"Just in time, my assistant arrived when we finished with our introductions." Mrs Lambert said as a man wearing a face mask walked in pushing a trolley filled with cages. It was impossible to see inside them with a black cloth covering each one, but some of the cages rattled.
"For the last time, I'm not your assistant." The man looked incredibly exhausted. His eyes were sunken, and his voice was raspy as if he had a cough. "I'll be back to collect them when the lesson is over. Make sure none of them leaves their cages."
"Ok assistant." Mrs Lambert chirped much to the man's disappointment.
My curiosity instantly drew me to the cages. I still knew very little about the magical world and what was reality or fiction.
"Wanna take a look?" After saying that Mrs Lambert pulled the cloth of one of the cages to reveal a bird with bright red and orange feathers. "I thought we would start with a famous magical creature, that even normal humans know about this one. The Phoenix."
Mrs Lambert shook the cage the bird's feathers ignited and the inside of the cage soon became a roar of flames. She picked up the cage and started walking the classroom with it.
"The cage has magic sealing the bird inside, so don't worry about it escaping. However, don't touch the cage with anything, but the handle because it gets dangerously hot. Now, who can tell me the abilities a phoenix has, other than the ability to set on fire?"
I remembered reading about phoenixes before. In most interpretations of phoenixes, they had some sort of healing power.
"Do they have a healing ability?" I asked unsure of myself.
"Well done, Kate. They do in fact have a healing ability. Phoenixes' have stores of magic in their feathers and their skin. The magic in their feathers is flammable and is used to create the fire, whilst the magic in the skin protects their body from the fire by regenerating the skin and feathers."
The bird's flames began to sputter and dim as Mrs Lambert set it down. "As you can see a phoenix can't keep realising flames indefinitely because its feathers burn out, and it has to take time to regenerate its feathers.
Back before phoenixes became an endangered species they were used for medical purposes. By skinning a phoenix, a talented enough mage could extract the healing properties and use them to heal others. The healing was so effective that they were hunted to near extinction, and they are now only kept in the nature preserve on this island."
Once the Phoenix's flames went out, it looked quite ridiculous without any feathers. However, its featherless appearance didn't last long because the feathers started to grow back. The feathers were a lot smaller than they were originally, but they were gradually growing.
Mrs Lambert opened the cage and began to pluck a few of the feathers whilst they were still small.
"In my opinion, the feathers are much cooler than the skin." After saying that Mrs Lambert threw the feathers out of the window she flew through. Once the feather left the window they began to glow, and then they exploded. The blast was enough to shake the window, and its roar nearly defended me.
"When the phoenix was in the cage it controlled the output of the flame to not burn his feathers instantly, but as you can see without that limitation all its firepower is released at once. So, if you ever happen to be fighting against a phoenix do not approach it when it looks desperate. In a life-or-death situation, they will choose to explode, and you just saw what a couple of its ungrown feathers did."
It was an amazing sight and a scary thought. If that bird wasn't in its cage, it could choose to blow up this entire classroom, it could probably take a few of the classrooms next door as well.
"So, do you want to see it outside of its cage? A phoenix in flight looks so majes…" Before Mrs lambert could finish saying the most frightening thing she has said all lesson, the classroom door swung open.
"Are You An IDIOT!!!" The assistant came in and hit Mrs Lambert around the head. "How many warnings have I given you about using the phoenix feathers? It's always me who has to explain this to the headmaster, but not this time! You are coming with me right now to explain to him that this is your fault!"
Most of the assistant's face was covered, but by his eyes, I could tell he was ready to kill her if she come with her. He began to drag Mrs Lambert by the leg out of the classroom, but she didn't seem bothered by it.
"Class can end early today; my assistant and I have urgent business to attend to. You can all leave, but make sure that the room is clean beforehand, okay?"
'That was bizarre.' I thought as we all watched Mrs Lambert being dragged out of the classroom.
"Hey, want to walk home together?" Lleu asked bringing me out of my stupor.
"Sure, we can walk home together, but I've got nothing to do when I get back, so do you want to hang out?"
"Sandwich shop!" Davy exclaimed whilst licking his lips. I could tell he was hooked after the tuna sandwich we had earlier, and honestly, it wasn't a bad idea.
I was also hungry, and the sandwich was delicious. "Yeah, I wouldn't mind getting something to eat, but what do you want to do after that? We can't spend all day eating sandwiches."
"Why don't we go to my house then? I have a bunch of video game consoles me, and Davy like playing, we could do that. Wait never mind you probably don't want to do something like that all evening." Lleu got less enthusiastic as he was talking.
"That sounds hella fun. Don't doubt yourself, Lleu. I'd love to do that."
"Then let's get the sandwiches and head back to my place."
We walked out of the classroom full of energy. This was the first time I'm going to visit a friend's house outside of Rose's, so nothing could ruin my mood. Until I felt an icy cold glare from behind.
"I'm sorry to ruin your plans but are you forgetting that you have detention for fighting?" Somehow Mr Woods managed to sap all our energy with a single sentence. "You're going to be cleaning the school cafeteria, so you won't be leaving until it's spotless."
And just like that, we were taken away, put into aprons and given mops. We now stood in the cafeteria with Mr Woods's barking orders.
Fweet Mr Woods had a whistle. "Alright, listen up. You got off early because of the disturbance Mrs Lambert caused. Meaning that the others in detention haven't arrived yet. If you want to leave before they get here, then you will have to move the table and chairs and pick up all the litter. The others can be responsible for mopping the floor."
"Fweet Now get going!"
I was annoyed that we had to clean, but it was still possible to leave early. "Ok let's divide and conquer, so we can get out of here as soon as possible. Davy, you handle the litter. Lleu, you and I will carry the table and chairs to the corner of the cafeteria."
The both of them nodded at me, I could tell they also wanted to leave early as well. Davy picked up a disposable bag and used one of the litter pickers to clean up, whilst Lleu and I carried the tables.
The tables were hefty, and they had to be lifted so the legs wouldn't scrape across the floor. With one person it would be almost impossible to lift without marking the floor, but with me and Davy at either end of the table, we gentle lifted it and moved them to the designated corner.
We decided to leave the chairs behind and do all the tables first, the chairs could be done by all three of us at the end.
Davy was being quick and every time we moved a table, he would be there instantly to pick all the litter underneath it.
We were all moving in sync, and we managed it quite fast. The only problem was that there were over 50 tables and they all had to be stacked in the corner with the chairs. We had to slow down to lift the tables on top of each other, and I could see Lleu's arm's giving out.
"Davy switch with Lleu. His arms are getting tired, and you're already finished with all the litter." Davy, I had been going underneath the tables we hadn't started on yet, so he was already finished.
"I'm fine Kate, I can't sit and do noth…"
"You're not going to be doing nothing you can start stacking the chairs."
Lleu reluctantly relinquished his job to Davy, and in about the next 20 minutes we were all done with everything stacked in the corner.
"Fweet Well done you can go home now."
Just as I was about to celebrate going home early, the thunder cats walked in. The lion and leopard.
They both scowled at us but didn't say anything. Davy started to wobble a little, and I was clenching my fist and trying not to ram it through their faces.
Mr Woods was quick to see the tension. "Fweet FWEET Hurry up. I said you can go, so don't loiter."
The three of us left, and I could hear them talking about us as soon as we closed the door. I felt like turning around and knocking them to the floor, but I was stopped.
"Don't worry about them, Kate. They're not worth your time." Lleu got between me and the door to stop me from barging back in.
"Yeah, sandwich more important!" Davy tugged at my arm to try and get me to leave.
Since leaving Rose and my family I had found it nearly twice as hard to control my anger without them, but it looks like I won't have that problem anymore. "Thanks, guys. You're right we should just ignore them and get that sandwich already."
They both smiled at me, glad to see I wasn't about to enter a murderous rampage.