Roomies: Part Three

      "What do you want?" she said, tired. Her hair was a mess, sticking all over her face, for she had just crawled out of bed. However, when she opened the door, all she saw was a floating scroll that had her name on it. It was the Faerie Academy's mail system. Grabbing it, she took it inside, unrolled it and slammed the door. It read:

      ~Jhudora,

      Your cloud has been repaired and refurbished sooner than expected. If you submit us the remains of your wand with this message, you will be able to return to your neohome by the end of the week. I wish you luck with your new life.

      Sincerely,

      Jim

      President of the

      Neohome Planning Committee

      As she read the note, Jhudora's eyes lit up. She would be going home at last! Thrusting her hand into her pocket, she pulled out the ashes of her wand and rolled them up tightly in the scroll, tying it with one of Jesc's ribbons. As soon as she was done, the scroll slid under the crack in the door and flew away.

      Jhudora hummed a happy song as she began to pack her bag. Her belongings had somehow gotten scattered across the room during her two week stay and she had to search the room to find them. It didn't take long, however. All that she had owned were a pair of socks, a borrowed shirt from Jesc that said "Fireball" on it, and a purple hairbrush. After shoving them into a small bag that Jim had given her, she sat on the bed and smiled.

      Suddenly, however, she was hit with a strange feeling. It wasn't happiness or even anger. It was the sadness of homesickness and although she didn't admit, Jhudora was going to miss the castle with Mrs. Sre and the annoying faeries that cluttered the hallways. She was even going to miss Jesc. There was, however, one faerie that she knew that she was NOT going to miss, and that was Mrs. Pierce, but as she thought of the horrible teacher, an idea struck her.

      An evil smile slipped onto Jhudora's face. "Well," she said to the empty dorm room. "If I'm going to be leaving the school again, I better leave in style!" She then sat at Jesc's desk and began scheming.

     ***

      Finally, it was Jhudora's last day in the castle.

      Jesc spent most of the morning out of the dorm room, doing something that Jhudora didn't know. However, whenever she saw Jhudora, she would give a weak smile and burst into tears.

      As it was Mrs. Sre's birthday, gym class was canceled as a treat, but Jhudora tagged along with Jesc to the rest of her classes. (Miss Nell was so sad that Jhudora was leaving that she hugged her for the first five minutes of class.)

      As they were eating lunch (tchea fruit and plain faerie cupcakes), a scroll flew to Jhudora, hitting her on her forehead. Rubbing her head angrily, she realized that her wand had arrived, so, excited, she opened it up and found that her wand was completely fixed. She waved it a few times and sparks erupted from the tip. Happy, she turned to Jesc who was eating very quickly to get to Mrs. Pierce's class on time. Jhudora stopped her.

      "I have an idea," she said and she whipped out her newly repaired wand. Jhudora then muttered a few words, tapped Jesc on her head and she turned invisible!

      "Uh... Jhudora. What did you do to me?" Jesc asked nervously once she realized that she had disappeared.

      Slightly annoyed, Jhudora answered, "I made you invisible,"

      Jesc was about to ask why when she suddenly realized what Jhudora had done. "Wow!" she said. "Now Mrs. Pierce won't see me coming down the hallway so she won't be able to shut the door on me! Jhudora, you're brilliant!"

      "I know, I know!" Jhudora said tapping herself with the wand and disappearing into thin air. "Then you'll reappear in the classroom and Mrs. Pierce will be absolutely stunned that you made it to class on time."

      "This is great," Jesc said, "but what made you decide to help me? I mean, you said that I was just a 'happy little air faerie'. Besides, you never bothered with anyone else before?"

      "Well, I've decided to leave this castle with a...surprise, and it wouldn't be complete without seeing Mrs. Pierce's reaction. Besides, I have a sort of 'goodbye' present for her, if you know what I mean!" Jhudora answered with a mischievous smile as they walked invisible down the hallway to class.

      As they neared her classroom, they saw Mrs. Pierce glance at the door, waiting for Jesc to arrive and to humiliate her. However, Jesc quickly slipped inside. She sat down in a chair in the front row and Jhudora quickly undid the spell from the front of the room where she stood invisible. Jesc then gave Mrs. Pierce quite a fright when she spotted her.

      "Jesc!" she jumped. "How did you get in here?"

      "I walked," Jesc said simply, pulling out a pen and notebook.

      "Oh..." Mrs. Pierce said, trying to find a way to get Jesc into trouble another way. Coming up empty on ideas, she turned to the door and then asked, "Where's Jhudora? Too afraid to come to my class?"

      "No," Jesc said innocently. "She's just packing up. It's her last day here,"

      "Ahh, too bad," Mrs. Pierce said with an obvious sign that she really didn't care. "Well, let get to work," she said, pulling out her lesson plan for the day. Choosing a hard question from their reading homework, she decided to quiz Jesc and get her a detention that way. "Okay, Jesc. Here's a question for you. What did..." However, she never finished her question because soon as she started to speak, the entire class gasped. Turning around startled, Mrs. Pierce saw that a piece of chalk from the board was writing a message on the chalkboard. It read:

     MRS. PIERCE! YOU EVIL, VILE TEACHER! YOU DON'T TEACH PROPER USES OF MAGICAL ABILITIES, YOU JUST CRITICIZE YOUR STUDENTS! YOU ARE A HORRIBLE, NASTY-

      Mrs. Pierce suddenly grabbed the eraser and began to erase the message. The words continued to write, but eventually gave up, and were all erased. The room, however, was engulfed in a thick, white cloud of chalk dust. Coughing, Mrs. Pierce yelled, "Jhudora!" *cough* "I know..." *cough* ...that it's you!" *cough, cough* "Now STOP IT!"

      Everything went still and Jesc looked around the room for Jhudora, stifling laughter. However, in a blink of an eye, piles of papers were flying everywhere. They coated the floor and flew through the air, folding into tiny paper airplanes and hitting Mrs. Pierce. Her glasses fell to the floor, but the sound of glass was barely heard over the riot of laughter that the faeries in the classroom were making. However, after a few minutes, everything went still once more.

      Mrs. Pierce was crouched behind her desk, preparing for the worst; however, after a few minutes, she came out. Her hair was disheveled and her glasses were askew, but her eyes were burning with hatred and madness. Suddenly, a small candle of her desk lit, the fire dancing on the wick in front of her beady little eyes.

      "Jhudora, Jhudora, Jhudora!" she chanted softly. "Playing a little game with me, are you?" she said insanely. "Well, it's not working... like I said before. Even imbeciles can put out fires!" Taking out her own wand, she gave it a quick flick and water shot out, covering the flame. "See!" she called out. "I can put out fires, while you won't even be good enough to wash my blackboard!"

      "Mrs. Pierce..." a child called softly.

      "Not now, Sally, I'm telling Jhudora about how I won this battle!"

      "But Mrs Pierce...!"

      "Sally! Please be quiet! I'm savoring this victory!"

      "But..." Sally whispered,

      "WHAT DO YOU WANT, CHILD?!" Mrs. Pierce screamed however, as she turned around, she saw what Sally was talking about. The candle on her desk was still alight.

      "No, no!" Mrs. Pierce said. "This is impossible!" She once more waved her wand and doused the flame, however, the flame still shone bright. She waved her wand even more and more water came bounding out, washing over the flame and flooding her desk, however the flame was still there.

      Mrs. Pierce continued putting water on the flame, but it wielded with the same result. The students just looked at each other and passed notes that asked if their teacher had gone insane. Jesc was just laughing, hiding her smile behind her book, a book that she had been reading in her room that was called, "Illusions and Images". Jhudora had used the spell from that book, for the fire was nothing more than an illusion and illusions don't fade away with water.

      After a few more minutes, the bell rang and the faeries gathered their things. Making sure to avoid Mrs. Pierce and the water that covered the floor, they left the room and once outside, Jhudora reappeared besides Jesc, finally receiving the vengeance that she wanted for so many years.

      "That was truly amazing!" Jesc said.

      Jhudora responded with an, "I know," and they headed back to the air faerie tower. Once Jhudora reached the top, however, she realized that Jesc had disappeared. "Jesc! Jesc!" she called out, however, she was the only one on the staircase. All of the air faeries seemed to have vanished.

      With a shrug, Jhudora opened the dorm door, however, she was met with a huge surprise.

      Behind the door was every air faerie in the tower, Miss Nell, Mrs. Sre and Jesc! "SURPRISE!" they called and Jhudora couldn't help but jump. "What is this?" she asked Jesc.

      "It's a 'Going Home' party! I've been planning it all day! I hope you like it!"

      "It's great," Jhudora said sarcastically, looking around. There were banners everywhere, food, music, and even a few dark faeries had shown up. It was a little tacky for her taste, yet she couldn't help but smile at the number of faeries who had actually shown up to wish her goodbye. Looking at Jesc who had a hopeful expression on her face, she said, "Hey! Let's get this party started!" and headed to the dance floor where everyone had flocked to.

      "Hey Jhudora!" Mrs. Sre called to her as they were dancing.

      "Yeah?" Jhudora said.

      "I heard about your little run in with Mrs. Pierce..."

      "Oh, that..."

      "Nice use with fire illusions!" she said with a smile.

      "Thanks! I thought I should leave with a bang!"

      "Well," Jesc said, cutting in, "If anything's a bang, it's this party! We've already got complaints from some water faeries and they're three towers over!" Jesc laughed and Mrs. Sre went to get some punch. "I'm going to miss you, Jhudora," she said softly. "You were the best, well the only, roomie that I ever had."

      "Hey!" Jhudora said with a smile/glare, "Once a roomie, always a roomie, whether I want to be, or not!"

      They then spent the rest of the night at the party, dancing, eating, and saying goodbye. Finally at midnight, Jhudora stood up on Jesc's desk and went through the window to fly to her new cloud. She was humming a dance song as the night wind ruffled her hair, and she couldn't help but think that she was forgetting something...

     ***

      The classroom is dark except for a small flame on a candle. It flickers menacingly and is reflected just as bright in Mrs. Pierce's eyes. The floor is flooded with water and Mrs. Pierce is soaked, still muttering feeble spells that hit the candle, yet do not extinguish the flame. A party is raging down the corridor in one of the towers, but Mrs. Pierce does not hear it, despite the blaring music. Her focus is on the flame as she blends into madness, muttering, "I'll get you Jhudora, one day, somehow... I may still not know how your pride survived that fire I set on your cloud... but one day you will be reduced the low-life faerie that you truly are... one day, I'll make it so that I'm above you..."

The End