Anna Lang
Dr. Powers
ENGL 281
2 April 2018
Monday in Pauxia
Like the flash of lightning, bars of blue light came down upon the door, blocking students from entering or exiting the dark, dungy classroom. Pauxia, Academy of Wizardry, is no stranger to lockdowns. When you’re an unfunded public school in the projects of Philadelphia, lockdowns and locker searches are just part of a typical week. From the sounds of the students’ gossip in Professor Kramel’s remedial potions class, it sounded like this lockdown was because someone managed to smuggle a wand silencer through security today. Impressive, if you think about it, since those security wizards went through intensive training at New York’s Wizarding College of Protection, kind of like the No-Maj police officers that are seen running around the neighborhoods of Philly.
Wand silencers were hard to come by on this side of Philly, especially since the recent crackdown from Philadelphia’s Safety Commissioner got re-elected for a tenth year in a row. Simply put, a wand silencer was a small, thin black rectangle that hooked onto the bottom of any wand, making them virtually untraceable and undetectable. The few that were still floating around the crumbling city belonged to gang members who only emerged under the cover of darkness.
Birdie Benentt sat in the back of her potions class, arms crossed as she watched Professor Kramel pull out the binder from his desk in a swift motion. The orange binder held all the procedures that professors were suppose to follow if something happened; whether it be lockdowns, fights, or missing students. Karmel was only here for a few month, and in Birdie’s opinion, he only had a few more left before this school chewed him up and spat him back out. Although Professor Karmel was a nice enough teacher, his overly large nose, his naturally green hair, and boring class was often the butt of jokes in Pauxia. There had only been two lockdowns before -which was a record low at Pauxia- and poor Karmel was a stickler for rules and procedures, hench why he was now fumbling through the pages of the binder to look up what to do.
Students were suddenly excited and loud with the sudden appearance of the blue bars over the door. Pretty much all of them knew how these lockdowns worked, and in in the spirit of chaos, they wanted to make their own.
“Settle down guys!” Professor Karmel whined through his huge nose, hoping his class would quiet down long enough for him to think. Once he glanced down at the binder, he grabbed a silver basket under his desk. “You know the drill. First row, please come up and put your wands in the basket.” Grumbles ensued. The first row didn’t want to move from their seats, and some outright ignored the instructions and were busy gossiping with their friends around them. “If I don’t have wands in here in 10 seconds, you can all kiss the love potion lesson goodbye!” he shouted. That was enough to get the class moving.
Birdie slumped down in her seat, waiting for her row to be called on. She traced over the moving graffiti on her ancient wooden desk, watching a poorly drawn dragon fly around. Handing over her wand during lockdowns was always the worst; her wand was the only thing that gave her any sense of power in her drabby life. Between her deadbeat mom who was always high or drunk, a her father that was barely around because of work, and a cramped apartment with no privacy, there was enough stress for Birdie. At least at Pauxia, she was able to actually use her wand and be her own person. Who knew how long this lockdown would go on for.
“Row five, your turn,” Professor Karmel said. All six of the students, including Birdie, rose from their seats and walked over to the silver basket, dropping their chipped, secondhand wands into it. The basket had a special hex on it, simultaneously recording to make sure each wand actually belonged to each student, they didn’t have any silencers or illegal charms on them, and were sealed in the basket until security came around to each class to release them. But that could take hours. Returning back to her, Birdie slumped forward on her desk, flicking a piece of her curly, kinky hair out from her eyes. Her school’s tie- an ugly orange and light blue- coiled on the desk next to her head. On the back, she could read the tiny tag, which stated: PROPERTY OF PAUXIA, ACADEMY OF WIZARDRY.
“Settle DOWN class,” Professor Karmel snipped at the rowdy class of 25. Calypso, another girl with a reputation of running her mouth, whined back.
“How long is it gonna take Mister?” she said. “I’mma leavin early today, and I can’t be late for my hair appointment again.”
“I don’t know, Calypso,” Professor Karmel said. “But until we get the all clear from Principal Levvy, we are going to try to continue with our lesson.”
The class collectively moan in protest. Calypso started to talk back over the roar students, something about how they should watch a movie or something. Anything would be better than potions class right now. Birdie nestled her head in between her arms on her desk, and closed her eyes to try to ignore the class. She picked one of her hands up from the desk, and felt her right pocket to make sure her stack of tarot cards were still there. Reading tarot cards was something she loved doing, and according to the astrology Professor Gambi, she had a natural talent of reading the past, present, and future.
“Birdie, please get your head off the desk, and pay attention,” Professor Karmel said all of the sudden. Gritting her teeth and biting her tongue before she said something stupid, she reluctantly sat up in her uncomfortable chair. Today, she thought, was going to be a long day.