Jozua
April 09, 2018 2:08 PM
Oh, I thought of a new worst by Jozua
He wasn’t getting expelled, not now, not later. That was good. More baffling, however, was that there was no blame at all, no punishment. He looked at her in confusion and wiped at the wetness on his face. He was at least calm now. Confused, but calm and rational again.That was when he saw the owl. He didn’t know how he missed him before. Sparky was the furthest thing from nondescript. “Sparky?” he questioned, even more confused for a moment until it all became clear. Oh. Of course. Dad was the one would need to pay the fine and damages. Jozua was still a minor. And that made a lot more sense than expelling him. No wonder Professor Skies had seemed taken aback by his question. Even when Grandad burned down half the town, the aurors deemed it an accident and he just had to deal with civil suits not criminal ones. And Jozua had brought the disease in by accident.
He wondered if the inventor’s insurance would cover any of it. Probably not. Well, some of the damages maybe, that was what that was for, but grandad always had to pay the fines himself when he wreaked havoc on the town. Jozua grimaced. Except this hadn’t been an experiment, and he wasn’t sure if his name had been added to the policy over the summer or not.
And there probably weren’t a lot of damages anyway. Fever potions didn’t cost that much and he didn’t know of any property damage from accidental magic that couldn’t just be magicked back to normal. And he wasn’t sure how much he’d be liable for that kind of thing anyway. It would probably be fine. Dad might be happier paying it out of pocket then have another premium increase so soon after the house exploding anyway.
He held out an arm and Sparky landed on it. Eagle owls were big, so he had to brace himself against the chair a bit, but had done this often enough that he barely noticed the extra effort. “Hey, boy,” he said, stroking the owl’s feathers. The comforting motion and Sparky’s familiar presence made him feel better than he had since lunch.
To Professor Skies’ words, he admitted, looking more at his owl than her and continuing to pet the bright feathers, “I’ve been better. I mean, I want to protect people from the bad stuff when I grow up but now I’ve been the one to bring in the bad stuff.” There were clear mitigating factors, even he could see that, but it didn’t change the fact that he was the one that got his friends and classmates sick.
That it was, once again, the Sparks who sparked it off.
Then a new horrible thought came to him, a new theory as to why his owl was in the Deputy Headmistress’ office when she called for him to ‘make sure he was okay’, and he drew back, looking at first Sparky then Professor Skies in alarm. “Grandad didn’t accidentally create this disease, did he?” he asked with horrified dread. The eldest Sparks had been trying to invent new medical charms all summer . . . it wasn’t a huge jump from there to causing medical problems.
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