The sun was shining brightly on Wibberflop Academy's courtyard, and the students were bustling about, preparing for their first day of classes. It should have been an ordinary morning, but, as was often the case at Wibberflop, ordinary was rarely on the schedule.
Henry, Jonah, and Katherine were making their way across the courtyard, chatting about the strange happenings they'd heard about the night before, when they were suddenly interrupted by a voice that could only belong to one person.
"Well, well, well, look who it is, the hero of Quackers House."
Henry groaned inwardly before he even turned around. Of course, it was Edgar Slickjaw, flanked by his two ever-present lackeys, Biff and Cyril. Edgar was twirling a large, brightly colored lollipop between his fingers as if it were some kind of royal scepter.
"What do you want, Edgar?" Henry asked, crossing his arms and sighing. He really didn't have the energy for this.
"Oh, nothing much," Edgar replied, his smirk growing wider. "Just thought I'd remind everyone that no matter how much luck you had last year, you'll always be a Blunder."
His cronies burst into laughter on cue, as if Edgar had said something devastatingly clever.
Jonah muttered under his breath, "I can't believe this guy."
Edgar took a step closer, brandishing his lollipop like it was a wand. "So, Blunder, how about we settle things once and for all? A duel. You and me. Right here, right now."
Henry stared at the candy in Edgar's hand. "You want to duel me… with a lollipop?"
Edgar's eyes narrowed. "It's not just any lollipop. It's enchanted candy. My father's shop only sells the finest magical confections, of course." He held it up dramatically as if expecting applause.
Katherine couldn't help but snort, causing Edgar to glare at her. "And what are you laughing at, duck girl?"
Katherine's face flushed red as she clamped a hand over her mouth, trying to stop the inevitable quack that followed.
Edgar smirked, clearly enjoying her discomfort. "Well, Blunder? Are you too scared to face me? Or are you worried you'll lose in front of everyone?"
Henry sighed. He had no interest in dueling Edgar, especially not over something as ridiculous as a magical lollipop. But he also knew that if he walked away, Edgar would never let him hear the end of it.
"Fine," Henry said, rolling his eyes. "Let's get this over with."
The surrounding students quickly formed a circle, buzzing with excitement as Edgar strutted to one side of the makeshift dueling arena, twirling his licorice wand in one hand. Henry, meanwhile, dug through his pockets, hoping to find something even remotely useful for a duel. Unfortunately, all he had were the remnants of some enchanted marshmallows from last year.
"Well, this is going to be interesting," Jonah muttered as Henry held up a slightly squished marshmallow.
Katherine stifled a laugh. "You're dueling with… marshmallows?"
"It's all I've got!" Henry hissed.
Edgar, seeing Henry's "weapon," laughed so hard he nearly dropped his licorice wand. "This is going to be easier than I thought."
With a dramatic flourish, Edgar flicked his licorice whip in the air, sending it cracking toward Henry. Henry barely had time to react, throwing one of the enchanted marshmallows in a panic. The marshmallow flew through the air, hit the licorice whip, and promptly exploded into a puff of sugary mist.
The crowd gasped, but not because of the marshmallow explosion, no, they were watching as Edgar's licorice whip, now tangled with sugar, started wrapping itself around Edgar's legs.
"What the, ?!" Edgar yelped as the licorice whipped around him, tying him up like a pretzel.
Henry blinked, momentarily stunned by his unexpected success. But before he could process what had happened, the marshmallows in his pocket began bouncing out one by one, launching themselves into the air and sticking to everything in sight.
"Uh oh," Henry muttered, watching as marshmallows splattered against walls, stuck to students, and attached themselves to Edgar's face. One marshmallow landed perfectly on Edgar's forehead, making him look like a disgruntled unicorn.
"Get it off!" Edgar shouted, struggling to free himself from the licorice wrapping around his legs and the marshmallow now stuck to his face.
Biff and Cyril tried to help, but they were quickly caught in the crossfire. Biff was pulled to the ground by a rogue licorice whip, while Cyril found himself tangled in sticky marshmallow goo, slipping and sliding across the cobblestones.
The duel quickly descended into chaos as the enchanted marshmallows bounced and popped all over the courtyard. Several first-year students, completely oblivious to the seriousness of the duel, started chasing the marshmallows, trying to catch them like they were part of some sort of bizarre game.
Meanwhile, one of the enchanted marshmallows stuck to a nearby bench, which immediately began to hop around the courtyard like a demented frog, causing more students to run for cover.
As Henry stood in the middle of the chaos, trying to figure out how to stop the marshmallow madness, a familiar figure appeared in the distance. Professor Snipp, Wibberflop's perpetually grumpy Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, was striding toward the courtyard.
And, as usual, Professor Snipp was making an entrance.
With a dramatic flourish, Snipp unbuttoned his shirt halfway, revealing what could only be described as an inappropriately muscular chest for someone who spent most of his time lecturing about defensive spells. He marched down the makeshift dueling aisle like it was a fashion runway, every step deliberate and filled with swagger.
The crowd hushed as Snipp approached, his wand held lazily at his side. With one flick, all of the flying marshmallows froze in mid-air, the licorice whips stopped writhing, and Edgar, still tied up and covered in sugar, hung upside down like a human piñata.
Professor Snipp glanced around the courtyard, his gaze lingering briefly on Henry, then on Edgar, before turning on his heel and walking away, as if this had all been a minor inconvenience.
The narrator chimed in, dry as ever: "And with that, Professor Snipp had once again managed to turn what should have been a routine duel into a fashion show of magical absurdity. One could only wonder if he was truly here to teach defense, or simply to show off his… assets."
Henry, still standing in the middle of the frozen chaos, looked down at his remaining marshmallows. "I think I won?" he said, uncertain.
Jonah grinned. "Yeah, but I think Edgar's going to need therapy after this."
The chaos from the duel was still fresh in Henry's mind as he, Jonah, and Katherine made their way back through the castle corridors. Henry was still picking bits of marshmallow out of his hair, and Katherine had been fighting off the occasional quack that escaped from her throat. As they turned a corner, heading toward their next class, something caught Katherine's eye.
"Wait, what's that?" she asked, pointing to the far wall.
Henry and Jonah followed her gaze, and their jaws dropped in unison.
Written in large, looping letters on the stone wall were the words:
"The Chamber of Silly Walks has been opened!"
And it wasn't written in paint. It wasn't even written in something remotely magical like glowing ink. No, it was written in what appeared to be strawberry jam. The thick, sticky substance dripped down the walls in slow, deliberate streaks, but the most disturbing part was the pattern within the writing.
As if the jam alone wasn't strange enough, there were footprints, actual footprints, embedded within the letters, like someone had written the message by stepping on the walls and dragging their jam-covered feet to form the words.
"How is that even possible?" Jonah asked, blinking in disbelief.
Henry shook his head, completely baffled. "Did someone… walk up the wall?"
Katherine stepped closer, inspecting the footprints more closely. They were, indeed, the shape of feet, but they were far too neat and deliberate to be accidental. Whoever, or whatever, had written this message had done so by walking straight up the wall as though gravity had decided to take a holiday.
The narrator, in his usual deadpan tone, observed: "One might think that writing a message with strawberry jam was strange enough. But to use one's feet as the writing tool, while walking up a wall no less, is truly the work of someone either deeply unhinged or profoundly dedicated to absurdity."
"I'm sorry," Henry said, still staring at the jam-covered wall, "but who writes with jam? And how do you do it with your feet? This place is getting weirder by the minute."
Katherine pointed at the floor beneath the writing. Sure enough, the trail of sticky footprints continued downward, marking a strange path that led around the corner.
"I'm guessing whoever did this wasn't content with just a jam-based announcement," Jonah muttered, trying, and failing, not to step in the jam trail as they followed the footprints.
The three of them moved cautiously down the corridor, following the sticky trail. Every few steps, they'd encounter more bizarre signs of the Silly Walk curse: a student crab-walking backwards, another doing a perfect waddle like a penguin, and one first-year spinning in circles as if they were trapped in an endless pirouette.
"This is bad," Henry muttered as they rounded another corner. "Really bad."
But nothing could have prepared them for what they saw next.
At the end of the corridor, the same strawberry jam writing appeared on the wall again, but this time, the footprints were not just on the wall, they were on the ceiling. The message was upside down, and the footprints appeared to defy all logic as they trailed from the floor to the ceiling and back again.
"How, how does someone do this?" Katherine asked, wide-eyed. "It's like they're walking on the walls and ceiling, but upside down."
"I don't know," Henry said, his voice laced with confusion, "but it looks like the Chamber of Silly Walks is real, and someone, or something, has opened it."
Just as they were about to investigate further, they heard the unmistakable sound of the grumpy school caretaker, Mr. Gristlehorn, stomping down the hall.
"Quick, hide!" Jonah whispered, pulling them behind a large suit of armor just as Mr. Gristlehorn rounded the corner.
The trio watched from their hiding place as Mr. Gristlehorn's beady eyes narrowed in on the writing on the wall. His face flushed an even deeper shade of red as he muttered angrily under his breath.
"Strawberry jam... bloody jam on my walls... and footprints on the ceiling? I'll wring the neck of whoever did this!" he growled, shaking his broom furiously.
To make matters worse, just as Mr. Gristlehorn began inspecting the strange footprints, the school cat, Marmalade, appeared at the far end of the hall, walking as gracefully as ever, until her back legs suddenly slipped into a perfect set of splits. Marmalade looked as horrified as a cat possibly could, her legs frozen in the splits position as she desperately tried to stand upright.
"What in blazes...?" Mr. Gristlehorn muttered, watching in disbelief as the cat awkwardly slid across the floor, her legs splaying out beneath her in a completely unnatural way.
Before the trio could make their escape, Mr. Gristlehorn's sharp eyes landed on them, hiding behind the suit of armor. His face twisted with rage as he stomped toward them.
"You lot!" he shouted, pointing an accusatory finger at them. "What are you doing here, eh? I should've known you'd be mixed up in this! Look at what you've done to the poor cat!"
Katherine quacked involuntarily, stepping out from behind the armor. "We didn't do anything! The cat was already, "
"Already doing the splits?" Mr. Gristlehorn snapped, his eyes wild with suspicion. "A likely story! And what about this jam? This sticky mess! You think you can just write on my walls with your strawberry nonsense?"
Henry, seeing that Gristlehorn was only getting angrier, tried to explain. "It wasn't us, Mr. Gristlehorn. We just got here. The footprints, "
"Footprints? Ceiling footprints? Do I look like a fool to you?" Mr. Gristlehorn barked, waving his broom in their faces. "There's jam all over the castle, cats doing splits, and students walking upside down! And you three are always at the center of the chaos!"
The narrator interjected with his usual sardonic tone: "In Mr. Gristlehorn's defense, he wasn't entirely wrong. The trio did have an unfortunate habit of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. However, blaming them for the cat's sudden gymnastic abilities was, perhaps, a bit of a stretch."
Jonah, trying to diffuse the situation, stepped forward with his hands raised. "Look, we really didn't, "
But before he could finish, Marmalade, still trapped in her split-legged state, slid right into Mr. Gristlehorn's legs, knocking him off balance. The caretaker stumbled backward, flailing wildly before crashing into the suit of armor with a loud clang.
For a moment, everything went silent. Then, as the suit of armor began to wobble precariously, it let out a long, metallic creak before toppling over, crashing to the floor with a resounding bang.
Henry winced. "That… wasn't our fault either."
But Mr. Gristlehorn, now sprawled on the floor with the cat still tangled around his legs, wasn't listening. His face had turned such a deep shade of red that Henry half-expected steam to start pouring out of his ears.
"Get. Out," Mr. Gristlehorn growled through gritted teeth. "Before I make you clean up every inch of this castle with your tongues."
The trio didn't need to be told twice. They bolted down the corridor, slipping on the sticky jam footprints as they went, trying to get as far away from Mr. Gristlehorn's wrath as possible.