Lombardus: The Trident Clown

Chapter 18 ☬

Take a cholocate
Oops, you just read that wrong, mate
Gran wears a suit. Hate!

I WAS DRAMATIC.

After my great discovery, I expected the Carringtons to burst into a smattering of applause. Then they would gasp, adulate, grovel at my feet, weep and even serenade my discovery. I was expecting them to be utterly stupefied. 

To my dismay, Luke, who seemed to have forgotten his wheezy predicament, sneezed. I suspected there was more to that gesture than sneezing alone. I didn't say anything. He was trying to mock me. I won't give him the satisfaction.

"How are you so certain that's a peppermint plant?" Luke's lips quivered, disappointing the sober facade he was trying to pull off.

"Because I know," I frowned. "I've seen my dad use them prepare menthol ingredients in the lab." I refused to tell them that my said dad was lost at sea, and that I could recognized the plant only because I was seriously allergic to peppermints. 

Sheesh… My little secrets.

"So?" My dear friend, Luke, said.

"So, clearly I recognize the plant, doofus. Isn't it, Rupert?"

All eyes fell on the poor guy, expecting him to identify the plant. He merely shrugged.

Shrugging at a situation like that is blasphemy to Apollo, the god of archery, light, music, poetry, prophecy, medicine and many others. Medicine in this context. 

How could Rupert be unable to identify a herb as hot as peppermint when he's been living with it his entire life?

An action as indifferent as a shrug is profanity to Asclepius, the god of doctors, healing and medicine who's far more skilled medically than his dad, Apollo.

There's only one way to be sure it's peppermint, I thought: If only someone could volunteer to nibble the leaves and tell us what he or she tastes.

The challenging question of the day is: Who will be the guinea pig?

☬☬☬

NOBODY WANTED TO ACT THE LAB RAT.

Who with wits would willingly want to eat a poisoned whole-wheated whitebread? A peppermint plant, in this case.

"This isn't a poisonous plant, guys. Trust me." I convinced them. Or I tried.

"No way!" Rupert was the first to edge back. For someone physically large and hard as iron, he was a high-strung milksop.

"How are you sure it's not, can you perceive poison by simply looking at a plant?" Luke asked.

I opened my mouth to respond only to get interrupted. Gah! I hate being interrupted.

"Why don't you do it?" Lucy challenged, her eyes gleaming with the intensity of a gleeful witch.

Although I was a thrill-seeker, I discovered there's nothing thrilling about chewing a poisonous plant and dying. I would be thrown into one of those big dumpsters and that's that. My mom would be devastated.