Words for Wednesday - October 28 - Exams

In October Messymimi at Messymimi's Meanderings is supplying the Words for Wednesday. Today she has given us two things.

  These words:
hostility
east
girlfriend
wall
hardware
bear

     and

a photo by Maria Orlova on Pexels (you have to manually type in: www.pexels.com to go there).

  While I did not use the bridge on the photo, a bridge was a part of last week's WfW, and I cannot use any more bridges ;)
  I did not use many of the words given, but then there's words for more chapters.

As they arrived at The Farm next morning you could almost feel the excitement in the air. Veronika's hair stood out from her head with statics, and everybody was terribly quiet. ML came in from the yard and asked them to follow her. They did, quietly and in small groups of three or four they entered the pale blue door to the east wing of the Unicorn Farm. She led them all to the corridor on second floor with the differently coloured doors. ML stopped outside the first door. It was blue with a white cauldron on it. She said: "Now, we're all ready for exams. The teachers are inside the rooms, you go in one at a time, do the task, answer their question, in short do what they ask you. When you're done, you continue to the next door, and place yourself at the end of the line. Is this clear?" As everybody nodded, she pulled a long list from a pocket and continued: We're doing this strictly after the alphabet. Fiona, Veronika , Bjørn, Heidi, Lis, Tage, and Monica you go here." They lined up outside the door and ML continued to the leaf green door: "Anna, Kalle, My, Bo, Britta, and Harald, you stay here." The next door was grey, one of the normal class rooms, that usually had a sign on it in either green, blue, red or yellow telling who had the use of that room for the day. Today all the grey and white doors were bare. ML called Lukas, Jan, Selma, David, Kirstin, Nata and Ingrid forth to be placed there. The next door was the sick bay, and at the white door with the red cross Susan was the last in line after Josta, Marja, Jouka, Terje and Helge Then at yet another another normal, grey door Sarah, Aamu, Astrid, Marit, Olav,  Sif and Elvin were placed. And the final group, composed of Rósa, Grani, Knud, Josh, Hilde and Finnbogi were lined up outside the biggest of the multicoloured library doors,
Then, with all the apprentices standing in neat lines, ML put back the list and drew her wand. "There'll be no talking, no cheating, no nothing in those lines. I'll put a silencing spell on this corridor, and I'll stay here to help, and watch over you until everybody is finished. When I have cast the spell, the first person in each line knock on the door in front of them to start the exams. Any questions before we start?" There wasn't any. ML cast her spell and as one Fiona, Anna, Lukas, Josta, Sarah and Rósa knocked at the doors in front of them. Susan saw Jon greet Rósa from inside the library and Thora and Sarah disappear behind the nondescript grey door. Of course Taavi was in the sick room, and Susan guessed that Täthi were examining the first group in Potion behind the blue door with the white cauldron. This left Martine, Birgitta, Gilvi and Torben. During her wait, while she came closer and closer to the sick bay, she saw that her guesses were mostly right. Tähti was indeed behind the blue cauldron-marked door, Gilvi was behind the leaf green door with the mouse symbol, surely examining the apprentices in the calling of animals.  Of course Martine was missing, they could not be examined in flying in a class room, but Birgitta's absence was more strange.
Then she was called into the sick bay. Taavi sat in a chair next to the couch, and bade Susan take a seat in the other chair. "Now," he said, "You're living in a small town in the country. People have come to the conclusion that you can cure their petty diseases and so on. Nobody knows you for a witch. You mean this situation to continue, but still you want to help. A mum is sitting in the chair in front of you and her son is playing with the toys in the basket. He's the problem. He's got warts, big ones, all over legs, arms and torso. What are you going to do? Think before you answer." Susan thought. She was a witch, she could remove those warts like this with a spell or a potion, but that would reveal her. Slow. That was it, that was the keyword. A potion then ... not a spell, but how? She thought a bit more, then she spoke up: "If I haven't got an anti-wart potion," she began, looking questioning at Taavi. He nodded, and said "You haven't."
"Then I'll ask them to return tomorrow, as I'm out of anti-wart band aids. Then I prepare a potion, put a little on some brightly coloured band aids and stick, oh the yellow ones at the arms, the blue ones at his legs, and the red ones on neck and torso. I tell him that these band aids have to sit there for as many days as he's years old - make that five, and then he'll have to put all the band aids into one bag and throw them out just before going to bed on the fifth day. That should work." Taavi wrote something in a small notebook, rose and followed her to the door. Susan was unable to guess whether he was satisfied or not.
The exams went fairly quickly actually, and after describing and naming plants for Täthi, Susan found herself entering the blue door where Gilvi set up a problem for her: "A young family, Mum, dad and a baby just moved into the neighbourhood. They have heard that you can sometimes help people with strange problems, and now the dad is at your door. The problem is squirrels. They pester the little family, eating their nuts, stealing the food away from the chicken feeders, scaring the baby. Imagine something like Donald Duck and the two chipmunks." Susan smiled. "Can you help them? You go with the dad to their house. Now you think, while I get a squirrel," Gilvi said and went to the cages in the back of the room.
Susan thought to herself. Squirrels are a pest generally, curious and inventive. Even if not really as bad as Chip and Dale, they still can drive a family nuts. Suddenly the terrible truth dawned on Susan. She did not know the Icelandic word for Squirrel. Then she thought back to the very first lesson in Icelandic. Pig Latin. Could she do it in pig Latin? She just had to try. Not to try was a sure fail. She composed a calling spell. ' Irrelsquay, irrelsquay. Omecay to emay, omecay to emay.' And later, if the squirrel reacted she could continue: 'Opstay opstay, do otnay esterpay histay ousehay, leasepay.'  She grasped some nuts from the plate at the table and was ready as Gilvi returned with the squirrel in a cage. Susan shook from sheer nerves, she drew big, shuddering  breath and began her incantation, very quietly and then a bit louder. Gilvi's head snapped up as he heard the words. But he did not speak. Slowly the squirrel turned to Susan, Gilvi opened the door and the small animal ran to Susan's hands. She offered him a nut and then she was one with the small animal. The nut was delicious, it was pure bliss eating it. Susan had an idea. She showed the squirrel the nuts in her hands, and spoke to it with the small voice inside her head: 'Squirrel, you're pestering this family. They do not like what you do to their chickens.' She showed the squirrel a hen to ensure its understanding. 'If you leave them alone, I'll give you more of these very good nuts.' The squirrel understood. It promised, but Susan sensed that its mischievous manners would not let it keep the promise for long. 'Squirrel,' she said earnestly. 'Every time, before I give you a nut, I'll go and ask the family if the chicken were really left alone You behave or no nuts.' Susan saw the little reddish animal hang its head. 'Promise.' it said clearly and Susan handed it another nut and released it from her spell.
"That was splendid," Gilvi said, "but why on earth did you jeopardize it all by speaking Pig Latin. You did not want to show off, now, did you?"
"No!" Susan said in an almost inaudible voice. "I had forgotten - or maybe never learnt - the Icelandic word for squirrel. I just had to do something. Not doing anything was not an option."
"No," Gilvi said, his face suddenly dark and sombre, "Not doing anything is never an option. Now you've better get on to the next place." 

The last exam for Susan was divination and fortune-telling with Torben. When this was over and done with she tried to escape via the blue door only to find a new line there. Only one of the waiting apprentices at a time were let through by ML. Susan's turn came soon, only Monica and Finnbogi waited before her. Behind the door and down a flight of stairs she went. Then, down on the landing Birgitta stood with a table filled with cards all showing only the backsides in front of her.
"This is the last test," she said. "You have to find the ace of Spades by sensing the cards."
"Yes," Susan said. "I understand."
"But can you do it?" Birgitta asked, her pretty face looking strangely twisted in the semi darkness of the staircase.
Susan extended her hands over the decks of cards. They all felt alike to her. Then one felt a bit hotter, and she flipped it. It was the ace of Hearts.
"Close, but not close enough," Birgitta said. "Try again." Susan tried some more, but it was not until she had turned over four more cards, that she suddenly was sure that this was it. and it was. With a heartfelt sigh she left the farmhouse behind her and ran out into the yard. Here she was met by Heidi and the twins.
"How did you do?" Heidi asked in an excited voice.
"I think I flunked chiromancy" Susan answered. "I said that Torben was going to have 8 children and die at the ripe, old age of 35. Which I think he has passed already. I might have mixed up the lines. 3-4 children and ripe old 80 sounds way better, don't you think?"
Heidi began laughing. "I had trouble with that one as well. But I transformed that old shoe no problems ... and I found the right card at first try. Heidi and Tage tried three times each."
"And I six," Susan smiled. "I wonder how many is still 'passed'."
"Oh all below ten is fine, I think" Tage said. "It was a lot of cards. Surely more than one deck."

Monica, Harald and Finnbogi also joined the apprentices in the yard and then the bell struck three times. "Wauw, it's three o'clock. No wonder I'm hungry!" Tage said. The professors all came down the stairs and out into the year as well. Martine came out from the Barn and spoke in a magically enhanced voice. "Dinner is served, Come in here everyone." It was a dinner fit for an examination day. Delicious soups, hot stews, still steaming bread of different kinds and forms, hot tea, coffee, cocoa and soda pops to drink. The tables were set in smaller groups, not the normal long table and while the professors all sat together at one table, the apprentices were free to seat themselves as they liked.