Eleazar Goodenough
and the Mystery of the Scrying Inkwell
by Jerry Grimes
Chapter 9 - First Day of School
The next day was a busy one. Both Eleazar and
Jolly had intended to stay awake and talk about what kind of trap
Professor Spellbinder was planning for Darcy Thurmond I, II, and
III, but the moment their heads hit the pillows, they fell fast
asleep like the youngsters they really were.
Hareek woke them up in the morning at sunrise by
flapping his wings against the locked window and squeaking
loudly.
"I think he wants to go out," said
Jolly, getting up to assist his new little friend. "Do you
think it's safe to let him?"
"I think Hareek can take care of
himself," said Eleazar while rubbing the sleep out of his
eyes, "but leave the window open a crack so he can get back
in when he wants to."
"I have a better idea," said Jolly. He
tookm one of his shoes and whacked on one of the small decorative
colored panels of the stained glass window until it fell out of
its molding. The hole it left was just big enough for Hareek to
crawl through, which he did immediately, squawking his thanks to
Jolly... at least that's how Jolly interpreted the noises he was
making.
"Great!" said Eleazar. "Now
Hareek can come and go whenever he pleases." The two boys
watched the little dragon for a minute as he flapped away from
the castle to find his breakfast. "Put some tape on that
piece of glass and Hareek will have his own swinging door to our
room, just like a dog door," Eleazar suggested.
After breakfast, the two friends were parted by
school business. Eleazar went with the wizards to prepare for his
first day of teaching class, and Jolly went to get his schedule
so he would know all the classes he had to take and where to find
them. Jolly was delighted to see Professor Goodenough's name on
his list for the divination class he was scheduled to take at
11:00 AM. Meanwhile, he had to hurry to get to his first class on
Basic Rules of Wizardry being given by Professor Grimes.
On his way to class, he met Carmen, who was on
her way to Basic Rules of Witchcraft being taught by Madame
Marvel.
"Are all the courses for Witches and
Wizards separate?" asked Jolly when he looked over Carmen's
schedule.
"Of course not. Just the first two courses
of the day are separated like that," said Carmen.
"Look, we both have Professor Goodenough's class at 11:00. I
just hope I remember to call him that and not Eleazar or
E.G."
The two children headed off to their separate
classes. Meanwhile, Professor Goodenough was being shown to his
classroom by Professor Spellbinder.
"It's off here in the east tower
room," said Phineas. "You'll get to see a lot of early
morning sun, but you can draw the window shutters closed if you
need darkness for some of your scrying lessons. Good luck,
professor. Now that you've taken over the Divination and
Scrying classes, I'm back to teaching Spells and Charms
in this classroom just next door to yours. Call me if you need
me."
"Thanks for all your help," said
Eleazar. "We'll talk about You-Know-Who later."
As soon as Eleazar had dusted off the teacher's
desk and dropped his bag of gem stones on it, the class began to
fill with First Year students who were assigned his 8:00 AM
class. To his chagrin, Darcy Thurmond III and his four new pals
were among them. They crowded into the back of the class, talking
behind their hands, but since they were talking about Eleazar, he
was able to hear every word they said. Eleazar didn't know if he
should tell them not to mention his name if they didn't want to
be overheard, but decided that was part of Spells and Charms
and Professor Spellbinder would teach them that soon enough. He
just ignored them and paid attention to the eager young students
who took the front seats.
"Put away your books for now," he told
them. "You can read all about scrying later. The best way to
learn about scrying is to do it yourselves."
"Where's your inkwell, Professor
Goodenough?" called an annonymous sneering voice from the
back of the room, mispronopuncing Eleazar's last name as
"good-ee-nuff.". Although Darcy's head was hidden
behind an open book, Eleazar knew the remark came from him, since
he had used Eleazar's name and mispronouncing it didn't disguise
him as the culprit.
"It's on the roof, Mr. Thurmond," said
Eleazar, "as you know very well. We'll discuss it later with
the Grand Wizard."
It seemed to Eleazar that Darcy was shocked at
being discovered because the text book he was hiding behind
quivered. But when Darcy lowered the textbook and lay it flat on
his desk, his eyes were glaring hatred at Eleazar, not fear.
Eleazar chose to ignore him completely. He began
passing out gemstones to the students in the first row.
"We're not using ink to scry today," he explained.
"We're going to make pendulums. Notice that each gemstone
has had a tiny hole drilled through one end. Pull a thread out of
your clothing and push one end of the thread through the hole so
you can tie it to your gemstone."
"I'm not tearing up my clothes for this
class," said one of Darcy's bully-boy friends.
"Fine, Mr. Winston," said Eleazar.
"I have this bit of cloth you can use instead." He held
up the piece of cloth Hareek had torn from Darcy's pants the day
before. When Darcy saw it, his face turned beet red. Some of the
other first year students who had seen Darcy run out of his room
to hide in the bathroom started to catch on and began laughing
and spreading the news around the room.
"Of course, a pendulum works best with a
thread taken from your own clothing. Nothing big, just a few
inches long should do the trick." Eleazar ignored the boys
huddled in the back of the room and worked with the students who
were making their pendulums as he had asked. "Next you have
to introduce yourself to your pendulum."
"You're kidding," said one of the
students in the front row.
"No, Mr. Moore, I am not kidding. Watch how
it's done." Eleazar picked up a gemstone from the pile.
"This stone has never seen me before so I'll have to
introduce myself."
Eleazar pulled a short piece of thread from one
of his sleeves. "It was just hanging around doing
nothing," he explained. "But it belongs to me and that
helps introduce me to the gemstone." Then Eleazar put one
end of the thread in his mouth and moistened it with his saliva
so he could roll it into a sharp point for threading through the
gemstone's hole.
"I bet all of you licked your threads like
that, didn't you?" he asked. Many of the students nodded
their heads. "Sliding your saliva through the gemstone hole
is another way of introducing yourself to the stone."
"Why don't you just spit on the
stone?" asked Mr. Winston, hoping to get a laugh from the
class.
"Because that would be rude, Mr.
Winston," said Eleazar, "and the gemstone would be
offended. Instead of helping you locate things, it might just
decide to get you lost in the deep dark woods instead. But go
ahead and try it if you wish, because that's how you learn to do
things the correct way."
"Now the last way to introduce yourself to
the gemstone is to balance the stone on your forehead. Put your
head back and just let the stone rest there a moment. While the
stone is on your head, ask it what its name is."
"Mine is jade!" shouted a student
excitedly. "It spoke to me!"
"My stone is called quarts," said
another.
"I believe that is quartz spelled with a
'Z'," said Eleazar.
"This is ridiculous!" said Darcy
loudly. "I've taken this class three times and Professor
Spellbinder never taught us to have conversations with
stones!"
Suddenly, upon hearing his name spoken aloud,
Professor Spellbinder materialized at the door to Eleazar's
classroom. "That's because you never paid attention for
three years, Mr. Thurmond," he said. "I suggest you do
so now because you have a most excellent teacher in Professor
Goodenough..." and he emphasized the correct pronunciation
as 'good-ee-know'... "and this is your last chance to take
this course and finally pass it. Sorry to interrupt,
Professor," he said to Eleazar, "but I wanted to remind
you of the Wizard's meeting after lunch." Then Professor
Spellbinder vanished.
Eleazar noticed that Darcy had grabbed up his
gemstone and was balancing it on his forehead. Soon all the
bully-boys in the back of the room were doing likewise.
"Hey! I think mine is named Obsidian!"
said Darcy. "This stuff works!"
"Congratulations, Mr. Thurmond," said
Eleazar. "Be sure to read up on your stone in chapter 5 of
your textbook tonight and you'll all learn amazing things about
how your stone was formed and where it spent the last billion
years of it life. Now to move on, we have to allow the stone to
teach us its language."
"It has a language?" asked a student.
"Not a large vocabulary, I'm afraid,"
said Eleazar, "but it knows how to say 'yes' and 'no' and
other useful things for scrying. Let your pendulum hang down on
its thread and see what it does when you repeat the word 'yes'
over and over."
"Mine is going around in circles!"
shouted one student.
"Mine is swinging first one way and then
another way like an 'X," said another student.
"Each stone has a different way of telling
you 'yes,'" said Eleazar. "You just have to learn how
to interpret what it is telling you. As soon as you have learned
'yes,' start in on 'no.'"
Eleazar noticed that Darcy was becoming as
excited as the other students to learn that his stone pendulum
could talk to him. Then Darcy saw Eleazar looking at him and
resumed his glaring scowl, but he continued to play with the
pendulum, so Eleazar continued to ignore him.
"Let's try a simple scrying
experiment," said Eleazar. He showed them some paper cups he
had arranged on his teacher's desk. "I've hidden a piece of
candy under one of the cups," he told them. "Your job
is to use your pendulum to find it by holding the pendulum over
each cup and asking the pendulum if the cup hides the candy. When
the pendulum answers 'Yes," and if it finds the candy, you
get to keep the candy and even eat it in class if you wish."
"That's against the rules!" said
Darcy.
"Well, this once I'll allow you to break
the rules," said Eleazar. "Why don't you go first, Mr.
Thurmond.?"
Darcy was a little surprised, but sullenly made
his way to the front of the class and let his pendulum hang over
one of the cups. "Is it this one?" he asked the
pendulum. The pendulum just hung still. "It's not doing
anything at all," said Darcy. "Maybe it's broken."
"Or maybe that's how it says 'No.'"
said Eleazar. "Try another cup."
This time Darcy's pendulum began swinging in a
circle over the cup. "That's it!" shouted Darcy.
"I've found it!"
"Not so fast, Mr. Thurmond," said
Eleazar. "You might have found it. To make sure, try another
cup."
"What for?" said Darcy. "I
already found the candy."
"Maybe, maybe not," said Eleazar.
"Try another cup."
Sullenly, Darcy put the pendulum over another
cup. "Is this the one?" he asked. Again the pendulum
began swinging wildly around in a circle. "You've got more
than one piece of candy hidden!" Darcy accused. "No
fair! You're trying to trick me."
"I might be trying to trick you, Mr.
Thurmond, but I can't trick your pendulum. Try another cup."
Once again the pendulum swung around in a
circle. Darcy moved on to the fifth and last cup and again the
pendulum swung in a circle. "I don't get it!" he said.
He put the pendulum over the first cup and it stopped swinging
completely as it had before. "Yes, I do get it!" he
suddenly exclaimed. "When the pendulum is still, it is
telling me 'Yes!' When the pendulum swings in a circle, it is
telling me 'No!'"
"Congratulations, Mr. Thurmond," said
Eleazar. "You won the candy AND you got your first 'A' for
this course. Keep up the good work! Who's next?" All the
boys and girls began eagerly raising their hands to try the
search for hidden candy.
With a huge grin on his face, Darcy looked under
the first cup and showed everyone the piece of candy he had
found. Unwrapping it and popping it into his mouth, he proudly
chewed it all the way back to his seat. "Thanks little
pendulum!" he said to his swinging gemstone.
"That's right," said Eleazar,
"Always thank your pendulum when it helps you. That's how it
learns to be your guide and your friend."
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