In this section, The Student Corner, we share a short story written by William Clements, from his elective subject, Creative Writing.
“Okay, so one cup of rayif flour…two cups of petteriger oil…oops! Darn! Cooking is so tough!”, pouted a raven haired witch as she dropped the box of oil into her cauldron.
“Oh shut up, Laurela! We’re all tired of your whining,” said Stuart, as a single bead of sweat slid down his forehead.
Laurela grunted something incomprehensible and turned back to her bat growth potion.
“Remember to add a bit of gypsyflower, class. It makes the brew stronger,” said Clarabeth, the Advance Potion Brewing teacher of Theremon’s School of Sorcery, which took place in a dark, musty cave off the side of Arizona. Then she moved towards a cage full of little glossy black bats that flew and swirled around the cage. “Once your potion is done, grab a bat from the cage and drop it in.”
Immediately, Danielle walked up to the cage, carefully removed a single black bat from the cage and dropped it in her pot. Danielle was, apart from being the most attractive witch in the school, the smartest student around. She got straight Fs in class (F for Fantastic) and was generally a teacher’s pet. Then she waited for 10 exact seconds before removing it from the now bubbling, viscous liquid that resided in the cauldron. When she did, the bat had changed. It was now light brown in coloration, and around the size of the cauldron itself, meaning around the size of a desk, with the same wingspan as an eagle.
“Good job Danielle!” exclaimed the teacher.
Danielle smirked at the rest, and sauntered off to her room.
Then Laurela went up to the cage and grabbed a bat. Shortly after, she halfheartedly tossed it into her pot. Before 5 seconds had passed, she drew it out, and shrieked with fear.
The bat had shrunken into a small wrinkly creature that stunk of swamp muck and that had teeth larger than its entire body. It was covered in curly red hair that had bare patches all over.
Immediately, Laurela dropped the thing and hid behind her cauldron. Laughing, Simon, who was the class joker, picked up the thing and put it back in the cauldron for the proper amount of time, then withdrew it, almost exactly like Danielle’s.
“Good job, Simon. Laurela, remember to put your bat in for exactly 10 seconds, nothing more, nothing less,” said Clarabeth.
The class went by monotonously as everybody put their bats in pots and fished them out.
By now everybody had retired to their rooms for the day, and most of them were asleep. Then it was time for the bats to act. For this class had not been for nothing. Witches and wizards are evil, after all.
None of the students knew this, but for adult sorcerers, this was a killing night. Food does not grow off of trees for witches, because they can’t stand the taste of apples or peaches or pears or oranges. They are not human, and do not eat the same thing that humans do. Humans eat fruits, vegetables, deer, cattle, buffalo, sheep and swine. Witches eat people.
At the time, this was unknown to the youngsters. But once they got into more advanced studies, and learned about the ‘Dietary Habits of ye Witch and Wizard’, then they would understand that the meat loaf and bologna that they had been eating had really been human meat loaf and human bologna. They would be distressed, at first. But later they would accept the inevitable. Humans are just animals after all, thought Clarabeth.
Hungrily, Clarabeth watched the creatures swoop down and snatch a human right out of his bed in the nearby town. Then the abomination came back to the cave and dropped the frightened human right at the witch’s feet. He whimpered for a second before attempting to stand up, but halted as he saw Clarabeth, a second before she took out a big knife and, without missing a beat, stabbed him through the heart. She paused a second to smile with triumph and lick her lips as she scented the beautiful metallic taste of blood. Then she dragged him over to the kitchen, leaving a red mark on the gray floor of the school. She shrugged, deciding that she would have to clean it up later, then propped the dead human onto the table. His mouth was gaping open, a plea for help that no one would ever hear.
Text by William Clements
Illustration by Muriel de Camino