She slipped her uniform on, her neutral beige skirt with her light blue blouse. She slipped on her thunderbird caplet and decided her pointed hat would be appropriate on the first day of school. She slipped out of her dorm room and into her house’s great hall. Dark blue and gold covered the walls in decadent designs leftover from the 1910s. Not many other students were up for a 7 am class, which Annabella hesitantly signed up for. Thankfully, it was only one day a week.
She went to her dorm kitchen where invisible servants had a quick breakfast laid out. Annabella grabbed some toast and jam and asked no one in particular for some coffee. She grabbed the hot mug on her way into the hallway. She wasn’t running late but the conservatory was a good walk away.
Annabella chugged her last bit of coffee and snapped it back to the dorm's kitchen. She walked through the beautifully lit hallway and greeted her professor upon entering the giant greenhouse. The walls were made of glass and arched up into a dome. Bird calls echoed from around the room. This was Annabella’s seventh year in this greenhouse, meaning she was starting to learn about the more “exciting” plants. Exciting as in poisons and antidotes. She looked at the wet, slimy moss green muck upon the desk. Not unusual in this classroom but not exactly appetizing first thing in the morning.
“You American’s certainly have an odd choice for breakfast.” A british accent teased from behind her. Annabella turned around to see Thomas Belby sitting in the seat behind her. A faint smile and big cup of watered-down looking coffee Annabella only assumed was tea, sat upon the desk.
Before Annabella could answer thunder rolled in the distance. A slightly excited murmur went around the room. Thomas looked confused, Annabella smiled and said “We enjoy the light show after storms in the painted forest.”
“Painted forest?”
“It just beyond the entrance gate, the pine needles make a light show after storms. You know how a rainbow appears after rain? Same story. It will most likely be this evening, you can join my friends and I after dinner to go see it.”
Thomas looked at Annabella and smiled. “Sounds like a good time.”
Three sharp claps interrupted the morning clamor and the professor introduced the green mass in front of each student. “Today we will be learning about the poisonous Frogmuck from the swamps of the Gulf Coast. How to use it medicinally, and more importantly how to not die from it.”