Mixed—chapter fifteen: Magibeasts

Juniper scowled “well. According to the schedule, for Magibeasts we have a new professor, and we’ll be learning about tremor toads” 

Kael’s jaw dropped. He loved tremor toads. 

He started running down the hall to Magibeasts study. Me and Juniper ran to catch up. 

We opened the door to see the professor, a tall, lengthy, man with jet black hair slicked back into a short ponytail, he was wearing a suit and tie as well as his school Neckerchief. 

His was Blue and white, indicating he was a blue stone. Keal had one just like it, but he never tied it properly. 

Juniper had a purple and magenta one, tied to her wrist or used to pin up her hair. 

No idea how that works though. 

Floating above the Professor’s desk was a metal cage, based on the thumping noise, that’s where the toads were. 

On the board there was his name written in big bold letters. 

Professor Thorne 

“Interesting name” Kael said, eyeing the metal cage avidly.

The man turned, he didn’t look as cold as I imagined actually. He looked happy and had a mustache? I didn’t see that from the side.

He smiled warmly “welcome!” He then looked at Kael who was still looking at the toads “you like tremor toads, boy?” He asked 

Kael nodded vigorously, still watching the cage. 

“Want to have a closer look?” The Professor asked 

Kael's eyes widened “er— yes” he said finally looking at the professor, who just smiled and beckoned him over. 

While me and Juniper found our seats and saved one for Kael in the middle. 

We watched in confusion as Kael watched the Tremor toads. 

“So as you can see, they don’t cause earthquakes every time they hop, just when you scare them. It helps—”

“Fend off predators, and help them find food by scaring bugs out of their homes, it can also cause a mini earthquake to warn the other toads through vibrations” Kael finished 

“Brilliant boy!” the professor said in amazement 

“But I have also learned that if you tickle their stomachs— Professor. Can I demonstrate?” 

“That’s what the lesson is going to be about, so, sure!” The professor said, intrigued 

“So,” Kael grabbed the toad and tickled its stomach “you have about three seconds before—”

The toad started vibrating like crazy, Kael laughed. 

The professor held out his wand “Tranquash!” He said. The toad didn’t croak, instead it seemed to say

 “Squish squash” 

then fell asleep, and so did the rest in the cage. “Woah neat wand!” Kael said, putting the sleeping toad back “where’d you get it?” 

The professor locked the cage “got it from a small shop not too far from here called ‘Spellwood and Oak. It’s a lovely place, run by a little fat man, when you start your fifth year you’ll go there, pretty neat eh?” 

“Really neat!” Kael said, adjusting his neckerchief to look the way it’s supposed to. 

Juniper shook her head “he’s such a nerd” 

“We all are” I corrected 

“Nuh uh not me! I hate study— wait… I did say I liked studying.. didn’t I?” 

I nodded “yeah you did” 

“The world really is ending” she said in disbelief, Kael turned and walked back and put his stuff onto the chair we saved for him. 

Professor Hex, the spellbounds teacher for the fifth year peeked his head in, his messy unkept hair reaching his shoulders and almost covering his face. His beard was shorter, and it was about one-hundred times neater than his hair, which surprisingly was turning purple. 

Professor Thorne turned slowly to the door, “what?” 

“I cast the wrong spell and it ricocheted off my mirror and blew up! I barely avoided it from hitting my beard! The hair.. was unlucky I s’pose” he said looking up as each curl slowly turned purple. “I need a towel” 

Professor Thorne passed him a towel and he dabbled at his hair until it was no longer wet and the purple went away. “You’re a life saver. Thanks professor Thor’” he walked out 

“It’s Thorne! T H O R N— aw forget it” professor thorne said. 

Then Seraphina walked in with her friends, other perfect stones. She couldn’t deal with them otherwise. 

Nyx and Elias followed behind her. Elias turned and waved to us, Nyx shielded her face away from us. Embarrassed to be with Elias and Seraphina. 

Seraphina grabbed his arm “Come on” she demanded 

Elias, being the gentleman he is let her. “Don’t tell me what to do” he grumbled 

Nyx turned “yeah he’s a white! That’s more than yellow!—”

Seraphina turned sharply and Nyx shut up.  

Elias turned to her, Nyx. His twin sister obviously, “just go with it I guess, we’re doing it for—”

“I know. A good cause. Because we need behind the scene—”

“Shh!” Elias snapped “she’ll hear you!” 

Nyx nodded 

“After this we go to the others right?” She whispered 

Elias nodded “I think we’ve got enough from this mean git” 

Nyx looked back at us “what about them?” 

“Dunno what they’re like” Elias said looking at my pocket “but we’ll talk to them” 

I wondered what they were talking about, I couldn’t hear a single thing they had said. But Elias looking at my pocket?  It made me uneasy.

Throughout Magibeasts I couldn’t focus, I kept seeing Elias look to the door. Then over at me, was he planning something? 

Kael on the other hand was glaring at that box of toads, wondering when it’d be opened. Juniper was taking notes— with even better handwriting than Kael. Which was unusual to say the least.