley based French team were soon blowing, though their experience kept them playing well.
Zoë's brilliance as a keeper showed and with Fred and Peter as beaters kept the French scoring down; but winded or no the Broomwonders were professionals, and it was only by catching the snitch at just the right time that Arbrek managed to save a loss and force a draw.
"You cheeldren are better zan we expected" said the captain of the visiting team. "Eet was a ver' good game; and 'ow you say, keep us on our feet."
"Toes" said Emily "The saying is to keep one on one's toes; your English is excellent, m'sieur."
"Your French is good also" said the captain.
There was a round of florid compliments and Emily emerged with the feeling that the visiting team had won THAT contest.
Evadne Horrocks wanted to photograph and collect all the autographs of course; but that was Evadne; and Emily explained that the junior school girl had a passion for making biographies of the famous.
Few professional players can resist that sort of flattery and Evadne got her autographs.
When one of the players recognised Arsène Le Fèvre as well, naturally Evadne wanted to know all about why HE was famous; as so far as she knew, he was a contemporary and friend of Madam Granger who had duelled her – and actually WON – in a school duelling contest.
Arsène was also duly pursued by Evadne and the admiring little girl asked for details too of his life. Arsène was nothing loath; it had tickled him at first to be just one more adult student in a school where everyone was ignorant of his career as a duellist – Severus encouraged a duelling club informally run but did not follow the league through sports pages, and his lack of interest rather set the tone – but it was becoming just a bit irksome that nobody knew him. Arsène was expansive and Evadne was delighted.
It might have been better had not Arsène spoken of a duel due to take place in Innsbruck, between two contestants, both of whom he had bested in the past; because Evadne's imagination had been fired by his tales that anyone else might have told the little girl held a touch of the Gasconade, as the French call boasting.
Indeed, the idea of teaching was starting to pall on Arsène, who was missing the limelight; and he planned to resume his career but with chanting as an added dimension.
Evadne meanwhile applied for permission to go into Innsbruck to see the duel; and Severus denied it. Had either contestant been a relative, or someone she knew well, he told her, he might have hesitated; but public duelling contests could be rather rough events with unsavoury people present and not suitable for a little girl.
Evadne tried to explain that she needed their autographs to help extend her biography of Monsieur Le Fèvre; but Severus was adamant.
Evadne was much disappointed.
oOoOo
Meanwhile the Quidditch first team was to visit Schloss Adler to play an away match as a knockabout and informal contest against Jade's subsidised school. They were to be side-along apparated, those who could not apparate for themselves, which was everyone except the Lowther twins; and hopefully Emily. They were waiting on the year's apparating exams so she had the chance to pass, since she had been too young the year before.
The Lowther twins were just old enough; but as Marauders had been apparating for years of course.
Emily had determination in spades; and passed the test with flying colours.
The team was ready to leave in the care of Viktor as coach, Lydia as chaperone to the girls and because she did actually care about quidditch; and Ron as quidditch teacher; and without Hermione because she did not really give a toss about quidditch.
Severus was going too out of courtesy; until Birgitta Guttmann grabbed him by the hand and said,
"Oh please, Herr Professor, I am not sneaking wish to be, but we are afraid that Evadne to Innsbruck has gone." Her grammar disintegrated into Germanic with the stress of the moment.
Severus stiffened.
"Tell me what you know, Birgitta; it is not sneaking" he said.
"Evadne was much disappointed that she had not permission gained to visit a duelling competition; it is about her blasted autographs, not that any interest has she in such things" said Birgitta "And she has the bee in her hat. And when Evadne has a bee in her hat, of consequences she does not always think; and she was counting out her muggle money last night, that we use converted from our pocket money to learn in muggle studies; and she had a muggle train timetable."
"Merlin's beard!" swore Severus. "You have done quite right to come to me Birgitta; now run and fetch for me Evadne's hairbrush and then ask Madam Gimlet to come to my office."
Birgitta knew better than to waste time asking questions and ran to do the Headmaster's bidding.
Madam Gimlet was surprised; but went as requested.
"Severus? Birgitta said you wanted me."
"Yes; I thought to combine a ritual finding with your divinational skills so that rather than send a physical object after a truant we might use divining rods and a map" said Severus "Evadne Horrocks has gone haring off to Innsbruck for autographs, drat the silly child."
"My goodness!" said Carmenta Gimlet "Evadne is the last child I should have expected to have gone haring off disobediently – except perhaps the Finnish, er, Antti Laakkonen."
"Poor child, everyone thinks of him as the Finnish Flobberworm" said Severus. "I know you would have told me had you had any inkling."
"That's why I teach and am not an insurance diviner" said Carmenta dryly "I did not know that ritual could be combined with divination however."
"I don't know if it can" said Severus "We're about to experiment. I don't see why it shouldn't work; you have some modest skill with divining rods; we've never tried you on a map before, but the point of the ritual is to attune the rods to the object – or rather person – to be found and hence to enhance your efficacy."
"You are extremely clever, Severus; and I have every faith in your ability. I only hope mine is sufficient" said Carmenta.
"I am sure it will be" said Severus "I know – more or less – where she's heading; I'd just quite like to head her off before she gets there."
He laid the divining rods on the hairbrush and chanted softly, walking round the objects to bind them ritually one to another. Then he nodded to Carmenta Gimlet to take up the rods and apply them to the large scale map that covered the rail route to Innsbruck.
Carmenta Gimlet concentrated on the divining rods; and gasped as they dragged her hands across the map, meeting with a clang right within Innsbruck. Severus's breath hissed in exasperation – aimed at Evadne, not Carmenta – and threw down a map of the town itself. The divining rods were off again and clanged together on a place that Severus knew was within wizarding space.
"Thank you Carmenta" he said; and apparated smoothly away.
oOoOo
Evadne had got up very early and had scrambled down the mountainside because she knew perfectly well that Strang would never send her down in the cable car without asking a lot of searching questions. She had to go as far as the muggle village to which the rack rail ran all year round twice a day to the nearest muggle railhead which was not far. She caught the rack milk train out and was soon on the first muggle train to Innsbruck in the larger village that served as a market town to the small hamlets around. She was pleased with herself that she had remembered to ask for a return ticket; and that her German was now good enough to cope. And if she got a few strange looks for being a schoolgirl on her own she was too scared and excited to notice.
Finding her way to the duelling competiton was not hard; there were posters visible only to the eye of the magically active. It was in a large building in a portion of wizarding space; and Evadne arrived as too did some early spectators.
That was the point at which she started to get really scared; because some of the people arriving were distinctly scary people. Goblins as such did not scare her; but the hard faced goblin bookie and his security troll were not people she wanted to be close to; nor the group of rough looking humans whose German was so ill educated that she could not understand a word they said. The expensively dressed visitors almost all had bodyguards of some description, and the ordinary looking people walked with caution and stayed out of the way of both expensive and rougher elements.
Evadne hesitated; and dithered. She was just gathering her courage to walk on in when a loud CRAC behind her made her jump; and she gave a little scream as her arm was seized.
"Evadne you NAUGHTY child!" scolded Professor Snape's voice.
In truth, Evadne was so relieved she turned round and threw herself on him, sobbing. Severus sighed, and patted her shoulder reassuringly.
"NOW do you see why I forbade you, you silly infant?" he said. "And they're frightening enough even without being inside in the close, airless, cramped arena, where you might be almost on the lap of someone's security troll. Duelling is a popular sport; but it's also a sport followed by those for whom the betting is more interesting than the sport itself. We are going back to school."
"Yes Professor" said Evadne meekly. The description of the interior had completely undermined any desire on her part to go in. Severus apparated them both back to his office.
"You may thank Madam Gimlet for using her divining skills to find exactly where you were; and apologise to her for taking up her time" said Severus harshly "And you will write an apology to your dormitory mates in which you will express your deepest regret for frightening them. That I think will be almost sufficient punishment for your disobedience since you have punished yourself with a good fright; save that for the rest of the term I shall require you to report to my office first thing in the morning, at noon, and before you go to bed so that I may know where you are."
That lack of trust really hurt more than anything else; and Evadne burst into tears.
She struggled through the thanks and apology to Madam Gimlet; and being dismissed fled.
And being Evadne, she conscientiously wrote her apology to the other girls in her dormitory straight away. She WAS sorry she had scared anyone; and she was also now very well aware why the excursion had been banned!
Evadne had never disobeyed any stricture in her life before and this was, she vowed, to be the last time!