SWNOVELS Chapter 64 - Total Non-compliance With Rules
The other two looked at him inquiring, so he had to tell them the reason:
“No one should know we are going there, because we could be sent home ... or worse, punished and eliminated from the competition. Surely, if we went down by day to look for the Lost Lne, the chances of being discovered would be much greater.”
He looked at Johnny, but it seemed Davies didn't understand.
“Certainly there are professors who walk at night in the school corridors after bedtime and there are stone elves whose job is to prevent anyone or anything to enter those lost corridors or vice versa, prevent something in the corridors from entering the school. By day anyone walking around can see us ... but at night we have the darkness on our side.”
Convinced that the two got his thinking, Alexander left letting them find out as much as possible about the underground tunnels beneath the mysterious Elmbridge Magic School.
Elizabeth had little chance to help Alexander pass this test too, so that the boy would participate in the last test and the reputation of Elmbridge Magic School wouldn’t be ruined. It would be a total disaster to be in the first team that failed without even participating in the last event. So she couldn't miss this chance to pick dry poplar sprouts and create that potion.
…
“Knudlac, is that you?”
Miss Harmony stopped the professor, but she didn’t smile as usual when she met someone.
“Is there anything wrong, Harmony?”
“No, I went to check Elizabeth in her room. You just know how much I love her. But I didn't find her there.”
“It's been at least 10 minutes until bedtime. She may be still in the library, you know she spends her time there before going to sleep.”
“Yes I know.”
Professor Knudlac looked with the same calm smile at Miss Harmony straight in the eye.
“Evanescet Cito!”
“Za Homo Immobiles!”
They cast the spells at the same time.
One of the spells helped Miss Harmony to disappear, and the other ... had no effect because Harmony disappeared just before Knudlac's spell had effect upon her. Only a small closet on that corridor got wrapped by some ropes.
Here she is again, Miss Harmony, her fiancé Jack and Rujnoiu.
A few doors opened and a few lookie-loos quickly stuck their heads out of the room.
“What happened, Knudlac?” Miss Harmony asked.
“I knew it wasn't you. There was a stranger in school, looking exactly like you.”
The professors looked at each other in horror.
“Get into your rooms! There’s nothing to see,” Rujnoiu snapped at those drifters with heads stuck out the rooms, that everyone fled shortly, like meerkat heads hiding in the ground when they see danger.
“Rujnoiu, please lock the main doors well after bedtime and talk to all elves to intensify controls on the corridors. Jack and Harmony, please discuss with the other professors to do the same. No stranger will come for sure, because I know from now on we’ll take drastic measures, but just in case ...”
“Of course, Professor Knudlac,” everyone answered in a voice.
Rujnoiu disappeared.
"I'm going to make sure there's no older student outside the bedroom," said Miss Harmony.
Harmony disappeared, taking Jack with her.
And Knudlac went down the corridor and stopped at Elizabeth's door.
“What did that stranger want?”
Knudlac approached the girl's door, looked to see if anyone left anything near her door.
“Reprehendo ... and he kept whispering, saying a few words in a too low voice to be heard, which sounded like a spell.
When he finished some sparks turned around Elizabeth's door, and then nothing happened.
“Nothing…”
The professor knocked on the girl's door, and the door opened in a few moments.
“Are you all right, my dear?”
“Yes, I'm all right. I got ready for bed.”
“I just wanted to see how you were doing and wish you good night.”
They heard a door open. The professor and the girl looked at that door. It was Johnny's bedroom door. They saw him quickly enter the bedroom, holding a box in his hand, then closing the door with noise.
“I go now. If you need anything, feel free to tell me, Harmony or any professor.”
“Thank you.”
The professor left, while the girl closed the door quickly behind her. She quickly threw off her nightgown, which she was wearing, revealing underneath it the clothes she used to wear during the day.
Elizabeth started to walk around the room, restless. She was clearly very excited about what she and her friends Alexander and Johnny were about to do. It was dangerous. She could be wounded, or even worse, kicked out of the school and forced to go back to the orphanage.
…
“Quiet ... I heard something,” a boy whispered.
In the hallway of Elmbridge magic school, near Elizabeth's room, three children stood behind the famous curtain, where Alexander hid some time ago before they faced that ogre. There were three motionless shadows. One of them had a hand clamped over another’s mouth. Anyone could get that the talking shadow was Johnny, the chatterbox, with Elizabeth's hand over his mouth.
Miss Harmony walked past them just as Johnny finally was silent. Lucky them for she didn’t notice them and kept going, because otherwise their adventure could end here now.
“What are we going to do? All the professors have now started to walk in the corridors. They’ll surely catch us.”
Alexander was no longer so confident now. He expected from time to time to run into someone, to be caught by a professor or a stone elf. They could pull the curtain aside and ask ‘what the eff are you doing here by midnight?’ before they really started to roam the school corridors. Yet, luck would come right when he expected less.
“If you obey me, they won’t catch us,” Johnny, their last hope, smiled.