Bagsy Beetlehorn and the Inferno Conscription (The Bagsy Chronicles 3)

Weeping Weeds

Emmeline's jaw clenched hard and she turned very slowly to look at Kat.

'What?' Kat said. 'This feud has been going on long enough. It's getting old, Emmeline, and we're getting too old to behave like toddlers.'

Emmeline's eyes flicked back to Bagsy. 'You go and tell Greenda that I have to ask the commentator not to single her out because her flying is so weak and she's so fragile that one wrong comment will squash the tiny chance of her getting within a mile of the snitch! Oh, and, unlike her, I don't feel the need to share our business with the rest of the school like some degenerate gossip!'

Bagsy, finding her fight or flight instinct kicking in, nodded sheepishly and hurried away to do just that.

Greenda had some choice words for Bagsy to take back to Emmeline.

By the time Greenda and Emmeline had gone to bed, Bagsy had found herself running from one end of the common room to the other more than she could count. Her legs ached from the constant movement and exhaustion tugged at her limbs, but she still had to work on her studies, on the weather machine, on her plan to get the weeping weeds from the forbidden forest and on how to stop Greenda and Emmeline being such foolish children to each other.

As she downed another exhaust-gone and felt her body move into unconsciousness her deep frustration at her situation grew like an inferno. When she woke up minutes later, her body feeling awake and alive, she set to her tasks with a furious vigour, determined to complete everything she'd set her mind to.

Come Herbology on Friday, Bagsy hadn't slept a single night. Exhaust-gone wasn't particularly hard to brew, and she had so much that needed to be done that sleep had become a luxury she couldn't afford.

'Are you okay, Bagsy?' Arice asked as they neatly laced aluminium foil into the soil around where they'd planted their clostra boab.

'Why wouldn't I b-be?' Bagsy asked, struggling to focus on what was in front of her as her eyes kept drifting to the sides and hazing her vision.

'You keep twitching.'

'Do I?' Bagsy asked, forcing her mind to pay attention. Sure enough, every few minutes or so her hands would give a small shudder and her shoulders would jerk minutely up or down. 'Guess so,' she murmured, forcing down a yawn. She must need to take another exhaust-gone, she decided. 'Give me one second,' she said, lying down on the dirt, her tiredness banishing any shame she may have felt.

'Bagsy!' Arice exclaimed in confusion. Bagsy quickly took a few sips of a vial of exhaust-gone, she always kept a few in one of the many pockets of her school robes, and allowed herself to pass out. Two minutes later she woke up, feeling fresh and ready to work.

The second the fog of sleep cleared from her mind, it hit Bagsy that now was her only chance to get the zout she needed – the zout that she reckoned was the liquid the weeping weeds gave off. It only made sense, after all. The weeds would cry until their name was remembered – therefore, the thing they cried must be something they hoped could restore memories so that, one day, they could know what they were called. And, once they recalled what their name was, they would stop crying, because they would no longer have need for it. If Bagsy was right, that meant that zout had the ability to help single something out in a person – their memory – and effect it. This made sense given it was the key in the phoenix quelling potion, which isolated an innate ability and effected it.

'Arice,' Bagsy said in a low voice, 'about that favour...'

'What do you need?' Arice asked, stilling his work on the soil.

'I need you to distract Wattleseed for me, and not freak out when I do what I'm about to do.'

Arice frowned. 'What are you about to do?'