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“This is so unfair!”, Viney thought when she was escorted by Principal Bump to the detention track. “All I wanted to do is to help people. And have beloved Puddles on my side as animalistic assistance.”. She had tried to mix Healing-Magic with Beast-Keeping-Magic, what was forbidden not only at Hexside, but on the whole Boiling Isles.
“So Viney, this is the detention track, where it is forbidden, to perform magic in any way. Here with your classmates, you can think about the problems you caused. If you stay proper, you can enrol at one other track in the upcoming semester.”, Bump said and looked up. He saw that the teacher, that was detached to be the watchdogs for the delinquents, was asleep. Bump let out a loud cough that led to a confused awakening by the teacher who mumbled: “Who was that? What happened? Eh, oh Principal Bu..”. “Here a new one. Her name is Viney.” Bump cut him off and closed the door immediately after he had finished his sentence.
Viney looked irritated into the room: The teacher with blue skin and three pairs of eyes sat on a chair and pointed to the first line of desks for the students. “Welcome to detention Viney. Now please sit down and be quiet.”, he said. She looked at the two other students that where sitting there: A tall and thin guy with brown hair and a dog-boy with brown fur and glasses. While she was looking at them, she realised, their school uniforms were grey, which she assumed was the colour of the detention track. She looked down on herself and realized, her own uniform changed to grey as well. “Must’ve happened, when I walked into the room” she thought. She sat down and wanted to introduce herself: “Hey, I’m Vin…”, but the tall guy put his index finger on his lips and gave a note, that said: “Wait until he sleeps again.”.
After a few Minutes the teacher went back to fully sleep. The tall guy whispered: “He always sleeps. As long as we’re not too loud, we can do, what we want. I’m Jerbo.”. The dog-boy barked. “This is Barcus.”, Jerbo translated, “It takes a moment to learn to understand him, but not too much.”. “I’m Viney. So, why are you guys here?”. Jerbo answered: “Well we were both mixing magic from different tracks. Barcus tried Oracle-Magic and Potions, I did Plant-Magic and Abominations. Didn’t turn out so well. How about you?” Viney smiled, when she heard, that both guys had the same problem like her. “I tried to combine Healing-Magic with beast-keeping.”, she answered. Barcus barked. “One of us!”, Jerbo translated for Viney. “That’s so unfair! We get punished for wanting to learn more!”, she replied. The teacher woke up by her words, leaved his chair and said: “Well, if you think, this is punishment, I guess I have to find something new. Look at the corner. All three of you now take the mops and the wipes and clean the room.”. He drew a circle that made the cleaning equipment appear and watched until the three students took one part of it and sat down again, when they started to work.
After a few moments, the teacher slept again. Viney asked the others: “So, is this all we do here?”. “Only, when we wake him up”, Jerbo answered. “And when he doesn’t sleep?”, Viney asked. “Well mostly we talked about what we learned in the other tracks. Now we can hear things about Healing and Best-Keeping.”, Jerbo answered. Barcus barked something to add. “And you can learn something about Oracle-Magic, Potions, Abominations or Plant-Magic.”, Jerbo translated and added by himself: “If you want to.” Viney thought about it for a second and answered: “Sure, why not. But I don’t know, how much we can teach each other, especially when we can’t even perform the Magic.”.
She wiped about one of the floor’s flagstones, when she realized, that it a bit loose. She looked to the teacher and after she made sure, that he was still asleep, she tried to lift the flagstone. Under the flagstone was a hole with a sheet of paper and a piece of chalk. She took both and read the text on the paper. “To those, who find this magic devise. If you have been put here because you had too much fun in learning, you can use this key to open a door to our secret room of shortcuts, where you can find ways to all classes of Hexside.”, it said.
Viney went to the guys and showed them what she had found. “Hmm, where is this door?”, Jerbo asked. “I don’t know.”, Viney answered, when Barcus started to bark. Jerbo answered: “You are wright buddy.”. Viney wanted to know, what he said and Jerbo pointed to the board. “Off course. Where else do you use chalk?”, said Viney when she slapped her forehead.
She drew a square on the board and all of them waited for something to happen. “Maybe it’s just a prank?”, Jerbo whispered more like he thought to himself. Barcus barked again. “Maybe the door isn’t finished.”, Jerbo translated. Viney added a doorknob to the drawing, but nothing happened. “We may need a lock for it.”, Jerbo suggested. After she drew a lock on the door, still nothing happened. Just when they all began to feel disappointed, Viney remembered, that the chalk was called a key in the text. She erased the doorknob and drew a bigger keyhole, pointed the piece of chalk on it and spun it like a key.
Then it happened, the square opened a hole into the board and led into a small dark corridor. Viney looked towards the two boys. “Ladies first”, Jerbo said, while he gestured towards the door. Viney nodded and after all of them had looked towards the teachers and had seen, that he was still asleep, she climbed into the corridor. She looked around and told the others to follow her. They went through the corridor and walked into next room.
The next room offered an amazing sight: innumerable amounts of doors on the walls and the ground. They looked up and realized, that the room was almost a small tower that went above several floors.
“What do you think is behind those?”, Jerbo asked. “Well, there is only one way to find out, isn’t it?”, Viney answered. Alle three of them went to another door and opened it a little bit, while they sneaked a little bit into the rooms. When they closed the doors again, they told each other what they had seen. “My door went into the hallway.”, Viney said. Barcus barked a little bit, which was translated by Jerbo: “He saw the Illusion-Class, but he had to act careful, that no one noticed him. My door went to Foto-Class, I think, but there was no class, only the pictures were hanging above the desks.”. Viney looked around: “Do you know, what this is? This is not a hideout; this is a room for shortcuts.”. “The Secret Room of shortcuts.”, Jerbo added.
Barcus let an insecure barking hear. “He asks, who made it.”, Jerbo translated. “I don’t know, but whoever it was, must have been very powerful.”, Viney answered. Viney looked at the boys: “Guys, do you know, what we can do here?”. Both looked clueless, so she continued: “We have a secret room, were we can get a glimpse of every class in Hexside, no one misses us in the detention track and we have no tasks to do, that we someone would control. Instead of learning nothing, we could get a glimpse of everything and learn what we want in all combinations we want.”.
The boys looked to each other and nodded. “That’s brilliant!”, Jerbo said. Then he looked towards the right side and asked: “Hey what’s that?”. There was something, that once was a portrait, but other people seem to have painted over it. A small inscription told them, that this was the founding student of this room. They looked at the other names. “Should we sign too?”, Jerbo asked. The others nodded and the boys drew circles in the air which led to appearing their names on the wall. They looked at Viney. “What about you? One of us?”, Barcus asked. “Off Course!”, answered Viney. Just when she had appeared her Name on the wall, she realized, that she had understood Barcus without Jerbo needing to translate.
By the way the boys smiled at her, she knew, both of them realized the same. She smiled, too and thought, that things could have gotten way worse and that this way of detention might be the best thing ever happened to them.