Oh boy. Hayden already knew this lesson was not going to go well. After the professor had finished giving the instructions she stood there for a moment, just staring out at the garden and contemplating the task in front of her. Ew, gnomes.

Eventually she started forward. She tried to stay confident. She could do this. All she had to do at the moment was find a gnome. The rest of her task was what scared her so she wasn't going to think about that until she came to it. Hayden wandered through the garden, occasionally stopping to watch the other students throw their gnomes over the fence. There certainly wasn't a shortage of gnomes. Hayden saw a couple before they darted out of her sight. She could have went after them, but did she really want to do that. Sure enough, just seconds later a much easier gnome to catch came running toward her. Hayden hoped he wouldn't be too hard to catch, or try to bite her.

The gnome was running faster than she expected, so she wasn't quite ready. He ran right into her legs just as she'd recognized what was going to happen. So she couldn't stop herself from falling hard onto her back on the dirt. She had the wind knocked out of her so she couldn't say anything or even hear much for a few seconds. But as her senses came back to here she heard evil laughter coming from the gnome running in the opposite direction. Hayden pushed herself into a sitting position and glared after the gnome. Now she was determined.