After the speech, huge tables were carried into the room along with several long benches. More maids came in carrying trays of food. They lifted the covers off with lots of spectacle. All that lay on the platters were bowls of chicken noodle soup. "I guess the term "gourmet" is relative..." Taissa whispered to Catharine as they took their bowls. Suddenly, a shrill voice echoed from a few tables away, "WHAT'S THIS SHIT?" it yelled. "I CAME TO THIS SCHOOL EXPECTING THE BEST, NOT WATERY SOUP AND GIRLS IN FETISH COSTUMES!" Suddenly, the room was dead quiet. All eyes turned to a girl holding here bowl high in the air. "HERE'S WHAT I THINK OF YOUR "SOUP", BITCH!" the girl dropped her bowl to the floor. It exploded into a million shards of porcelain and noodles. "I'm leaving!" she yelled, and started towards the door.
Miss Loveless seemed surprisingly calm considering what had just happened. She just snapped her fingers when the girl was halfway through the door.
What exactly happened next, Catharine and Taissa debated late that night. There was the girl, walking towards the door. After Miss Loveless snapped her fingers, there was a whirlwind of screams that slowly seemed to turn into clucks as the spinning shape got smaller... and whiter.. and more animal sounding.. until there was a humongous white chicken standing in the middle of the floor. It was about three feet tall and tremendously fat. It whipped it's head around rapidly and seemed to screech in fright. It ran around the room, cawing and flapping it's wings, until Miss Loveless ran up from the table and snatched it up like it weighed nothing. She put a hand over it's beak and said:
"Thanks to Miss Ferndale here, we will be having scrambled eggs for breakfast tomorrow! Now, I'm sure you all have had a long, hard day of traveling here, so LEADERS, ESCORT THE NEW STUDENTS TO THEIR ROOMS! Goodnight all, and I look forward to seeing you in classes tomorrow at 7:40 sharp."
Miss Loveless finished speaking then disappeared into a door to right of the table with the struggling chicken still in her arms. Suddenly, the leaders started handing the girls slips of paper. "Hey, our schedules!" the girl with the glasses said. Catharine got handed hers and read it.
7:10-7:40 : Breakfast
7: 40 - 8:31: History: Transformation Through the Ages
8: 35- 9:31: Science: Basic Shapeshifting
9:35 - 10:00: Free period
10:04 - 10:55: English: Spell Books and how to use them
10:59 - 11:50 : Foreign Language: Witches' Latin
11: 50 - 12:20 : Lunch
12:24 - 1:15: Exercises on the Back Lawn
1:19 - 2:10 : Everything we couldn't fit into the first five periods
2:10 - 5:30 - Free Period
5:30 - 6:00 : Dinner
6:00 - 8:00 : Homework. Failure to complete homework will result in SEVERE punishment.
8:00 - 10:00 : Free Period
10:00: Bedtime. Any students caught wandering around the school from 10:00 PM to 7:00 AM will be SEVERLEY punished.
Catharine read the schedule over a few times. She gulped. All of this sounded so strenuous. And what were these "severe punishments?" before she could ponder this, Taissa ripped the schedule out of her hands. "Hey, we have four classes together!" Taissa yelled. She hugged Catharine and said, "We're gonna KILL it this year!" Catharine smiled. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all.
The Escorts lead the girls up the grand stairway. The two groups then split down two different corridors. Catharine and Taissa's group followed their escort up another flight of stairs, down a hall of many doors, through a room that's walls were windows, past a few doors where every animal sound you could ever imagine was made, up two more flights of stairs, past a large window, until she finally opened a door to reveal a cozy sitting room with many chairs around a fireplace. "This is the common room." The escort said in a steely voice. The rooms are each up a flight of stairs. Goodnight." With that, the escort left the room.
A few of the girls started to make a fire, but Catharine, Taissa, and the girl with glasses were too tired. They started up the stairs. "Hey, I never caught your name." Catharine said to the girl with glasses as the three climbed the stairs. "Naomi." The girl said. "Well, nice to meet-" suddenly, Catharine stopped in front of a huge window on the stairwell. Taissa and Naomi were up a few steps ahead. Taissa, aware of the stop, turned around and said "Hey, Cat, you all right?" she said with concern. "Yeah, I'm.. fine." Catharine shook her head and started back up the stairs.
Their room consisted of a circular room with five beds (two of the girls hadn't come up yet) all around a cylindrical fireplace. "Ooh.. how nice!" Naomi said breathily as she collapsed on her bed. "It's so soft..." Suddenly, the room was filled with snores as she dozed off. "Well, I'm hitting the hay." Taissa said through a yawn. "G'night."
Catharine put on her pj's and laid and bed, but could not stop thinking about what she had seen out the window.
The huge moonlit lawn had sprawled out toward the misty forest. And there, walking across the lawn, had been Miss Loveless herself, sans chicken. She tapped the ground with her foot, and an elevator rose out of the ground. She entered, pushed a button, and it descended. It was as if it had never been there at all.
Catharine shivered and turned over onto her side. It was quite a long time before she fell asleep.