z

Young Writers Society


E - Everyone

The Adventures of Darren Cassidy - Chapter Five, Part Two - Beware the Watchog

by BrumalHunter


Aiden, Tyler, Darren and Minerva strolled to the Alchemy & Nutrition class, which was located in the wing opposite the arena. Vines crept along the outside of those walls and shrubs and bushes grew beneath the windows. However, the tops of these were periodically singed, since students occasionally created explosives instead of potions. (To each of these cases, Minerva would wager, “They added water, didn’t they?”, and usually, she ended up being correct.)

‘Good morning, you four!’ their Bellossom teacher called once they entered. ‘Are you ready for today’s lesson? Actually, why do I even ask? Of course you are! The three poisons are already set up on each of your benches, so instead of waiting for the rest of the class to arrive, you may start immediately. Have fun!’

Minerva barely glanced at the first phial before sending Darren off to the cabinet at the back of the class. Tyler was already there.

‘What did she send you to bring now?’ he asked.

Darren spat the list onto the ground and squinted at it. ‘Err, three Mago Berries, five Kebia Berries, two White Herbs, a Big Root, an Energy Root, Bright Powder, and Light Clay. And you? What are you looking for?’

‘Pecha Berries,’ Tyler replied, shoving the reagents and ingredients around.

‘I removed them, Tyler,’ the Bellossom called, chuckling.

‘I told you so!’ Aiden called from the front of the class.

‘Hmm.’ Tyler frowned, but quickly resumed shoving ingredients around.’

‘What are you looking for now?’ Darren asked.

‘Lum Berries.’

‘If Miss Antoinette removed all the Pecha Berries, then you can bet she removed all the Lum Berries too.’

‘Oh yeah?’ Tyler asked sarcastically, waving a dark green fruit with a yellow stalk in front of Darren. ‘Then what do you call this, hmm?’

‘That’s a Tanga Berry.’

‘Really?’ Tyler frowned at the fruit.

‘I could use that!’ Aiden called again. ‘But also bring me the stuff I asked for in the first place.’

‘Which is what, again?’ Tyler asked Mareepishly.

‘Light Clay and Sandslash Quills!’

‘Okay!’ Tyler collected the ingredients and headed back to his desk.

Darren shook his head and began searching for the items on his list. The Light Clay was easy to find, since he had seen from where Tyler had taken his, but the other items weren’t at their usual spots. Fortunately, Miss Antoinette came over and helped him find the rest, rearranging the shelves thereafter.

‘Finally,’ Minerva remarked once Darren had returned. ‘Hand me those Kebia Berries.’

He did so, afterwards sniffing the first phial. ‘Bleagh, that’s disgusting! What is that stuff?’

‘What does it look like?’ Minerva asked nonchalantly, crushing the berries into a bowl.

‘Like sludge.’

‘What colour?’

‘Black, obviously.’

‘There you have it – Black Sludge. It’s the first thing in the chapter.’

Darren banged his head against the desk.

‘Please, don’t do that. You’re going to make me spill.’

‘Sorry.’

‘You can make it up to me by powdering those herbs so long.’

Darren placed the herbs in the mortar and picked up the pestle. ‘Done,’ he announced five minutes later.

‘I’ll be right with you. Drop the clay in the powder and knead it so that the powder’s spread evenly throughout it.’

Darren muttered rebelliously, but obliged. When he was done, he scowled.

‘It’s probably going to take me weeks to get that out from underneath my nails.’

‘I haven’t even poured the Kebia juice over it yet, which I actually have to do now. Hold it closer.’

‘It’s gone all squishy,’ Darren complained, pulling a face after she handed back the clay and he continued to work it. He looked to his right, past Minerva. ‘Why couldn’t we use powdered Sandslash Quills, like Aiden and Tyler did?’

Minerva glanced at the pair to her right. ‘I don’t make cheap alternatives.’

‘Hurtful,’ Aiden responded.

Truthful. How far are you with that, Darren?’

‘Unless you’d like to get your dainty little paws dirty,’ he retorted, ‘you can wait until I’m done.’

‘Humph.’ The Vulpix opened the bag of Bright Powder and threw some into the second phial, causing the purplish liquid to give off a puff of green smoke.

‘Always so dramatic,’ Tyler commented. ‘Why’d you do that, anyway?’

‘Your blatant attempt at fishing for information notwithstanding,’ Minerva answered coolly, ‘it’s because I needed to test a suspicion. Unlike the pompous pair at the back, I can’t simply taste it.’

‘True.’

‘You should totally try it though, Tyler,’ the Ivysaur called. ‘Poisons have very distinct tastes.’

‘It’s Tri-Toxin,’ Minerva stated exasperatedly.

‘I thought you said I was fishing for information.’

‘You were, but in your case, you might actually eat a wild Quilfish if you caught one, if only to be sure that it isn’t a Seaking.’

‘Rude,’ Tyler muttered.

‘There!’ Darren announced, dumping the clay into Minerva’s bowl and pushing it towards the first phial. ‘Now what?’

‘Now you go wash your paws and fill a jar with water. And hurry, since the Energy Root needs to infuse in hot water for an hour before we can actually make the antidote.’

Sighing, Darren got up, did as he was ordered, and returned with the jar of water. ‘You know, I pity your future husband.’

‘Pfft, do I look like the marrying type?’ Minerva countered.

‘Nigel won’t be too happy to hear that…’

‘Oh, please! He’s a Pansear. He knows our relationship isn’t serious. The same goes for that Venomoth – what’s her name?’

‘Sara Earhart.’

‘For her and Malcolm. She’s a bit dim-witted, if you know what I mean?’

‘Hey!’ Malcolm protested.

‘Minerva, don’t be mean,’ Miss Antoinette admonished.

‘It’s true,’ she whispered when the teacher wasn’t looking.

‘Disregard what I said earlier,’ Darren advised. ‘Nobody would want to be in a long-term relationship with you.’

‘Actually, I’d probably be the one to dump the other person.’

Darren slapped his forehead with his right paw. ‘I rest my case.’


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Tue Sep 22, 2015 12:52 am
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EnderFlash wrote a review...



*spits blood* I'M THE LAST ONE? x_x

The three poisons are already set up on each of your benches, so instead of waiting for the rest of the class to arrive, you may start immediately. Have fun!’

What a teacher. I mean really, "Here, kids, have some poison!". 10/10 mmhmm
Speaking of this, when did she tell them to make antidotes? She just says where the poisons are and to start. For all they know, she could mean to taste-test them. I mean, I know, but is she missing a piece of dialogue or something?


Minerva barely glanced at the first phial before sending Darren off to the cabinet at the back of the class... Darren spat the list onto the ground...

Um, how did Minerva find the time to write Darren a list within the span of a glance? It's not mentioned she gave him a list, either. This is a small point, but sometimes you skip actions and while it's obvious what happened, it can make things a little disjointed. Try showing all you can without bordering cumbersome.


Impressions and Comments!

1. I would love to say how much I love Minerva, but the other two have said it already, so derp.

2. Wait, Minerva was dating Nigel? Must've missed that, cough. I see Nigel as a perfect goofy childhood friend for Minerva, but if he's (temporarily) dating her, that's cool too.

3. I can't really comment on plot progression since this is a humorous chapter. However, I do like said humor! It's a nice change of pace and I look forward to seeing snippets of this sort of comedy sometime again.




BrumalHunter says...


Salutations, Ender!

Notes:
1. That completely slipped my mind. Yes, she was supposed to have said that.
2. Really, another slip? I need to pay more attention to the specifics, because if I had spotted that in a published work, I'd have been unimpressed.

Impressions:
1. Thank you anyway. ^_^
2. You wouldn't know this, since I only mentioned that Nigel is a Pansear, so... *facepalm* He was supposed to be a Simisear. I can't believe I made so many stupid errors in this chapter! Anyway, Nigel is supposed to be in the older class, along with the Venomoth, a Machoke and a Heracross, but I suppose having him as a Pansear would balance the other class out more, so that works... However, he wasn't mentioned before this chapter, so I think you may be mistaking him for another character.
3. I have a tendency of being too serious, so I occasionally throw in a bit of my dry humour just because. I'm glad that it doesn't seem to dehydrate everyone, though. (I know, I'm pushing it now. XD)

I'm delighted to see another review from you! I shall now comment on the next ones.



EnderFlash says...


Oh, it's just that as soon as you said Pansear, I thought "goofy monkey!" Heh, stereotypes =3= It would've been amusing to see the uptight Minerva be good friends with a derpy Pansear.



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Fri Sep 18, 2015 4:22 pm
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TinkerTwaggy wrote a review...



Actually Minerva, you're totally getting married. Probably to someone who's got as much of a character as she does, and THAT exists.
If not, solitary wanders are fun too.

I. Impressions of the Shell Master!

1. C'mon Darren, you should be used to this treatment. You're complaining waaaay too much here. *Twinkiel's theme - Go!! Fighting Action Power - starts playing in the background* HAH! Exactly XD

2. Minerva reminds me a lot of a classmate I had, who threatened me several times in chemical-related classes. Then I learned she was also doing Judo, actually got destroyed by her when I started doin' that too.
I was unbeatable in language-related stuff though, so there.

3. MAREEPISHLY!! YES! More POKEPUNZ!

II. Conclusion!

Reason why the impressions are shorter this time is 'cause I wanted to save more things for the conclusion. This chapter was really fun, and Minerva OWNED IT. Really good dialogue there Astral, and that's sayin' a lot considering this was mostly dialogue XD Aaaah, now i can't wait to see what the next part has in store for me!

On with the show!


~Shell Master Tortwag~




BrumalHunter says...


Minerva's current views are quite likely going to change - many girls seem to say they will never marry and/or have children, but then they end up doing so anyway. We'll see.

1. He complains a lot, it seems. But meh, it's Minerva - I don't think anyone can get used to being bossed around by her. (Except Nicole.)
2. *laughs out loud* XD
3. I added that one in chapter four, part three, since I saw I just said "sheepishly" there.

I really enjoyed writing this, since I got to explore some of Minerva's personality. I also believe this was a refreshing break from the usual for both you and Buggie.



TinkerTwaggy says...


Hence my initial reaction. But since it depends a lot, I can't wait to see how that'll turn out.

1. Haha. I can! Not all the time, but I've learned to do so. Especially after one year.
2. Those were... interesting times.
3. Good job.

Definitely was.



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Mon Sep 07, 2015 3:17 pm
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Ventomology wrote a review...



I think this was the most amusing chapter so far. You cannot believe how many times I either snorted or giggled while reading.

Uh, anyways, moving on.

Note: I feel like someone has given you the 'never use said' deal, because almost none of these dialogue tags use 'said.' I mean, you don't go too overboard with it all, and you're careful about definitions, but those tags did start to sound awkward about halfway through.

And for the rest of this review, I'm going "Hunter Style," because there were so many little things that deserve mentioning.

However, the tops of these were periodically singed, since students occasionally created explosives instead of potions. (To each of these cases, Minerva would wager, “They added water, didn’t they?”, and usually, she ended up being correct.)
Brilliantly funny. Pairing descriptions with humor is a fantastic play.

Gosh, Tyler's attempt at shortcuts and the Black Sludge scenes were hilarious. This made my morning.

‘You can make it up to me by powdering those herbs so long.’
Um... I assume this was from the classic wrote-something-and-changed-it-but-not-the-way-you-intended mistake?

‘Unless you’d like to get your dainty little paws dirty,’ he retorted you can wait until I’m done.’
You're missing a start quote.

I feel like talking about people's love lives during a chemistry lab involving poisons is an awful idea for real life. Minerva seems to manage though. (Honestly, I love her more and more each chapter.)

Also, if this conversation ends up meaning anything, I'll be amused, because it means I'll be the last person in our group to start working with relationship sub-plots. (Insert evil cackling.)

I think that wraps it up. You're really good at stalling, by the way. Honestly, Public Bus would get boring if I tried to stall for too long.

Until next time!
-Buggie




BrumalHunter says...


My response was eaten! D:

Well, I blame the diacritics. (Blasted things.) I'll rewrite it tomorrow.



BrumalHunter says...


I'm back again!

Note:
1. Actually, somebody has - multiple times, probably. (I'm not certain whether you are one of the contributors, but meh.) As always, I'll keep this in mind.

Impressions:
1. This is definitely the chapter I enjoyed writing the most, so I am glad the readers (you, thus far) enjoy it too! Plus, my sense of humour is rather dry, though you obviously already know that, so I am always cautious when writing something that can be considered humorous.
2. Those scenes were fun. ^_^
3. In Afrikaans, when someone is waiting for us for whatever reason and there are several things to be done, then we say you can do that something "so lank", which translates to "so long". I have encountered the expression before, but I cannot provide any examples at present.
4. Fixed that.
5. Minerva is awesome. I love writing for her. XD
6. Yeah, the only two relationships in the story thus far have already been mentioned, but neither will last very long. (Minerva does end up dumping Nigel. ;) )

As always, your reviews are much appreciated. But now it is time that I start returning the favour.




cron
"I'd be a quote vigilante. A literary Batman. Someone had better be quoting me now!"
— Feltrix