Seeing with the Shadows

Chapter 15

“The next thing that you will be doing is with another professor, one you have not met yet.” Professor Iri informed Lena.

    “I,” the man said grandly, “Am Garry, the caretaker of all of Half Moon School.”

    Lena wasn’t quite sure what to say. Ooookay… Great. He wore black jeans and a bright yellow button up shirt. His voice was slightly gravely. “I will be taking you to our unclaimed animal room, where you will be cleaning everything and feeding everything.”

    “Unclaimed?” Like a lost and found? For animals?

    He rolled his eyes, “Animals that will be taken in by students to train with them, like your stuck-up Phoinex over there.”

    Lena felt Phelicia’s feathers stick straight out and she dug her claws into Lena’s shoulder. She could feel the bird’s muscles getting ready to launch her into the air and at Garry. No, no, no, don’t claw his face out! The bird relaxed a little, but kept her beady eyes on Garry.

    “Come.” Lena got up from the desk, letting the chair scrape along the stone floor.

    “Tomorrow. 7:30.” Professor Iri reminded her.

    She followed Garry  out the door. They walked in silence for a while until they reached a rough wooden door, padlocked and with iron bolts to top it off. Garry removed a ring of keys and turned the lock with a loud, resounding click.

“Enter.” He said, with a mocking smile and bow.

Lena stepped through the door, and was greeted by an angry torrent of squawking, screeching, roaring, croaking, growling, and much more because of disturbing their sleep. Animals ranging from snakes like Quoim’s, to frogs, lizards, humming birds, crows, ravens, eels, owls, raccoons, hedgehogs, squirrels, flying squirrels, sugar gliders, and on and on. They were all in rusty cages hanging from the ceiling with chains that looked as though they might break at any moment.

“Your task,” Garry said, smiling nastily, “Is to clean the cages and the animals and feed them... Professor Iri has told me that if you are not done by 11:30, detention will be raised to 12:30. If you are not done by 12:30, then 1:30, and so on. And that means whatever time after 11:30 you finish tonight will be the time all of your detentions after this will end. Have fun! I’ll be back in two hours and forty minutes to collect you and see if your detention will be lengthened.” With that, he closed the rusty door squeaking on its hinges with a bang, startling the animals even more.

“Okay… I’ll just- start then…” Lena said, looking around at the jumbled room. Food was spilled out onto the floor out of rotting cloth bags, cleaning supplies looked as though they dated back to the 17th century, and above all, Lena had no idea how to open the cages.

She stuck her finger through the bars to a strange creature floating around, with a surface that looked like it was made of oil. ‘Pixir’ the plaque attached to the cage read. I wonder what that is… Nothing good. The little creature snapped at her finger with shining silver teeth, drawing blood. Lena jumped back, and looked at her finger for a moment. It seemed to have survived the nip. The Pixir now looked at her through beady black eyes, as if taunting her.

Lena walked to the other side of the room, and started again. Reptiles. Okay. I can live with that. She looked around, and finally chose the lizards, darting about in their cage made of… nothing? Okay... how do I do this?A carton of crickets and mealworms was hooked onto the side of the cage. Lena reached her hand in and dumped the wriggling insects onto the hardened air that served as a bottom, top, and sides. The carton vanished, and cleaning supplies came up in another box when the lizards finished eating. She scooped the sand out, and dumped handfuls of clean sand in. She filled the water dishes, and removed the dead bodies of past crickets and mealworms that never got eaten. Then she scooped up all of the poop. That seems to be all...