The note in the same black ink in Dr. Norwoods sharp handwriting: there are no places for new dead, its time to disperse the old ones did not make me laugh at all. Who knows, maybe its true!
But now I began to look through the sheet purposefully in search of announcements that attracted the professors attention and received his special valuable opinion. There were few such people, and not everywhere did the especially valuable opinion ooze poison.
"The hit of the season! Gloves, handbags and accessories made of ostrich, alligator, python, and dragon leather. Buyers of the full collection get a discount! I thought about the cute juxtaposition of ostrich and dragon, in which Dr. Norwood apparently preferred the ostrich (gloves! ostrich. 9.09). Even strange. It seemed to me that the dragon was cooler, even in the form of skin. I wonder what will happen on September 9th? Besides, it's Saturday and our fifth day? Someone's birthday? Picking up a gift?
Im selling ruined Nasturtium. Shes healthy, but shes spitting! Oooh, and heres another dose of poison: Idiot. Buy fertilizer." ?x yes, Dougal doesn't like botany, but he understands it. A screaming nasturtium that also spits yeah. ? It would seem such a cute flower.
I'm looking for an advertising manager! Please apply only to people with three higher specialized educations! It is mandatory to provide a portfolio, a standard package of documents, statements from all existing accounts, and recommendations from four well-known professionals in the world of advertising! However, requests! The funny thing is that these types of figures who demand stop-size recommendations and a portfolio worthy of a Nobel Prize are themselves, as a rule, absolute zeros. Here, apparently, too, judging by the malicious I forgot the key to the safe in the Swiss bank in the same black ink.
The same sharp and black-inked Miss Blair caught my eye. What? Was he not really that is, noticing Charlotte after all? Maybe everything is not as hopeless as I thought?
I read the advertisement, then the professors sharp handwriting. Im looking for models to star in commercials. Textured girls are welcome, beautiful eyes are a must. By the way, Charlottes eyes now mine are truly beautiful, unusual, with a magical green. They write eyes, they think chest. Just right for Miss Blair. Good use of its texture and, of course, the eyes.
Yes, yes, I did, I did. I imagined my reaction if I found out that our editor-in-chief considered me a brainless slob, good only for shaking my tits in advertising. I would quit right away! This is, after all, humiliating! But Charlotte She couldn't be that idiotic?! Still, they took her here, to this most prestigious educational institution! although what did she say about her rich father? Maybe it was not only or not so much for your own merits that you were lucky enough to be in this place? Or does the professor simply have excessive demands on his assistants? But what is there to exaggerate, if even I, knowing nothing about the world in general and the academy in particular, can cope quite well? Or have I not encountered any difficult tasks yet?
I looked at the even lines of the advertisement and the slanting, sharp, flying handwriting of Dr. Norwood and could not understand what to do now. Because, to be honest, the first and so far only option that came to mind was stupid and hysterical to grab the professor by the lapels of his immaculately pressed jacket, shake him and scream: Im not her!
Okay, no need to shake. And don't yell. But something needs to be done?! Because now my-Charlottes chances of getting attention from him are close to absolute zero. And I can't even blame him for that.
Nightmare.
The coffee ran out, I looked in surprise into the empty cup I didnt notice how I drank it. And no fun.
Should I do more?
No. Useless. Ill drink one more or ten more and nothing will change. Neither this stupid ad nor Dougal Norwood's opinion of Charlotte will go away. Hopelessness.
I put the leaf down, pressing it with an empty cup.
Sydney. Five days, even a half. Great, she said out loud and didnt recognize her own voice. Oh yes. He's not mine anyway.
Dream during your lunch break, came a voice from the door. You are needed in the lower laboratory. Workshop on sublimation with alchemists. The professor walked to his desk and suddenly turned around. It seems that this was the first time he looked at me like that directly and for an infinitely long time, and his dark eyebrow slowly crawled up. Can a person actually arch his eyebrows like that? So what's going on? Not a single muscle moved on the professors face, but for some reason it seemed that this was an extreme degree of amazement for him. Since when are you interested in newspapers? And why wasnt the main flower garden covered with snow for such an occasion? he asked venomously. Mrs. Trunberry suddenly went on vacation? So find another healer.
I already found it, I chuckled. Ill take this number, theres just a suitable ad here. Do you mind? If you still need it, I'll return it tomorrow.
Not needed. And hurry up. In fifteen minutes, even Mr. Obley should be standing at the cauldron with a set of ingredients.
This is where panic overtook me. Im coping? Well, of course, I managed until I was required to do anything more complicated than sorting through mail and making changes to the schedule. I don't even know where this lower laboratory is! Not to mention Mr. Obley and his ingredients.
Charlotte, your mother, where are you wandering? That is, you fly! WHAT SHOULD I DO?!"
The mental scream was a complete success Charlotte appeared nearby.
Calm down, nothing bad is happening. Come down, the lower laboratory is next to the ritual rooms, in one of which we met.
The road seemed to magically appear in my memory. A corridor, a staircase, an open gallery with marble statues, again a staircase and again a corridor, narrow and cold. A group of boys and girls appeared in front of the desired door.
Open the storage room, tell the students to take the sublimation kits. You'll follow up. Mr. Obley, whom the professor mentioned, is an alchemist who was almost expelled from his first year. Almost expelled thanks to Dr. Norwood. He cannot stand careless treatment of his subjects. Look, hes disheveled, in a lopsided robe.
They made way for me, but from behind someone called out in an oily voice:
Good afternoon, Miss Blair. Nice weather today, isn't it?
Mr. Applestone, Charlotte explained. Likes to flirt. Nothing serious, don't pay attention.
If you, Mr. Applestone, want to go to the beach more than to the workshop, I dont dare detain you, I attached the key fob to the lock and was the first to enter the opened door.
Yeah, it's gloomy. Tables with tripods, vividly reminiscent of a school chemistry classroom. Three sinks right next to the doors. At the far end of the classroom there is a teaching table and a glass cabinet full of test tubes, flasks and some other chemical glassware, the name of which I did not know. Nearby is a door with a sign Storage No. 4. And cold. The students were in no hurry to plunge into this atmosphere, and I turned around and slightly raised my voice:
What are we standing there, who are we waiting for? Let's go in. You have a workshop on sublimation. You know where to get everything you need.
She leaned against the teacher's table, watching the lazy swarming of the students. They didnt pay any attention to me: they joked, discussed yesterdays party and tomorrows football match between alchemists and healers, wondering whether this beast Norwood would give a test or immediately start with the lab. Only Applestone glanced sideways and, for some reason, winked as he walked towards Vault No. 4. His flirtations are strange. I wonder to what extent Charlotte encouraged them?
The thought distracted me, and a sudden roar made me jump on the spot. I immediately saw the cause of the noise a lanky disheveled man in a lopsided robe was sticking out in the middle of the laboratory, confusedly looking around the cauldron lying at his feet, fragments of something glass and scattered what? fruit slices? It seems like I don't understand something!
The others reacted as if they saw this almost every day. Most didn't even turn in his direction.
Obley! exclaimed a red-haired girl not far from me. I spilled water because of you!
Be glad that today we dont have anything poisonous! The guy at the next table sighed and, with a wave of his brush, swept into a pile shards of glass, fruit, torn paper packaging and a dead spider that had come from somewhere. The next swing sent it all into the trash can that stood at the entrance near the sinks.
But there are no more ready-made sets there, muttered this bungler. Ellie, can I work together with you again?
Steve, again! moaned the girl who occupied the table next to him obviously the same Ellie. Maybe you can at least sit further away, huh? I'll soon turn gray from your antics.
Let him take the sublimation apparatus on the rack on the left, on the bottom shelf, Charlotte told me. And the basket of apples is in the refrigerator. There, in the closet.
Feeling like a stupid actor relying on a prompter, I voiced all this to Mr. Obley. Adding from myself:
I hope you are able to complete this additional flight without incident? Enough for today. You have, she looked at her watch, three minutes. The rest, in their places.
We have three more minutes, Applestone cooed velvety almost right next to my ear. He walked past, clutching his cauldron tightly to his chest, brushed his shoulder, apologized with exaggerated politeness and asked: How about we go to the beach together, Miss Blair?
Not until you stop staggering every step of the way, Mr. Applestone. Or have you decided that Mr. Obley is not enough for all of us to provide the thrill? Go to your seat and get ready for class.
The lover of beaches and, apparently, boobs, was amazed. It seems I have behaved differently than Charlotte should have behaved again.
Mr. Applestone, would you be so kind as to sit down and benefit our esteemed academy at least slightly exercise your brain, and not what usually replaces it for you? The insinuating voice with velvety intonations absolutely did not fit with the usual professorial dont loom. But the effect on the students was no worse than a warning burst over their heads from something very rapid-fire and very deadly.
The glass slipped out of the red-haired girl's hands. Someone, it seems, decided to try laboratory apples on the tooth and was now coughing hysterically. Applestone turned pale and disappeared. The younger generation's nerves were clearly out of whack.
? Dougal Norwood walked quickly towards his desk, waving his hand as he went and the objects on the students' tables moved in some order known to him.
I see you had a successful summer. If I ever need to return my brain to its rudimentary state, I will know who to consult. Let me remind you once what a laboratory bench should look like before the experiment. You're not at the market, Miss Gray, and this is not an apple stand. A cauldron, Mr. Savage, is not a top hat, and unless you're going to put it on your head, it shouldn't be upside down. Miss Smith, your passion for books has no place here. Stash this impressive stack in your bag if you don't want to sublimate the paper.
Okay, infection! Watching the flow of polite malice when, for a change, it was not directed at you, turned out to be a fascinating experience. I was tempted to ask for a master class.
Mr. Obley, the professor stopped at the table and now looked at the unfortunate bungler, who had just come out of the storage room, like a boa constrictor at a rabbit. ? he froze on the threshold, gently pressing a glass structure made of a flask, a glass and some tubes to his chest obviously, the same sublimation apparatus. A large red apple miraculously held onto the narrow neck of the flask.
Good afternoon, Professor Norwood.
You give me hope that there is still constancy in this world. Get off the floor and, please, bring this surrealist still life to the table intact.
I moved to the far corner of the class, again at Charlottes prompting. We will have to monitor safety, there could be an explosion. From the professor's place it is difficult to control the entire laboratory, this edge is on you. Ill help you today, then youll be on your own.
"Explosion?!" I cant say that the prospect of explosions made me happy. Moreover, Mr. Obley, from whom one should expect trouble in the first place, was sitting much closer to me than to the professor. And very close was the place of Mr. Applestone, who was already quite openly looking sideways at my, Charlottes, tits.
So, the professor walked around the class, and the students froze, afraid, it seemed, even to breathe. He knows how to hold an audience. In fear. Perhaps it's a shame for Charlotte to complain compared to this. I believe that even in brains that were baked or dried out over the summer, the idea should have appeared to familiarize yourself with the topic of the lesson in advance. If you didnt even have enough for this, Im sorry, but I cant help you. We don't have much time to spend repeating theory. Are there anyone in the class who did not receive credit for aggregate states? the question struck so sharply that even I flinched.
Y-yes, squeaked the same Miss Gray, whose table at the beginning of the lesson really resembled a counter with apples.
Retake the experience as soon as you pass. Now you can be free or be a spectator. The rest go to work. For those whose memory is too short, I remind you of the sequence of actions, he turned to his table, on which the same design as the students had managed to appear. He moved his brush slightly noticeably and smoothly. We're cutting it. The apple flew into the air, spread out into even, neat slices, which fell into a glass of water. Another gesture, just as smooth, polished, and beautiful: Lets freeze. We place it in the container, obeying the wave of his hand, apple slices in shiny ice armor flew into the flask one after another. We're closing. We are creating a class B shield; those who have forgotten how to do this can be free until retaken. Then there is a vacuum under the shield. Mr. Obley, do you understand well? First the shield. Then vacuum. Under the shield, not outside.
Hell be fine, Applestone muttered.
Dont forget to remove water vapor. The speed of the process depends on the invested force, the end of the experiment is determined intuitively. I hope it wont be difficult for any of you to notice in time that your apples have turned into dried fruits.
It sounds simple, I thought, for magicians. One, and frozen, two, and a vacuum. You can also store instant coffee at home for future use.
Naturally, Charlotte confirmed, coffee is made using the same technology. You're not as stupid as most of them. Do not be distracted. Follow. Vacuum is dangerous.
Watching the rapidly drying apple slices was perhaps not so much interesting as creepy. I have already used magic, learned to boil water or fry toast with almost a snap of my fingers, managed to appreciate cosmetic charms, portals, magical tailoring, but for some reason I only now understood the obvious. The fact that magic is a weapon more terrible than a nuclear bomb. If every dropout student is able to create a vacuum zone in a separate area for a minute, someone's head may well be inside! What then can truly strong and skilled magicians create?