Starrett ended the lesson there, despite Bagsy's protests. She'd snapped that she'd never assist Bagsy again if she didn't get out of her hair, to which Bagsy had swiftly exited the Charms room. She had been so stunned because it had seemed that she'd cast a spell, and a powerful looking one at that. She was so shocked that as she walked down the halls she forgot what it was she needed to do.
When she saw Killian and Fiona sitting in one of the windows overlooking the courtyard, each flicking through a copy of Witchment Enrichment, it came jolting back to her. All thoughts of having cast a spell pushed from her mind.
Still in her quidditch gear, Bagsy dumped her bags next to Fiona. 'Can you watch these for me?'
Fiona said, 'Sure.'
'Also, I need page four from those,' she added awkwardly. 'Please.'
After some convincing, Killian and Fiona tore the pages out and handed them to Bagsy, who sprinted off, forcing thaumaturgy into her exhausted legs.
She scouted the library, tearing papers from student's hands, before doing rounds of the great hall, the areas around each common room, and even the few students who had been brave enough to sit outside in the cold.
Soon, she had a massive collection of crumpled newspapers messily held in her arms. With difficulty, she knocked on the door of the girl's toilet, where she expected Mezrielda to be. 'It's me!'
She heard someone get up and walk over to the door. The next second, Mezrielda was looking at her with a sour expression. Evidently, she'd found out what had been in the most recent edition of Witchment Enrichment.
In a second, though, her expression changed to puzzled. 'What are you doing?'
'Want to burn these?' said Bagsy.
Despite how she must be feeling, Mezrielda's lips quirked upwards disobediently. 'To quote a dear friend; oh, merlin, yes.'
From then on, Bagsy tried her hardest to stay at Mezrielda's side. When she didn't, her friend often returned to her with "blood mouth" written on the back of her robe in white sticking-chalk, or with stories of people shoving her or calling her names.
'This is getting ridiculous,' Bagsy complained. 'We should tell a teacher.'
'No. That will only make it worse.'
'Are you sure?'
'Yes. I bet you half, if not more, of the teachers agree with those students. Vampires aren't popular beings even among adults.'
'Still...'
Mezrielda fixed her with a look. 'I don't want to tell the teachers.'
Bagsy left the subject there.
She often heard people talking about Mezrielda the bloodmouth. In fact, after Tod had started publishing her horoscopes, it was more common for Bagsy to have people asking her if Mezrielda drank her blood than if she had a premonition for them. That was why for once, Bagsy couldn't allow herself to postpone the confrontation.
The day after she found out about the article, she cornered Tod in a corridor as he was making his way to breakfast. From the resignation on his face, he knew what was coming.
'Go on ahead, Hamley,' he told his friend, who walked off.
'Didn't you learn your lesson the first time?' Bagsy hissed. 'You shouldn't go writing stories like that without people's permission.'
'Calm down,' Tod responded, looking her up and down as if her emotions were a stain on her clothes. 'Think about it from my perspective. My value to my family was the influence my power allowed me to wield over other people. My power is gone, and so is my influence. To be valuable to my family I needed to find something to substitute that power. Witchment Enrichment is doing just that.'
'Yes!' Bagsy raged. 'At the expense of your friends! Mezrielda is being constantly degraded because of what people think about vampires. As if Vampire Affairs wasn't enough, now there's a school paper encouraging students to target her.'
Tod shook his head, letting out a sharp breath. 'You're such a hypocrite. You're starring in Vampire Affairs, or had your little Hufflepuff brain forgotten that?'
Bagsy glared balefully at him. 'Mezrielda and I were meant to be your friends. I just don't understand why you'd do this.'
Tod folded his arms and regarded her as if she was stupid. 'In order for me to have influence people need to want to read my paper. If the students want horoscopes and speculation about vampire students, then that's what I'll give to them. It's as I said; I need that influence to be of worth as an Alden.'
'And what about your worth as a friend?'
'Tell me, then; you expect me to refuse to write the obvious stories because I owe it to you and Mezrielda?'
Pointing angrily at Tod, Bagsy took a step forward. 'I expect you not to cause us to be bullied.'
Anger twisted the usual crooked smirk on Tod's face. 'You told me our friendship wasn't transactional. I thought I didn't owe you anything.'
'Well maybe I lied!' Bagsy burst out. 'You'll have to excuse me because maybe, just maybe, I thought that by being friends we both owed each other respect.'
There was a moment of silence. Tod's hand twitched, as if he wanted to reach for his wand. 'You lied. I was right. Everything in this world is a transaction. Including our friendship. Plain and simple.'
Bagsy shook her head in revulsion, moving away from Tod. 'No,' she murmured ruefully. 'Our friendship isn't transactional.'
'Then what would you call it?'
'Gone,' she said plainly. 'You're not even sorry. You'd do it again.' Tod had enough shame to look away. Bagsy gaped at him in horror. 'And you are going to do it again, aren't you?'
'My readers want to hear about what's going on. A potential vampire amongst the students is a good story. It's a good set of stories.'
'I can't believe you.' Bagsy turned to leave, but Tod took a few steps, closing the distance between them.
He reached out and took a hold of her elbow. 'Look, if I wanted to hurt Mezrielda I could have easily confirmed in the article that her parents are vampires. Right now, all people have are rumours about two pale adults that took Mezrielda home before Christmas, but I've actually seen where they live. Only vampires can live in registered vampire lairs. With a few edits to the story, I could have let everyone know their suspicions were correct. But I didn't.'
Bagsy snatched her arm out of his grip. 'How generous,' she drawled, before walking away as quickly as she could. As far as she was concerned, the conversation was done.
It had left her feeling hollow, but it had also left her with a question; what had Tod meant by a registered vampire lair?
At its mention, Mezrielda looked very upset indeed. It was a shame because, when Bagsy brought it up, they had been working on their garden in practical Herbology. The windchime flowers that let out comforting tones helped Mezrielda relax, but even so, the mention of vampire lairs seemed one too horrid for even the calming hues and smells of their herbology garden to quell.
'Bagsy,' Mezrielda said, grabbing her trowel tightly and practically stabbing the ground as she made space for a frumple, a tree that produced at least five different types of fruit. 'Do you know what the inexcusables list is?'
Not liking the sound of that, Bagsy shook her head. 'What is it?'
Mezrielda shoved the tree into the hole she'd excavated and began shovelling soil around it. 'It's a list of magical beings that the Ministry of Magic deem inexcusable.'
Bagsy's hands stilled. She'd been twining leafy vines through a lattice fence she'd erected around the perimeter of the garden. 'Inexcusable? What does that mean? How can a creature be inexcusable?'
'Good question. For the Ministry of Magic, it means that simply existing whilst being a certain magical being is itself an inexcusable crime.'
Sitting back and putting her hands on her thighs, Bagsy looked at Mezrielda for a long moment. 'You're kidding.'
'No.'
Bagsy tried to find some acceptable explanation for why the Ministry would do that. 'Perhaps the creatures on that list are all really evil and dangerous. Maybe there's a good reason they're called inexcusable.'
'They tried to put vampires on that list,' Mezrielda shot back hotly.
Bagsy's face paled.
'Indeed. Before I was born, things were different for vampires. Not great, but a lot better. My parents were the luckiest. They had jobs and ambitions and a future and enough money to get by. Then there was an incident. Supposedly, a vampire broke the Ministry's rules and turned someone else into a vampire as well.' Mezrielda shook her head in anger. 'I bet you it was consensual or necessary, but the Ministry twisted events to suit their narrative. They ran with it and began to petition for vampires to be added to the inexcusable list.'
'What happens to creatures on the inexcusable list?'
Casting her a sideways look, Mezrielda finished planting the frumple tree. 'The Ministry take them in. Apparently, they're kept in good conditions to live out the rest of their life in isolation from the rest of society.' She scoffed. 'I've never heard such drivel. I bet you they do one thing with the inexcusables they take in; terminate them.'
Frowning, Bagsy found she wasn't so sure about that. Surely the Ministry wouldn't just arrest vampires and kill them? It seemed a little too evil. Then again, kidnapping and imprisoning vampires on its own was bad enough.
'My parents lost everything fighting the legislation,' Mezrielda continued, sprinkling water over the newly planted fledgling tree. 'Their jobs, their money, everything. But at least they succeeded. To this day vampires remain off the inexcusables list. Being a vampire currently isn't a crime.'
'That's incredible that your parents did that.'
Mezrielda puffed her chest out a bit. 'Yes. It is. But it didn't come for free. The Ministry hit vampires with a litany of new rules they had to follow. Having a gargoyle companion was banned, all vampires had to be registered, and hiring a vampire in your establishment became illegal unless you had a permit.'
Bagsy winced. 'Ouch.'
'That permit costs more than most people's houses to get,' Mezrielda elaborated. 'Worst of all, vampires are only allowed to live in government sanctioned vampire lairs. Every vampire lair the government has approved of has insurmountable upkeep costs.' As if feeling the chill on her skin, Mezrielda wrapped her arms around herself. 'It's no accident Vespite Manor is in such a state of disrepair. My parents try their hardest but there's only so much they can do as two people. Two people who, I might remind you, have no chance of getting a job and no money to hire other people to help them.'
Shaking her head, Bagsy felt a weight of resignation weigh heavily on her shoulders like a sodden cloak. 'The Ministry stacked the deck against them. They didn't want to give them a chance.'
Mezrielda gave a bitter laugh. 'At least they can't take them away and lock them up just for existing. At least being a vampire isn't on its own a crime.' Her gaze grew dark. 'But just think. When all the students around us grow up, having absorbed shows like Vampire Affairs and newspapers like Witchment Enrichment, they'll be so convinced vampires are evil will people like Palid and Dantura be able to convince them to vote in their favour? Or will the government finally get what it wants and make them disappear?'
It was suddenly a lot colder outside.
'It's not fair,' Bagsy murmured, wiping the tears that were forming in her eyes away.
'No. It's not.'
'I'm... I'm sorry for crying,' Bagsy let out softly, finding more tears than she expected.
Mezrielda reached out and put a hand on her shoulder. 'Never apologise for crying. At least, not to me.'
Bagsy looked at her with wide, miserable eyes. 'But it's your pain, not mine. It's not right that I cry when...' She swallowed thickly. 'When you can't.'
Mezrielda's grip tightened. 'It's precisely because I can't cry that you must never apologise for it.'
Bagsy was walking back to the Hufflepuff common room when she spotted something strange. Greenda and Emmeline was standing off to the side in the small alcove before the steps that led down towards the common room. They didn't look too pleased with each other, but instead of there being annoyance or outright anger, it looked more like they were unsure of how to talk, as if they were floating in a boat between one island of 'we hate each other' and another of 'everything's fine now'.
Shrugging her shoulders tiredly, Emmeline descended the steps, disappearing into the dim light below.
'Bagsy!' Greenda said abruptly, her face lighting up. 'I was about to go find you!'
'That's lucky, then,' Bagsy commented, walking over. She nodded in Emmeline's direction. 'What's that all about?'
'I did some thinking after I spoke with you and Mezrielda before. I realised that, this year especially, I've been a bit...' She shifted awkwardly on her feet. 'Controlling. Perhaps being head girl got to me. I've been trying to tell Emmeline what she can and can't do all year, and about something very personal, too.'
'Her trying to help Primrose,' Bagsy checked.
'Yeah. Which is why I need to ask for your forgiveness again.'
'Why? What did you do?'
'You know how you asked me to do you that favour? To go and see the Rocketing Unicorns match?'
'Yeah?'
'I might have offered to tickets to Emmeline instead – to help her get Primrose more interested in quidditch.'
Bagsy gaped at Greenda. 'You gave the tickets away!?'
'I'm really sorry! I know you asked me to go and see the match but I realised that by giving them to Emmeline I'd be showing her that, even if I disagree, she can do what she wants to. I also thought it might actually help her with Primrose. I overheard Kat talking about how surprised she was that Primrose stopped being mean for fear of being kicked off the team. I honestly think if she hadn't seen the match over the holidays she wouldn't have cared enough to stick around. Instead, she suddenly seems passionate about something, and... well. I'm sorry. I wanted to ask you but you weren't here and I wasn't entirely sure where you'd gone for the holidays.'
Bagsy shook her head, struggling for words. 'I'm not upset. Not in the slightest! I think that was a very kind thing of you to do. Especially since I know how much you love the Rocketing Unicorns.'
'I know,' Greenda lamented miserably. 'I'll never get a chance like that again... but it was worth it.'
Bagsy looked down the stairs. 'No wonder you and Emmeline are getting on a little better than usual.'
Greenda smiled weakly. 'Hopefully it can stay that way for a bit longer this time.' She shot her a wink. 'No promises, though. You know how Emmeline and I can be.'
Eyes wide and lips pursed, Bagsy flashed back to all the bickering. 'That I do.' Then, a frown of thought settled on her face. 'Would you say that Emmeline decided to talk to you more because you gave her something she really wanted?'
'It didn't hurt, that's for sure. Why?'
Bagsy said, 'I made a promise to a man called Pepsini to get someone who's feuding with him to visit him. When I asked, the person outright refused. I'm thinking if I could sweeten the deal, maybe I could convince them to change their mind.'
'It's worth a shot.'
Bagsy smiled up at Greenda. 'Looks like you've helped two people out, now. Emmeline and me.'
Greenda beamed back at her. 'Just doing my job. I am head girl after all.'
Bagsy feigned surprise. 'Wait? Really? You'd never mentioned it before.'
'Yes. I told you, remember–' noticing Bagsy's giggling, and realising she was being sarcastic, Greenda cut herself off. 'Mezrielda's a bad influence,' she said fondly.
At the end of her next potions lesson, Bags found her plan didn't work as well as she was hoping.
'My parents work in the manufacturing of potions ingredients,' Bagsy explained to Blythurst, having hung back at the end of the lesson. Stery was leaning over Bagsy's cauldron, distracted, as Bagsy spoke to Blythurst. She'd been trying to make a potion without a foundation again. It was going as well as it had been before. Which is to say, not very.
Blythurst peered at her with his watery eyes. He didn't bother speaking, but he was clearly wondering why she was bringing this up.
'I could ask them to send some really cool ingredients,' Bagsy explained. 'You're out of doppelganger nails, too, remember?' Out of the corner of her eye, Bagsy noticed Stery stiffen.
Blythurst frowned at her. 'What's this about? What do you want in return?'
Bagsy shifted from foot to foot awkwardly. 'The thing is... I was hoping you'd be willing to visit Pepsini on the next Hogsmeade visit?'
The vein in Blythurst's forehead was back again, and his face was reddening.
Bagsy felt Stery place a hand on her shoulder and guide her from the classroom. 'Run along now,' he told her firmly. 'You shouldn't be speaking to Blythurst about such things. That's a warning. Any more behaviour like that and you'll get a detention. Understood?'
Bagsy was ushered out of the room.
'Yes, sir,' she said quietly as Stery shut and locked the door. She hung around for a second, listening to the heated conversation going on between Stery and Blythurst.
Guessing that sweetening the deal wasn't going to work with Blythurst, Bagsy trudged unhappily to quidditch practise.
With the new quaffles Primrose, despite her best efforts, couldn't puncture them. She was just as skilled as ever at scoring home goals, even when they weren't in a match, though.
Kat whined in annoyance, 'Primrose the drill is at this goal post at this end of the pitch, how on earth did you end up scoring all the way over there?'
Sometimes, in her blind fury, Primrose would even throw the quaffles through things that plainly weren't goals. Both the students and the stands had a few dents by the end.
With permission, Bagsy had spent the entire training session practising spinning a bludger with her bat. If she'd succeed, the ball would move in an arched trajectory through the air, making predicting its path and avoiding it much harder for the people she was aiming at. The only difficulty was, spinning a ball using a bat was very difficult.
'Try spinning it using your hand first,' Kat suggested. 'Once you've got that down, then move on to using the bat. Remember; everything in steps.'
Bagsy had steeled her focus and set herself to doing just that. As she was beginning to get the hang of it, and the balls she was throwing were consistently curving through the air, a quaffle hit her smack in the face.
Primrose sneered. 'Do I get extra points for that?'
Teresa giggled a little. 'You're fine, Bagsy, don't go crying on us. It's just a quaffle.' Bagsy threw a curve ball at Teresa, who failed to dodge. 'Ow!' Teresa complained. 'That hurt!'
'So did that,' Bagsy retorted, too quietly to be heard and with a minute gesture to her own face.
Even so, Teresa seemed to hear. 'Okay, yeah, I shouldn't have laughed.' She glared at Primrose. 'Start taking this sport seriously.'
At the end of practise, when the team descended to the ground, Bagsy noticed Emmeline swoop over to Primrose and say a few words whilst gesturing about the best way to throw a ball. Primrose looked annoyed, and didn't grace Emmeline with her eyes, but nor did she spit an insult at her or fly off. It was some kind of improvement.
The following day was a Friday, which meant it was time for another lesson with Professor Starrett.
'I see you're level-headed this time,' Starrett said without looking up from the papers she was sorting at her desk. 'Good.'
Bagsy deposited her school bag onto one of the benches and moved to the centre of the room. This time around she had her school robe, filled with every invention she could think would be any use. Her mag-net bat, her spell-sponge spider gloves, her spider slippers and some newly made glass baubles of sealable substance were all in there. In the real world, that Starrett loved to talk about so often, she could use whatever she wanted to succeed and, as she had done with Primrose, she needed to not just think about her own actions, but about the actions her opponents would make in response.
The only difficulty was, even armed to the teeth, Bagsy felt she couldn't out match Starrett's spell-casting power.
The lesson began with a slower pace than usual. As Starrett shot jets of gold at her or tried to enchant her shoe laces to knot around each other, she gave a minute's pause between each spell. It allowed Bagsy time to respond to Starrett's assault whilst thinking through what she was going to do and what Starrett would do in response. Even so, every time she hit the metal ball towards Starrett she'd block it with a protego charm, and every time she'd throw sealable substance at her it would be rebounded.
'Miss Beetlehorn, remember the wooden contraption,' Starrett enunciated in annoyance as she made one of the floorboards trip her.
Bagsy, now face down on the floor with a new bruise forming on one of her knees, looked up in confusion. 'What does that have to do with this?'
'I already told you,' Starrett said, flicking her wand and having the floorboard jerk up, throwing Bagsy away from her. When Bagsy hit the floor she found a set of cushions had appeared out of nowhere, breaking her fall. 'It was an analogy.'
Lying in the soft cushions and staring at the ceiling with its gothic beams, the answer suddenly hit Bagsy. Starrett was the wooden contraption. She had a shield that protected her every time Bagsy tried to reach her, like the contraption. But every time she cast the protego charm in one direction, another side of Starrett was weak to attack.
Determination guiding her, Bagsy rolled off the cushions and onto the floor. She paused as she crouched, taking a second to force as much thaumaturgy into her legs and arms as she dared. Too much and she'd lose control of her movement, but not enough and she wouldn't be able to execute her plan.
'Any time today, Miss Beetle–'
Like a bolt of lightning, Bagsy shot forward. She hit the mag-net ball in Starrett's direction. It rocketed at her faster than it ever had before. This time, Starrett had to put in an ounce of effort to block it. All the same, a protego shield appeared, rebounding the ball.
What Starrett hadn't accounted for was the second sphere heading towards her. As soon as she'd hit the mag-net ball, Bagsy had fastened her grip on a bauble of sealable substance. Enacting what she'd practised in quidditch the day before, she threw the ball, brushing her hand along its side as she did to send it in a spin. In a satisfying arch, it curved through the air, approaching Starrett from a side not protected.
Eyes forward, all of Starrett's attention was on the metal ball.
Bagsy breathed out an excited 'Yes!' as the orb zipped towards Starrett's hand, where it would expand and envelope her wand, stopping her entirely.
Except, without looking, Starrett redirected her arm to shoot a red jet at the bauble. Inches from Starrett, it exploded in a burst of red sand, hanging in the air before falling with gentle shimmers to the floor.
Bagsy keeled over, the amount of thaumaturgy she'd forced into her body sending intense pins and needles through her. Starrett click-clacked over, her wand neatly held in front of her. Defeated, Bagsy hung her head, on the verge of tears. She couldn't think on how she could have done that any better.
'That was exemplary.'
Bagsy's head snapped up. 'But I didn't stop you?'
'Correct. But were I anyone but myself, you would have.'
'I don't understand. You told me to stop you, not anyone else?'
'Also correct,' said Starrett. 'However, realistically, there is no way you could stop me. I'd wager few people in this world could. You're joining the ranks of the few people who've come close.'
'To stopping you?'
'Precisely.' Starrett pointed her wand at the chalk board standing at the other end of the classroom. As if a rope was pulling it towards her, it rolled across to ground and stopped by them.
Starrett flicked her wand this way and that, writing words on it as she spoke. 'Artifisiary is the art of improvised combat through the use of all the resources available to you. It is an off shoot of Artificing, something I'm sure you're familiar with, given how often you partake in it yourself.'
Starrett tapped her wand meaningfully onto the word written on the board. 'You took all the pieces at your disposal, your speed, your inventions, your co-ordination, and you carefully observed and thought through how to use them to complete an objective.'
'Just like with the wooden contraption.'
'Exactly. That's why I showed it to you. To provide a model for you to work from. Thankfully, you just about managed to use enough braincells to realise this.' Starrett cleared the board of its writing and started a new set of instructions. 'We can move on to the next stage.'
'There's more?'
Starrett scowled. 'Of course. Artifisiary is about using all the tools at your disposal. Right now, you have shockingly few. These lessons will focus on perfecting your use of the tools you already have, as well as introducing a few more to round out your abilities. Now would you get to your feet already. I have to crane my neck to speak to you when you sit down.'
Trying her hardest not to remind Starrett that she has to crane her neck upwards to speak to her when she was standing, Bagsy rose.
'You'll be glad to hear that the first tool I want you to understand is the protego charm. Your defence is decent with whatever those are.' Starrett gestured as if a pile of dung was in front of her. Bagsy looked down at her spell-sponge gloves. She thought they were fine. 'But clearly, they have a limited use. I see them start to glow after too many spells hit them. At that point, you stop using them. Evidently, you need something else to supplement your defence.'
'What would you suggest?'
Starrett considered the gloves. 'Let me take a look at them.'
Instinctively, Bagsy recoiled. The last person who'd had these gloves besides her was Primrose, and she'd used them to spy on her. 'Or don't,' Starrett tutted disapprovingly. 'Without examining them, I can only suggest you consider how to improve them or think on what other applications they might have.'
'I'll do that,' Bagsy murmured. 'But, I'm a little confused.'
Looking annoyed at that, Starrett fixed her with a glare. 'Do you find my teaching unsatisfactory?'
Bagsy bit the answer she instinctively wanted to give back. 'I'm confused why you want me to practise the protego charm. When I cast it last lesson it was huge and looked super powerful.'
With a sigh, Starrett flipped the chalkboard over and started drawing a diagram. 'This is a dam,' she said. 'After years of not letting the water through there are gallons and gallons of liquid waiting to burst free. Finally, the dam breaks, and it all comes rushing out. But, now the liquid is all gone, and what's left is only the dregs that couldn't make it through.' When Bagsy was silent, Starrett sighed again. 'It's another analogy. For your magic.'
'Oh.'
'Oh, indeed. When I had you cast that spell I had you build up your tiredness bit by bit so that, when you did cast it, instead of breaking the dam, only a small crack formed,' Starrett explained, redrawing the dam to show this. 'A lot of that water came spurting out. Right now, there is less water behind the dam.'
'But that's good?'
Starrett shook her head. 'No.'
'I'm still so confused...'
'By what?'
Bagsy's questions bubbled up. 'What does me being tired have to do with spells? Why, after years of trying, did running up and down steps a few times finally make me able to do magic? Why is it worse to still have all that magic built up and ready to be used instead of being empty? Why–' Starrett held her hand up for silence. Scared she might enchant a bench to chase her around the classroom if she didn't obey, Bagsy cut herself off.
'Some people aren't like everyone else,' Starrett said. 'Some people have different magic. Some people work in different ways. You are one of those people.'
Feeling scared at that prospect, Bagsy wrung her hands together. 'I-I am?'
'Yes. Your magic has trouble finding its way out. It is also naturally weaker than other people's.'
Bagsy's shoulders sagged. 'It is?' She'd expected as much, but it still wasn't nice to hear.
'Yes. This is why that build-up of magic is so dangerous, Miss Beetlehorn.' Starrett tapped her wand to the image of the dam. 'Imagine that dam is your body. Every time you cast a spell you're making a small crack in that structure. Make one too large, or in the wrong place, and...' Starrett tapped her wand on the board again and the dam animated, shattering into a thousand tiny pieces as the water broke through it.
Bagsy's breath caught horribly in her throat.
'This is why we need to work on that protego charm of yours. You won't be good at casting it, and at casting it safely, until you've practised. Or, as my father would say, until you've gone to bat. He was a fan of cricket,' she added as explanation, and Bagsy barely stopped herself asking what on earth that was. 'But, we've done a lot tonight and you won't learn anything when your mind is tired. Go and spend time with that useless friend of yours.'
'Mezrielda?'
'I don't care, just get out of my classroom.'
Forcing her eyes to leave the sight of the broken dam, Bagsy grabbed her stuff and left with a muttered, 'Thank you'.
It had been the strangest Starrett lesson yet.