Effervescent Water

Thora entered the classroom, elegant as ever, Susan envied her, she always felt clumsy, not dressed for the occasion or somehow sticking out. On the other hand Susan did not care enough, she could easily find more interesting use for her limited free time than ironing shirts or skirts or doing her hair. Also she had a propensity for spontaneous trips to the woods, the beach or to a farm, and she did not like her clothes to hamper or bother her in these endeavours. She ended her line of thoughts with more points to her own casual style as Thora swished her wand, and a long list of strange ingredients appeared on the blackboard in Thora's usual flourishing golden letters.

Susan read along, as did many of the others, Kalle and Anna were in the middle of one of their sibling rivalries and sat quietly pinching one another, while Marja and Paula, the Birch sisters were demonstratively inattentive.

Thora did not acknowledge the disturbances with as much as a raised eyebrow.

When the stylus stopped writing, Thora asked the apprentices on the green team to pinpoint the odd man out on the list.
Small papers flew through the air, and Susan looked at hers. It read:
- Which ingredient:
- Why:
- Bonus. What should it have been:

Susan read through the list once more and decided that stinkbug wings did not belong. Now she had to find out why. Very soon it came to her. All the other ingredients were inanimate or plant matters, this was the only animal part. She wrote this down too. And what should Thora have listed? Hmm, the stink-part seemed correct, but she did not know any stink plant. She looked through the window, thinking. She did not hear Anna and Kalle moaning when pinched by animated lobster claws, of course conjured by Thora, neither did she notice the creeper vines that not so slowly wound around the birch sisters, tying them to their chairs.
Of course! A stinkhorn! that was what was missing, Now it was clear to her, this was the ingredient list for the stinking cloud-potion. She wrote this and the stinkhorn on her paper and looked up.

Then the began having second thoughts. It had been too easy. Where was the trap? She started re-reading the ingredients list on the blackboard, but then she noticed the tied up sisters and the claws snipping at Anna and Kalle. She knew the possible cause for their being punished -- their eternal sibling bickering - but what had the Birch sisters been up to? Anna was beginning to tire, and the big claw came nearer and nearer to getting a good grip on her thigh. Before Susan could get to her wand, Kalle noticed his sister's plight, and turned his wand and his warding spells at Anna's claw, which promptly disappeared in thin air. Anna was a fast learner, so when Kalle's claw dived in for a nip at his nose, Anna gathered the last of her powers and made it go away.

"And now," Thora said to the Swedish siblings, "now I'd like you to use your brains on today's problem instead."
Red-faced and shameful they both began reading the list. Susan also returned her attention to her paper, only to realize that it had been  magically prepared to return to Thora when filled out. Now she could do nothing more than hope that her first intuition had been right.

* * *

Marja, the youngest of the birch sisters, looked at the entangling vines with an inane look in her green eyes.
"Where did they come from?" she asked her sister in a loud stage whisper. Paula woke from her own reverie and noticed the vines tying her to the chair. "Danged if I know!" she replied a tad too loudly.
Thora turned to the two sisters, and they turned as white as the tree they were called after.
"You did this!" Paula said, belligerently.
"Yes and no," Thore replied calmly, but with an undertone as cold as the howling wind  in a snowstorm. "You were both inattentive - again. The kind of inattentive that comes from disrespect and laziness. You never heard my questions, you never even tried to answer. You were both so deeply ensconced in your reveries that you did not even notice the creeping vines." They were not used to seeing Thora this angry, and everybody in the room sat quiet as mice.
"But," Marja said, "I just wanted to ..." her voice died off in mutterings.
"You just wanted to what?" Thora asked. Marja stammered and spluttered and grinded to a halt.
"What about you, Paula?" Thora asked.
"I was thinking," Paula replied, still with some spite in her voice.
"You were thinking," Thora said, "and in such deep thoughts that the vines bound you without you even noticing. Now, spill it!"
Thora turned around: "Green team! You are dismissed! You'll all go and wash out your hands and mouths in the effervescent water in the big, blue tub in the stable. And Hilde after you've done this, you'll bring me two litres of said water, two mugs and a pair of scissors."
"Yes, Thora, will do!" Hilde said, every line in her being showing the same confusion they all felt.
They did as ordered. In the stable, where all the cages and other paraphernalia for zoological and botanical lessons were kept, they found a big, blue tub filled to the brim with effervescent water, bubbling, foaming and dancing, and a nearby table held green mugs.  They rinsed their mouths in the water, spitting the sweet tasting concoction into the long white sink along the back wall, where they normally washed vases and containers. Then they poured water for one another washing their hands with the same water. Their hands and mouths felt clean and faintly tingling. None of them dared disobey Thora's orders, but there were many questions asked, and no answers given.
Hilde filled a two litre jar from the tub, grabbed two mugs and a pair of scissors from the drawers and left.
The rest of the green team, stayed in the stable, looking fascinated at the bubbling waters in the tub.
"I do not understand," Terje said slowly. "Where did those vines come from. And what was the answer to Thora's questions?"
"Dear Terje,"  Knud said, I think I speak for all of us when I say that we do not understand anything either. We're travelling unknown land with no landmarks here."
"I agree," Nicklas said quietly. "Something strange is happening. That's not like Thora to behave like that over a bit of bickering and inattention. There must be some method to this madness."
"Must be," Veronika agreed, "Even if I see no connection between a botched potions recipe, animated pincers, vines and a big, blue tub of bubbling waters, there must be."
Hilde returned and everybody stopped talking and looked expectantly at her.

* * *

"I don't know anything," Hilde said. "Thora took the water and things with a curt thank you. And she closed the door very securely - or maybe she even used a soundproofing spell, because I could not hear a word from in there. Nothing, zilch, zero!"

The green team went to their normal classroom and sat down. Nobody said anything, Terje was sniffing at regular intervals due to hay fever until Hilde lost her patience with the sound and in a subdued voice cast a small healing spell on him. He smiled, but did not speak.
Susan could not stand the silence and heavy atmosphere, but she did not know what to do.

In the end Rósa broke the brooding silence: "We might as well compare notes on the lesson Thora was teaching us today. What ingredient did you write down as the wrong one? I had sea weeds as the odd man out form the list, but I think it's wrong. I could find no reason for it, and neither did I have a better suggestion."

Sanne, the girl from the Faroe Islands said: "I am sure stink beetles were wrong, why, I don't know, some stinky mushroom that I only know in Faroese is the right one."
"You forget that the language spell is still doing it's magic," Knud said with a lopsided smile. "Just say it, we'll hear it in our own languages."
"Stinkhorn," Sanne said.
"Of curse, Knud said, "that's the one."
"I agree with you as well," Susan said."Only I was in doubt that the solution could be this simple."

"But it is," Hilde said. "I know Stinkbugs are wrong because it is the stinking cloud recipe, and it calls for stinkhorn, not stinkbugs.  But I do not know why it should be wrong, only that it is wrong."
"Maybe because it was the only animal thing in the list?" Susan said. "All the others were plants or inanimates. At least that's what I wrote on my slip of paper."
"That's a good guess," Veronika said. "I think it's right."
"I think so too," Kirstin said. "I admit I had the wrong one, Sulphur, but after listening to you smart ones I think you're right."
"I had the same idea," Knud added, "only I never got to writing it down. I sort of forgot, but now I remember."
"Did you sit next to Marja?" Hilde had a cunning gleam in her watery blue eyes, and her plain face was almost beautiful from the excitement. When Knud nodded, she exclaimed: "I think I know why the Birch sisters were inattentive, and why Thora asked us to wash hands and mouths in the effervescent water."

"How do you know," Terje asked. "I only knew Stinkbugs were not right."

"I have been taught to use my brain, and I have studied hard even before I came here. Let's go to the library. I need to look in one of the books there. It is a big book, that's why I do not have it in my bag. Its size makes it very impractical."

In the library Hilde found a long, slim book. It would not fit into any school-bag. She quickly consulted the index, and found one of the dark yellow pages: "Listen here: 'Effervescent water, while normally not used for potions or philtres due to its bubbly, reactive nature, is an easy to use and efficient antidote to the effects of Deram Drops.' There we go. The Birch sisters have probably been using Dream Drops, and the effect had spread to at least Knud. That's why she asked us all to go and wash in the water."

"Erm, sorry." Knud said "what the bugger are Dream Drops?"

 * * *