Chapter 6 - Blasts from the past (that keep blasting and blasting)
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One more day, and Alex takes on another class. And another important lesson.
"There is one very important rule that you should always remember. There are two expressions that you should never, EVER use in a spell." Alex walks back to the blackboard and starts writing on it.
"MAKE ME" and "DO ME" she writes in giant letters, visible even to the kids at the back of the classroom.
"I mean, you can have your try with these if you want to, but I can say that it's more likely to get right back at you."
This time around, Alex uses the class to allow the kids to improvise their own spells. That, of course, after giving them a few tips on the art of improvising. One by one, they show her their take on the tasks she assigned and she allows them to have a try. Some, with a little help, turn out alright, some not so much. The result? Well…
Alex intrudes Justin's office, one more time without knocking. That thing about locking the door, it's definitely going to happen. "Hey!" She greets and happily hops to his desk. "I need a new desk for my classroom."
"What? Why?" He gives her a surprised, confused, and a little bit angry look. How could she have destroyed a desk in her first week?
"Well, I was letting the kids try their spells out and some of them didn't turn out so good. I told this kid I wanted him to make a spell to make the dust on my desk go away. So he ended with something like 'make the dust OF this desk leave this room.' …The table turned into dust and it flew out the window."
"Why didn't you correct him before he cast the spell? Didn't you see it was wrong?"
"Yeah!" She answers in a sigh. "But that desk was very ugly … and it was really dirty, so! … Anyway, you know that, sometimes, kids have to screw up themselves to see how things can go wrong."
"Yeah, you would know that."
"Heeeey!" She interjects emphatically. "I became a great wizard because of all the times I screwed up. And that helped you improve just as much." Then she smiles as her memory recalls their childhood adventures. "…And I really liked seeing things going haywire." She smiles again.
"Fine!" Justin tells her, getting up. "Let's go to the dungeons beneath the castle. There's a storage down there."
"There's a dungeon down here?" She asks with a slightly excited tone, one that grants her a scared look from Justin.
"This is a castle." Justin reminds her. "They used to need dungeons. But now it's just a large empty space where we can pile stuff. It's full of old desks and other unused furniture."
"Oh!" Alex interjects, disappointed. "Such a pity they didn't keep it. You know, just for fun."
"Okay! You're scaring me right now. Let's just get going." Justin grabs Alex's arm and they leave.
"Come on, imagine how fun it would be to see the kids' faces when you told them they would be sent there if they fail any classes." Alex laughs.
And Justin makes a point to ignore it.
On their way to the dungeons, the Russos go past the Library, a part of the castle Alex has never seen, maybe because she never dared to get this close to a place with so many books. They go by a few more closed doors, then the hallway turns into a narrow passage that ends at a staircase.
After going down a long flight of stairs, they get to a small hall with a door at the end, and immediately they see a hunched creature under a cape fiddling on the door.
Justin pulls his wand right away. "Stop right there!" He yells at the person.
"Yeah! Stop right there!" Alex reinforces, also pulling her wand.
The man turns around in absolute dread and backs off against the door. It's Professor Stumbler himself. His heavy glasses hang across his face, knocked by the strong impact on the door.
"Professor Stumbler! What are you doing down here?" Justin calmly asks dropping his wand while he walks closer to Stumbler.
"Yeah! What are you doing here?" Alex repeats him, only aggressively. Justin looks at her and pushes her arm down to lower her wand.
"I… was… looking for a few items… for my class." Stumbler stammers with a worried tone. "Fiendl let me in. I promise I was just taking a few chairs because the kids were complaining about sitting on cushions. I have them all here. You can look." He raises a small bag.
"Calm down, Stumbler. It's okay." Justin assures him.
"Unless you're up to something." Alex accuses. "Are you up to something shady?" She glares at him.
"N-no!… I'm not! I promise." He says straightening his glasses with shaky hands. And that brings back to Alex's mind her idea about his glasses.
She steps closer to him, staring at the glasses while moving her head up and down, side to side, checking them out for herself this time. She checks one lens, then the other, just in case they are actually made of crystal balls.
"Okay, Alex! Back off!" Justin tells her, pulling her back by the arm. "You can go, Professor. It's alright. Just give me a heads up next time you need something from down here."
"I sure will, Headmaster Russo." The man dodges Alex and quickly walks away.
Justin gives Alex a disapproval stare.
"What!?" She asks.
"Let's get in." Justin opens the heavy doors showing the inside of the room, a giant space filled with old and unused school furniture and other materials. Alex looks around, amazed by the size of it.
As they walk into the storage, following the path that takes them straight ahead along piles of old stuff, the doors slam closed behind them. The loud noise startles Alex.
"Calm down! It's just the door." Justin tells her.
"Yeah! Until it isn't!" She fires back.
Then, not far ahead, Alex sees it, back from their distant past. "Whoa!" She interjects. "Look at this. The Twelve Ball Table." She walks to it.
"Yeah. Lots of memories from this one." Justin says with a sentimental tone.
"What is it doing down here? Doesn't anyone play it anymore?"
"No! After what happened to us, Professor Crumbs brought it down here. It could create conflict between the students." Justin explains.
Alex takes one bidaddle, the two-sided paddle used to play the game, and waves it in the air. "You know, I never got it. What playing a stupid game had to do with being the most powerful wizard?"
"Well, did you really think a person could handle playing with 12 balls at once?" Justin slowly walks to the table and takes the only other bidaddle in view. "These are magical paddles. They use the magical ability of the wizard holding it to play the game. The more skilled as a wizard you are, the better you play." He says, waving the bidaddle. Then he starts looking around. "Actually, there should be a few more of these in here."
"Ohhh! Now THAT makes sense." Alex tells him.
"Really? What?"
"Yeah, I knew you couldn't be that good at a sport."
"Shut up. … Let's go. Desks are that way." Justin drops the paddle, turns around and starts walking away.
And Alex follows him. "So that settles it. You're the Wizard World's ultimate nerd."
"Shut up!" Justin repeats, raising his voice in annoyance, without looking back.
Well, after rummaging around the place they eventually find a table Alex is content with. Surely it is a big one, even bigger than Justin's desk. Not that she needs all that, it's just bother/sister rivalry.
"Proton, neutron, get gone." Justin shrinks the table so Alex can take it to her classroom. "Watch out. Don't lose any drawers." Justin hands the miniature table to Alex.
"Aww! I almost don't wanna make it big again." She answers.
"We gotta go. It's getting late." Justin tells and Alex follows him to the exit. No, she doesn't go silent. But who wants to hear her rant about how she would tell the kids there is a dungeon in the castle. You know, Juliet told her a few stories about dungeons, and she lost some time listening to them, so she could at least put them to use.
They make their way back, coming up the stairs and all the way back to the Library.
That's when, for a single second, they hear a noise all too far to realize exactly what that is, but surely enough to capture their attention. Then they hear it again, this time a very close and terrifyingly loud animal screech.
Alex turns to Justin with goggled eyes to meet his also scared gape.
"Was that a…?" She partly asks him.
"…Hippogriff!" He completes, shouting an aggravated statement.