Bagsy Beetlehorn and the Corvid Trials (The Bagsy Chronicles 2)

Tall, Feathery Tales

Teresa looked from Bagsy, cowering in the corner, to the guilty looking Mezrielda, and her face turned almost as red as her hair. She stormed over to Mezrielda, pulling herself to her highest height, and grabbed the dead worm from Mezrielda's hand. Glass crunched below Teresa's feet as she paced in a wordless rage.

'Teresa-?' Bagsy tried. Teresa held her hand up for silence and Bagsy, gulping in fear, found herself unable to speak.

'You force Bagsy to let you into our dorm,' Teresa roared suddenly, rounding on Mezrielda. 'You levitate myself and Neve out of the room, dropping us on our heads, and then you break my worm farm and scare the daylights out of Bagsy!'

Mezrielda, who was gingerly getting to her feet, shook her head. 'No. You have misunderstood the events,' she said flatly, all the emotion drained from her voice to be replaced with a cold, harsh logic. Her brown eyes, though, betrayed a panicked mind.

Teresa spun around, baring her teeth at Bagsy. 'What does she mean, Bagsy?' Bagsy stuttered, trying to find the words to explain what had happened, but the rage in Teresa's face was making that very hard, and she couldn't get a single syllable past her lips. 'Have you set a tongue-tie jinx on her or something?' Teresa spat at Mezrielda.

Mezrielda was looking very coldly at Bagsy. 'Tell her what happened, Bagsy.'

Bagsy scrambled to her feet, her eyes darting from Teresa to Mezrielda to Neve to Mistress Foncée. At last she settled them on the floor. 'It was crows,' she explained in a small, quavering voice. 'We wanted to look at your worms, we thought they were cool, when suddenly a bunch of crows flew in and attacked us. They destroyed your worm farm and ate all the worms...'

'The crows did it.' Teresa put her clenched fists on her hips. 'Are you kidding me right now?' She gestured at the windows angrily. 'And how do you suppose the crows came in when all the windows are shut, huh?'

Bagsy and Mezrielda looked at the windows then each other. Teresa was right, all the windows were shut. How had the crows come in?

'Stop covering for her, Bagsy, what really happened?' Teresa said, stalking over to Bagsy and poking her chest.

'I t-told you!' Bagsy stammered, raising her hands in surrender. 'Crows!'

'I think that's enough, students,' said Mistress Foncée. Teresa plainly did not think it was and turned to Mezrielda with a clenched fist. She was inches from giving her a solid uppercut when they were both flung far apart from each other and suspended, completely still, in mid-air. Bagsy and Neve found themselves similarly restrained. 'I said that's enough,' Foncée pronounced, holding a wand out that glowed blue at the end, the violet of her eyes glowing like faded lamps, and the cloak of feathers on her back ruffling for just a moment. 'Teresa, I shall see to it you are refunded for the damage.'

'You can't put a price on life!' Teresa hissed.

'What? But I didn't destroy her worm farm!' Mezrielda grit out. Both of them were jolted painfully in the air and shut up.

'The professors are very busy as it is, I hope I don't need to inform them about this incident and cause them more trouble.' Foncée gave Mezrielda and Teresa harsh looks.

'But I've done nothing wrong!' Teresa protested.

'Neither have I!' Mezrielda snapped.

They were both jolted again.

'Miss Aviry, you attempted to assault another student. Miss Glint, it very much appears you destroyed Miss Aviry's worm farm.' Foncée dropped her wand, the blue light faded, and the four students were each lowered gently to the floor and released. 'Do you want the professors involved?'