Zoey pulled her long aubrun hair up into a high ponytail as to make sre it didn't touch any of the potion once she started brewing. She closed her eyes and prayed she wouldn't need to be the volunteer. Surprisingly when she opened them, another girl had raised her hand in eagerness. Zoey was taken aback by her for a moment.
I wish I could be this eager over Potions, but she wasn't. She didn't mind it any, she loved learning. It was the fact that, if she did it wrong, she would be humiliated, and that was something she hated the most. Her shyness always ruled her life. Luckily she was able to get over it when she played sports.
She looked around the room, hoping to find someone who hadn't a partner yet. Zoey was self-conscious about her looks. She was tall for a girl, something she was constantly picked on, and she hadn't the freckles that splashed across her face. She sighed as she looked. Finally her hazel eyes fell on a girl sitting by herself. Zoey stood and gathered her things, hoping this girl would want to be partners with her.
"Er-hi, I'm Zoey Welsh from Aladren House. Would you like to be partners?" \n\n
Leann looked at the tall girl who was asking to be her partner. Perhaps this wasn't going to be so scary of a school after all.
"Sure! And I'm in Aladren too." She said, and stared up at her.
"Your really tall...I wish I was taller, but everyone in my family are really short so I'll probably turn out like them. Your lucky..." She said, hoping Zoey wouldn't get mad at her.\n\n
Zoey flung herself down in the chair beside the girl, a smile clearly displayed across her freckled face.
"Ugh, I hate being tall. The doctor told me that I'd be at least 6'0 by the time I stop growing. I mean, I'm 5'7 now and only eleven! Dillon, my brother, will be the tallest in our family. My older brothers are upet with me because their one and only little sister can do slam dunks with the basketball and they can't." She laughed when she thought about that, "Quite funny actually..." She turned to face Leann,
"Aladren, huh? So far I've met Zack and Layla from our house and now you." Zoey shrugged, "Now, onto the potion, do you know how to do this sort of thing? I'm what you call a muggleborn, so I have no idea what some of these ingredients are." Zoey said with a disgusted face as she eyed the ingredients. \n\n
"Yep, I'm a muggle-born to, so I'm just as lost. Did I introduce myself? I can't even remember, but incase I didn't, my name is Leann. Anyway..."
She eyed the board hoping a finished potion would simply pop out of it. Sadly, this didn't happen.
"Potions is complicated...and nasty." She said, she too eying the ingrediants with a disgusted look on her face. She opened her book and started flipping to page 12.
Zoey chuckled lightly at Leann's comment about potions. She was right though, some of these ingredients were disgusting. Eye of Newt, what is an Eye of Newt anyway? Frog spawn, nargles, crushed dragon hide?
Zoey shuddered slightly when she touched some of the ingredients, the frog spawn was slimy. She made a disgruntled sound from the back of her throat.
"This is nasty! How can people stand it?" Zoey asked, turning her head to see Leann's reaction to all of it.\n\n
Leann was still eyeing the food, wary of the sliminess of the frog spawn.
"Ok, it says cut the frog spawn into pieces and put it into your cauldron, then stir counterclockwise 22 times. Great...that means we have to touch this stuff..." Leann said with a shudder. She wasn't a girly girl, she just didn't like touching stuff like frog spawn...\n\n
Zoey head whirled when Leann said she'd have to touch this stuff.
"We have to what?" She said, although she heard her clearly. She eyed the stuff again before taking a deep breath and grabbing it. Picking up the knife she looked at Leann, "Okay, I'll cut it and put it in and you stir it, is that a deal?"\n\n
"Perfect. Ok, after that, we have to put in these things called nargles...what are those?" She asked Zoey, happy with the fact she wasn't touching the ingriediants.\n\n
"Nargles? I don't even know what a Newt is and apparently they are common. I would think a nargle is a plant, but I could be wrong." She said with a shrug.
Zoey, who's concentration had been on the frog spawn, slipped and so did the spawn. Right out of her hand and onto the floor.
"Ummm...we'll just pretend that never happened." Leann laughed. "Oh wait, here's a picture of nargles..." She said, pointing to a picture at the bottom of page 12. Oh, well, they don't look that bad. Better then Grog spawn or eye of newt." She said, laughing once more.\n\n
Zoey laughed with Leann while she picked up the spawn and cleaned it off as best she could with the sleeve of her robes.
"There, good as new." She started cutting again and then dropped what she had done into the cauldron. It immediately started to boil and Zoey made a quick intake of breath, "Whoa, wasn't expecting that kind of a reaction. I hope that was normal." She smiled nervously, "Er-your turn to stir."\n\n
Zoey was watching the cauldron with interest. It was changing colors right before her eyes, going from a nice light shade of blue to a nice light shade of...green, GREEN?
"Oh no, its green, is that green?" Zoey started to panic, "I think that's green. What do we do?" Her voice raising with her panic.\n\n
"Er...I don't know!" Leann said, scanning the book frantically and quickly, as if the potion had a bomb set to explode any minute.
"Ohhhh...wait a minute, sorry, my fault. You where supposed to stir it for 2 minutes after you put the nargles in. Jeez, you'd think I knew how to read after 11 years, wouldn't you?" She said, fighting the impulse to hit herself over the head.\n\n
Zoey, face bright red beneath her freckles, took deep breaths to calm her racing heart. She was embarrassed for panicking the way she did, but she couldn't help it. Panic attacks when it came to things like school were common for Zoey. She hadn't the idea of failure.
"Sorry for the panic. I was just a little worry that's all. Anyway, nice save." Zoey gave Leann a small smile, her heart was still beating awefully fast. "What does the book say we have to do now?"\n\n
"Okay..eww...the eye of newt goes in now, then we have to let it settle for 5 minutes. It should change the colour brown..." Leann said in answer to Zoey's question.\n\n
Zoey frowned in disgust at the mention of the newt. At some point she'll have to read up on what exactly that was...
"I touched those frog spawn, you can touch the eye of newt. That way, we can both be equally disgusted and smelling of old, rotten, dead things." Zoey said with a large smile and turned to look at Leann\n\n
Zoey chuckled lightly as Leann stuck her tongue out her. In return, she made a face right back. Now she sat and waited for the potion to do what it was suppose to do. What that was, Zoey hadn't a clue.
To waste the time that they had to wait, Zoey decided to get to know Leann,
"So, where are you from originally and what do you think about all this magic business?" She asked her as she leaned her auburn, freckled head on her hand.\n\n
"Well, I'm from Florida. I have one sister, Jessica. And as for the magic, well, it's still very surprising. I haven't gotten used to it yet. I'm not sure I ever will. The food, the wands, the talking portraits, the whole MAGIC, it's very confusing."
"What about you? Where are you from. And what do you, Zoey, think of all this magic??"\n\n
Zoey sat for a moment to think about it. She didn't really know what to think about magic. It was so confusing for her. She was used to having logic behind everything. Which is probably why she loved math and science so much. Everything could be explained.
"I'm from Vermont. Complete opposite ends of America, we are." She said with a laugh, "Which means that this type of climate you are probably more used to than I am. In the carriage, I thought I'd die of heat stroke or something. It's a good thing this castle isn't so stifling as I thought it would be." She smiled over at Leann.
"As for the magic, I'm not really sure how I feel about it. I mean, it's so cool because it's like my dream come true. But, at the same time, it's kind of scary. There is no logical explanation for any of this. I know it's just another part of us, but still, I need someone to explain to me exactly how it all works." She sighed, "I don't know, it's the nerd in me I suppose." \n\n