Cleaning her cauldron had been hard enough. The older, experienced students did it with ease, but not first year Marisol. She did what everyone else did, muttering "scurjifi", no... "scorgifie"...whatever that word meant, making ludicrous wand motions. Amazingly, it worked. On the twenty-seventh try.

That could have been the whole lesson and Mari still would have though it hard, but no. They were making a strength potion. Weak excuse for that boastful photo, the eleven year-old thought. She plopped the white hair stuff into her newly added water, then she turned up the heat.

The cauldron hissed at Marisol, so she hissed back, getting odd looks from her classmates. Nothing new there. The Spaniard really would not like to touch the dragon heart. Although she was primarily a carnivore, it was creeping her out. She pinched it with her fingernails and dropped it quickly. Gross!