Mrs Rosie Calloway has worked as a lunch lady at Avalon School for Witchcraft for nearly fifteen years and has seen uncountable children pass through her lunch room. But she does have her favourites - especially the sweet and polite ones. Today, the menu consists of fried chicken and potatoes with a side of green beans, and as she looks out over the room she sees that most of the children have a red tray in front of them and are happily eating their lunches. Her eyes rest on a table near the windows, where a group of young girls chatter away as they eat. At the far edge of the table sits a little blonde girl with no tray in front of her. Instead, she carefully places a little blue lunch box with a brass handle in front of her, opens it, and exclaims happily over the contents. Rosie wonders, as she dishes up more potatoes into the serving tray, what Mrs Malfoy has packed for her children today that has little Elara so pleased.
She is taken from her reverie by a little blonde girl in a blue dress coming up to her station, patiently waiting her turn.
"Good day, Galathea. What would you like today?" Rosie says, smiling at the child.
"Good day Mrs Calloway, may I have some milk please?" The little girl chirps, as sweet as always.
"That'll be three knuts, dear" She replies. Galathea Malfoy looks confused.
"But yesterday, it was five knuts." She protests.
"Yes, but the headmaster has decided to lower the price, dear. From now on, the milk will be three knuts." She gives the child a small box of milk, and the girl carefully counts out three knuts from the money in her hand. Then she puts the two coins left over in her pocket and accepts the milk.
"I shall tell mother" she says as she leaves, "to only pack us three knuts tomorrow." Then she disappears back into the crowd. Rosie Calloway smiles after the girl, then goes back to serve potatoes.
A few minutes later, there are two identical little blonde girls in blue dresses in her line.
"Good day Mrs Calloway" they chorus, as polite as their sister. "May we buy some milk, please?" Rosie smiles at the eldest set of Malfoy twins.
"Hello Philomela, hello Prokne. That will be six knuts, please." She hands each girl a little box of milk and can't help but feel amused at identical looks of confusion.
"But yesterday it…." one says,
"...cost ten knuts." the other finishes. Rosie has, as always, no way of telling which one is which. The only thing telling the girls apart is how their mother has done the ribbons in their hair, but she does not know which girl has the blue and which has the white one. She explains again that the headmaster has lowered the price, and the girls say, as their sister before them, that they will tell their mother to pack them less money from now on.
"Or" Rosie says, "You can buy yourselves a chocolate chip cookie to share. It's three knuts." The girls shake their heads in tandem.
"No, mummy…" "Needs the money. Besides…" "She sent oatmeal…" "...cookies with raisins today." "Thank you…" "... Mrs Calloway. " Then they vanish into the crowd with their milk and money. Ah, thinks Mrs Calloway as she goes back to serving the children with trays, that explains it. Little Elara does love her raisins.
A while later, she smiles at the young blonde boy standing in her line: He is the first for several minutes not holding a tray.
"Hello Teddy" she says, and he grins back at her. "Three boxes of milk, hm?" He laughs, a bright tinkling noise and his hair turns an obnoxiously bright pink.
"Yes please Mrs Calloway" he says, handing over fifteen knuts. She hands back six.
"It's only three knuts each from now on" she says.
"Brilliant!" he crows, "mum will be stoked - she'll save nearly half the milk money each week!" He takes the milk, the money, thanks her, and hurries over to where his brother and sister are waiting, unpacking their lunch boxes.
Rosie can't help but look at Benedict Malfoy, who is joyfully tearing into his homemade sandwich with Mrs Malfoy's homemade bread, or his triplet sister Beatrice who cuts her red apple into slices with swift motions of the knife her mother has packed. It's amazing, she marvels, that the children with the least amount of money in the school - the ones who can never afford buying lunch or buy any other drink than milk - seem to be the sweetest and happiest. And the most polite.
She does prefer the polite ones.