.....

Aboli literally could have done without that ANARCHY statement. She tried even MORE to pick up any recycle-able things, and TUUUUUURNED as Kale Trent RAISED HIS VOICE AT HER.

"My PROBLEM is POLLUTION, TRENT!" she said as she ANGRILY (fake? anger??? maybe?? it was hard to tell right now) as she WAVED SOME PLASTICE BOTTLES IN HIS FACE AND STUFFED THEM IN HER BAG. "YOU ARE THE PROBLEM!!!" she pointed DRAMATICALLY AT HIM.

"It's just a game and you're being a jERK. You don't have to hit me!!!" That was super duper uncalled for. And maybe Kale's eyes were burning with unshed, angry tears. It was hard to tell. Cuz he was feeling v upset and it was often hard to regulate what his body was doing when he got this way.

GOSH. He really just wanted to play this game with his buds. And not be knocked into, okay?! Was that too much to ask???

Lil Trent, or the elder of the lil Trents now, decided he was over this assignment. He sat where he stood in the middle of his pile of garbage. Sigh. He would be the trash prince now.

Leave him here to perish, other teammates. He was of no use to y'all now.

Nem had long since checked out. Since about two minutes into the lesson, to be fair, and then tenfold when it became clear that Oh Schmoe You Don't wanted them wading through rubbish, picking it up, throwing it around, or sorting through it. Jokes. Schmoe had jokes. This was a joke.

They had been about ready to use the chaos as the activity as a cover for slipping out for the classroom and ditching the lesson early, claim some kind of sensory issue or something, and had gathered all their stuff up for this purpose. Even Cambridge, disaster of a human as she was, ended up being sort of helpful with her whole ... "anarchy" ... thing. Nem was strolling casual as you like towards the door through the other students - only amateurs tried to sneak - but then the Trent-Song situation caught their attention.

A last second decision to divert.

Crouching down by Trentula the Second, Nem gave him a little nudge on the arm with their knuckles. "Chin up, Little Trent." And then, because he was literally sat in a pile of trash, they flicked the worst of it away. As they did so they added, quietly, "Or act all distraught so Schmoe'll let me walk you somewhere."

Bernie was NOT WANTING TO PICK UP TRASH OR RECYCLING. She had been born a HUMAN, not a House Elf, and was STAYING IN SCHOOL {AND OUT OF PRISON} so that she didn't HAAAAAAAAVE to pick up other peoples' trash and recycling all her life.

Thank MERLIN she had at least a few friends to help her along the way. "Hey Joshie," she greeted the elder lion, bending down to pick up a bottle SOMEONE (aka, Kale) had just dropped. "YES. Let's!" And then she leaned into him and added under her breath, "We can use magic, right? Schmoe didn't say we couldn't?" Because Bernie had pulled her wand out from her boot while she was bending over to get that bottle, and Josh was making the perfect shield to block her from the professor's view...

See, the thing was, Bernie was noticing some NOISE POLLUTION coming from the direction of one (1) Emmerson Something Cambridge. And she needed to do something about it. Noise Pollution was Bernie's CAUSE to FIX!!!!!!

"Silencio!" she cast, quickly flicking her wand at the girl and then dropping her wand back into her boot as she bent to pick up some newspapers that had just come flying into her vicinity. Weird. They were all balled up like SOMEONE had just deliberately thrown them at her....

Bernie was watching you, Trash Queen Claudine.

Yikes.

So much yikes.

But the first yikes came as soon as he was shouting at Aboli.

"OI! ABOLI! CHILL PILL, PLEASE!" Listen, he knew people were getting way into this. He also knew that the majority of them were Gryffindors being extra but what else could you expect from a house that had weekly Floor is Lava parties in the common room? Perhaps it was being a little hypocritical, but he did feel like his friend was stepping over the line. Or perhaps he was actually gaining some proper house pride now that he was in his third term here.

Quote:

Originally Posted by BanaBatGirl

Bernie was NOT WANTING TO PICK UP TRASH OR RECYCLING. She had been born a HUMAN, not a House Elf, and was STAYING IN SCHOOL {AND OUT OF PRISON} so that she didn't HAAAAAAAAVE to pick up other peoples' trash and recycling all her life.

Thank MERLIN she had at least a few friends to help her along the way. "Hey Joshie," she greeted the elder lion, bending down to pick up a bottle SOMEONE (aka, Kale) had just dropped. "YES. Let's!" And then she leaned into him and added under her breath, "We can use magic, right? Schmoe didn't say we couldn't?" Because Bernie had pulled her wand out from her boot while she was bending over to get that bottle, and Josh was making the perfect shield to block her from the professor's view...

See, the thing was, Bernie was noticing some NOISE POLLUTION coming from the direction of one (1) Emmerson Something Cambridge. And she needed to do something about it. Noise Pollution was Bernie's CAUSE to FIX!!!!!!

"Silencio!" she cast, quickly flicking her wand at the girl and then dropping her wand back into her boot as she bent to pick up some newspapers that had just come flying into her vicinity. Weird. They were all balled up like SOMEONE had just deliberately thrown them at her....

Bernie was watching you, Trash Queen Claudine.

But speaking of house loyalty...he caught that toss and it's origin, thank you very much. Though Bernie's suggestion took him entirely off guard because weren't they discouraged from using magic in the classroom? Then AGAIN...this whole lesson had been about how wizards could help muggles with pollution and Professor Schmoe had not exactly DISCOURAGED the use of magic with trash collecting...in fact...he had even ENCOURAGED it when Ivy had suggested vanishing trash.

So...his little Gryffindor sister had a point.

"He didn't," Josh whispered in reply as he collected something else from off the floor and shoved it into his bag. "...even said Vanishment was a creative solution so...you're on to something." His warm brown eyes darted around the room and honed in on one Claudine Blaze to start. "...I'll work on impeding their progress." Since he couldn't just go shooting off Vanishing Spells in class. Could accidentally vanish a person and YIKES.

So, his wand out and tucked into the loose sleeve of his Gryffindor robes so it was hidden from view, Josh took careful aim and shot a Glisseo at the floor around the younger Slytherin and then once again in Avalon's direction.

"Duh. Of course I'm good at it. I'm good at practically everything." As if that needed explaining. She was Emmerson Cambridge, that practically spoke for itself. But you know who couldn't speak for themselves? HER.

One minute, she was yelling about chaos and anarchy and the next she'd been silenced, literally. Emm looked around, wondering who it could've been. Not Kale or Aboli, they were busy fighting each other. Not most of her team because they were busy...well...polluting. Rather than play detective, the little girl moved onto plan B.

One, did not silence Emmerson, not unless they were looking for a war.

She jumped down from the desk top, kicking over a chair as she did. Noise. She would bring noise. More noise than she could have ever made on her own. Forget throwing garbage around, the little girl had a point to make and one way or another, SHE WOULD BE HEARD.

Emm grabbed a textbook she'd found laying around in the disaster zone of a classroom and began banging it with all her might against the desk's surface. Could she get any louder? DON'T BE RIDICULOUS, OF COURSE SHE COULD! The Gryffindor moved along the desks, banging them as hard as she could with the textbook until she got to the wall with all the Muggle Studies supplies. She rummaged until she found a ruler thick enough then began banging THAT against the desks--and windows whenever she was close enough.

She was polluting the class as Schmoe had asked. Noise pollution. Yeah, she was paying attention.

Bernie had to stick a finger in her ear, literally, with Josh's yelling and all that right next to her. BUT, she didn't blame Aboli, because once again, thESE KIDS DIDN'T KNOW HOW TO ACT RIGHT.

"Good plan, good plan Stan," she murmured to Josh again before parting ways with him, THIS TIME making a beeline for the now-silenced-and-somehow-WORSE Cambridge.

The girl was destroying school property! STANDING ON DESKS! KICKING OVER CHAIRS! HITTING WINDOWS with SCHMOE'S SCHOOL SUPPLIES?!?

"That's ENOUGH!" Bernadette growled, digging her wand out of her boot AGAIN (she was gonna get a wrist holster one of these days, whenever she convinced someone to give her some galleons) and brandishing it at Cambridge's back. "Petrificus Totalus!!!!!!!!!!"

TIME TO KNOCK THIS CHILD OUT! Schmoe could thank her later for stopping this EVIL pollutant that would LITERALLY put a hole in the ozone, probably by punching upwards, if she were allowed to continue.

Yes, well, your professor is, as you can imagine: This.

Finneas (still backed into the corner of the room) was TERRIFIED. These weren’t children, they were MONSTERS!!! Who knew that all it would take to unleash the inner demon nature of Hogwarts students were a few bags of garbage. Not Schmoe, that’s who. This was supposed to be an innocent little trash dash. A fun education lesson on the dangerous of littering.

One minute this had been a friendly competition and the next, there were chairs being kicked around. Children were screaming. Others were being screamed AT. Some looked like they were on the verge of tears? Others looked ready to shove their fingers in eyes and inflict the tears themselves (looking at you, Aboli)! Emmerson had moved on from screaming pledges of anarchy to banging textbooks on desks. What in the name of what was Mr. Miller doing??? Where did that first year get a ruler? Why was a prefect causing such discord?

Though, Schmoe must admit, it was a pleasant surprise to see Nemesis comforting Mr. Trent. That was nice.

This day really was full of surprises, wasn’t it?

AnYwAy.

”St--” ........... DID HE JUST HEAR A SPELL? In the MUGGLE studies classroom??? Finneas, despite his better judgement, ran to the center of the room, raising his voice (and cracking it in the process). "St-op! STOP THIS AT ONCE!" Finneas waved his noodle-y arms around like one of those inflatable tube-men as seen on TV (and or car dealerships). His raised voice came from a place of PLEADING rather than one of absolute authority. WAS EVERYONE GOING MAD?!

Poor, poor professor Schmoe. He couldn't control the class. This was, in fact, anarchy. Ashley dutifully stopped what she was doing. The pollutant she was trailing had been petrified anyway. She looked at Schmoe. Poor dude needed lessons in having authority. Rule number one: Don't let kids throw trash at each other or over your room. "I'm listening sir," she said, just to make him feel better.

Naya listened as the professor explained what their activity for the day would be. This was going to be........something. Half of the class making a mess and the other half charged with cleaning it up? What could possibly go wrong? It sounded like a lose-lose situation to her. Either way, they were going to have to deal with the stinky trash.

And so Naya was assigned to Team Ozone. She went up and got a recycling bag and then took a look around the room. Before she could even get her plan together, the activity started and hijinks ensued. It was total chaos. Before you could bat an eye, garbage was everywhere. It was enough to make one’s head spin. Naya opened her bag and set to work. She started picking up random bottles and placing them in her bag. Then she spotted some balled up papers and those were retrieved. Thankfully she had gotten the recycle bag and not the garbage bag.

Things were getting crazier and crazier. Naya couldn’t help but stop from time to time, to admire the madness. But she didn’t really have time to waste with that, there was cleaning and collecting to be done.

Heath continued quietly making his way around the room, picking up discarded recyclables as he went. Although he said nothing, he saw everything going on in the room, including the trash Blake threw in Claudine’s direction. He couldn’t be sure if it was a random toss or an intentional one, but either way, he would keep a closer eye on this one just in case he got any ideas about throwing trash at people. He followed at a distance that wouldn’t make it obvious that he was following, picking up recyclables as he went. Don’t mind him, nothing to see here...

Soon Heath’s head whipped around at the sound of yelling, and Blake became the least of his worries. Up until now, he was willing to give Aboli the benefit of the doubt about bumping into Kale, but the yelling between them seemed a pretty clear indication that it was no accident. Nice to see how quickly you lot turn on each other… he thought angrily. All it took was the possibility of a prize from Professor Schmoe to make them attack each other like a pack of rabid wolves. Honestly, it made him sick! He was done picking up recyclables now; it was obvious that there was a more dangerous type of pollution spreading in this classroom. Okay, new mission: from now on, he was fighting against foul play whichever team it came from, and he’d start with the Slytherin prefect. “Then stop polluting this class with your dirty tactics if you have such a problem with pollution,” he said, his tone quiet but as cold and hard as the look in his eyes.

Sorry about her, Heath thought, giving Kale an apologetic look to show that not everyone in this class played dirty, but he said nothing. Upstead seemed to have that part covered, and he was a bit distracted by the spells Bernie sent at that first year (Emm). While he wasn’t a fan of the firstie’s screaming himself, that crossed the line in two BIG ways. 1) It was using magic in a class that didn’t allow it and 2) it was aimed at a younger student who probably didn’t know how to counter it. It was only the no magic rule - and the fact that he was too far away to block the spell in time - that stopped him from reaching for his own wand.

Heath hadn’t noticed the other Gryffindor’s (Josh) attempt at magic, which was perhaps fortunate for the older student. If he had, you can bet all the money in Gringotts that he would’ve warned Claudine and Avalon! What he did notice was Professor Schmoe waving his arms like a wacky waving inflatable arm-flailing tube man. Poor guy, this was a disaster! At the man’s words, he stopped what he was doing, looking at him sympathetically. “Professor, may I have permission to help her -” He inclined his head toward Emm. “- undo that spell?” he asked.

One minute Avalon was tossing old soda cans around, halfheartedly eavesdropping on the budding conflict between Aboli and Kale, who were taking the game way too seriously. And the next, she was sliding uncontrollably across the floor of the classroom. Forgetting that she was still holding the garbage bag, she instinctively flung her arms out to slow her momentum. Unfortunately, the bag got in the way, and a moment later, she was splayed out on the floor.

The bag emptied its contents during the fall, leaving her completely covered in rubbish.

Ohhhhhhh, whoever did this was going to PAY. But Avalon couldn't see who had sent the sliding spell her way, and then poor Proessor Schmoe was yelling at them all to stop.

"Understood, Professor!" Avalon yelled out from her spot on the floor, although to others it might just appear to be a pile of rubbish talking. Only her feet were visible under the mountain of garbage that had spilled on her. Glowering, the Ravenclaw removed a rotten banana peel from her forehead.

”Thank you Mr. Jones, but I will take care of it.” With a flick of the wrist, Finneas countered the spell(s) on young Emmerson Cambridge. But before anyone could start yelling again. Finneas had WORDS for all of them. "Are you alright, Ms. Cambridge?"

As for the rest of you!! He began pacing around in frustration. ”Never in my life have I ever been soOOooOO—“ His voice jumped an octave as a result of nearly slipping on the glisseo-ed flooring. It was fine. He was FINE.

”Never in my life have I been,” he started over again. ”SoOOOoooO—“

CAH-PLUNK!

And………….. total wipeout.

Now on the floor, Finneas raised both hands to the sky. WHY? WHY had the WHOLE universe conspired against him today? Even his FLOOR was trying to make a fool of him. AnYwAy. Finneas was now properly angry. ”You are done YELLING. You are done KICKING. You are not using spells in the muggle studies classroom ever again!” He looked at Aboli, Joshua, Emmerson, and Bernadette, respectively with exasperation (and pleadING) ”And you do not, under any circumstances, use curses on other students, Bernadette!!” Schmoe’s face is likely just as red as his bunched up socks. ”That will be thirty points from Gryffindor House, and I expect to see you in my office after class.” Discipline was not his forte.

Now, as for EVERYONE else. ”This lesson is officially over and I expect you ALL to return here after dinner today to help me return the classroom to its original state. I will be taking attendance and if you do not show up, you can clean on your own in detention.” Was that understood??? He looked at them each one by one, from his current position on the floor.

Hopefully it was because Finneas likely couldn't manage it a second time around. Moreover, he needed an early retirement and a vacation to Cancun.

As you can see, where there is pollution, no one is a winner.

OOC: I wanted to wait a little longer before posting again, but I'm not sure I'll have the chance to do so later and I wanted to make sure I gave y'all a 12 hour warning.

So here's the 12 hour warning. I'll be closing the thread at 12:30 AM EST. If you couldn't get activity posts in, now is a great time to post character reactions to everything before we close up shop. Feel free to post exits as well. lol. lolololololol.

Thanks for the VERY FUN and ABSOLUTELY HILARIOUS and incredibly chaotic lesson! Can't wait to do this again!

Ashley rolled her eyes. Why did she have to clean up other people's messes that she was already cleaning up? She hadn't even done anything. But she didn't mind too much. At least it was gryffindor losing points and not her house. "Yes, professor." She rolled her eyes again.

Everything was terrible and his feelings were hurt. While, sure, there were spells being flung around and people were screaming all around him, Kale paid it no mind. His bruised feelings were louder than any chaos (see: he was a lil self-involved baby boi).

Cue Bridget Jones Montage:

aLL bY MYseeeeeeeeLF dunwannabe aLL BY myself AnYMOOOOOOOOO--OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOREEEEEEEEEEEE

All hope was lost. There was no light at the end of the tunnel and then, miracle of miracles, Nem joined him on the ground. His bud was here. They said some encouraging words about wanting to remove Kale from this downright toxic moment, which he appreciated SO MUCH, and Kale was about to take them up on it when--

Class was over????

Schmoe was having a breakdown, too. Kale could appreciate that. He understood, man. He GOTCHU.

Wiping at his wet eyes, Kale pulled himself to his feet and wibbled. He shot a set of sad thumbs up at his Professor as he tucked his tail between his legs and left. So he could go CRY SOMEWHERE IN PEACE!

Violet nearly slumped to the ground with exhaustion. Did she just hear the professor call a halt to this wretched exercise? Dear Merlin, she hoped so, she was covered in filth, tired to the bone, and on the verge of kicking some of the worst offenders on Team Pollutant. All she wanted was for class to end and to have a bath and a cup of tea.

O____________O Heath had never seen Professor Schmoe this angry before! He couldn't blame him; he was angry at his classmates' dirty tactics too! How ironic was it that most of the foul play he saw came from his own team who, as Blaboli over there pointed out, were supposed to be the good guys? He was sort of glad they weren't getting the prize Schmoe had mentioned earlier. If they had, he would've refused to accept it. He didn't think they deserved it; neither team did.

As his dark eyes scanned the room, he saw Avalon and then the professor slip and fall. Okay, who the hell glisseoed the floor?!? Nice work, genius! he thought, and by "genius", he meant "world's biggest idiot" because only an idiot would think a classroom competition was worth potentially sending someone to the hospital wing!

All Heath could do was blink, taking in the professor's words. Then a horrible thought occurred to him. Did Schmoe not let him help that first year because he thought he would hex her again? He knew this class had done some cruel things to each other, but the man really should know him better than that!

Oh great, now everybody, including the few people who played fair, had to come back later and clean the room. He fixed Bernie and Aboli with an icy glare and would've given one to the culprit behind the glisseo spell (Josh) too, had he seen who it was. Both girls (and whoever glisseoed the floor if it wasn't one of them) were officially on his list now! He hoped they were pleased with themselves. *in Glinda voice* I hope you're happy! I hope you're happy now! I hope you're happy how you've hurt your cause forever! I hope you think you're clever!

Heath's eyes darted from the professor to Avalon and back several times. Which one should he help? *in George Washington voice* I cannot be everywhere at once, people![/s] Since Avalon was on the floor and covered in rubbish, he made his way to her first, grabbing on to the desks and chairs as he went to stop himself from slipping. "Here, need some help?" he said, already starting to remove the junk piled on her.

Who could have foreseen that one of Finneas Schmoe's lessons would outdo the 2101 Kelpiegate?

... Actually, Nemesis had. The man was an absolute pushover who was clearly in over his head when it came to dealing with rooms of rowdy teenagers, one small push would have made it clear that he couldn't control any of them; it was any wonder this kind of thing hadn't happened before. Weren't teenagers supposed to sense weakness? Close in on the weakest individual (Schmoe) of a gazelle herd (Hogwarts staff) when it was alone, like a pack of lions? Fitting that a pride of Gryffindors was largely behind it.

Well... better late than never. It was nothing if not entertaining. Mad childish, but something to break up the monotony at least. And now the students knew how little it could take to push Go On Now Schmoe's classes ever closer to the point of mass hysteria, and Nem had made some useful observations of their own.

But all they had really wanted was to get out of here. Once the Noodle Man had finished entirely losing his noodle (a glorious sight) and set them loose on the rest of the castle, Nem was out of there in the blink of an eye, practically on the heels of Baby Trent, but with their own destination in mind.

Peace.

Was she alright? NO, SHE WAS NOT ALRIGHT!!

Emmerson was about to absolutely GO OFF now that she could move again, incensed someone had DARED jinx her when she was DOING WHAT SCHMOE ASKED.

But then Schmoe did.

Ohhhhh Merlin, did he. Any anger the little girl felt quickly vanished in the wake of this...very...different side to her Muggle Studies Professor. Um. Wow. Okay. Uh. What did one even DO with this version of Schmoe? This new guy who took thirty points from Gryffindor (Bernie deserved it if she was the one jinxing her this whole time) and demanded they return to clean.

Was anyone else seeing this?

"Uh....I'll see you after dinner, Professor..." Emm said, staring the whole time she went to collect her bag. The man might as well had grown six heads and a tail.

So. Uh. Bye?

Would you look at that? The newspaper seemingly missed Grantham but had Claudine’s eyes deceived her? Did she just see the Lioness use her wand??? Honestly, did that girl never intend on giving up her despicable ways? Did she forget that she was walking the fragile line of

Blake’s piece of garbage actually hit Claudine smack in the middle of the back of her head. She spun around, looking for the culprit with suspicious eyes. Her gaze passed Blake at first but snapped back to him a second later. Not sure if he had been the wrongdoer, he still received one of the girl’s best scowls. If he did it or not, the scowl still applied because his presence constantly annoyed her. She turned her heels and followed Emmerson, throwing more garbage as she moved. “Ugh. Looks like I’m out of coloured tissue, Emmerson. Bottles will have to do.’’ And with that, she carelessly dropped one next to her feet. “You know… I think Schmoe might not. He’s not always cool like he is today. He probably woke up on a different side of his bed this morning.’’

She paused in her tracks long enough to wince and throw Aboli an annoyed look. Hello, did she realise that she was polluting the classroom with noise? Also, did Aboli not realise that they were focusing on physical pollution and not noise? Gosh. Joshua at least had the sense to call his friend out. Good going, Josh. Maybe now they’d be rid of Aboli’s antics. Merlin, that prefect was dramatic.

You know what? The fourth year should have paid longer attention to Joshua but she found him boring and was too busy now throwing crumpled tin cans in this corner of the room and that corner to notice him and his spell work. Dirty cheater he was. All she knew was that her right foot flew out from under her, she lost her balance and went down with hands flailing. The bag of trash went flying up in the air, its remaining contents escaping to shower down on the ones gathered close by.

Claudine fell heavily on her butt and back. She laid there, the wind knocked out of her and wincing. And why did the ground feel so smooth? Oooh, someone had done this on purpose. Claudine was LIVID. “BERNADETTE GRANTHAM!!!’’ she shouted, sitting up in a flurry of struggle and glaring around for the most annoying person in the history of her life. “I AM GOING TO GET YOU BACK FOR THIS!!’’ Normally, this Snakette was in control of her emotions but not at the moment.

Imagine Snakes playing fair but Lions were being deceptive.

The words were hardly out of her mouth when she was joined on the floor by none other than Schmoe. “Grantham did this to the floor too, professor. I think I need to visit the hospital wing because my back hurts.’’ Indeed it did but not to the extent that warranted a hospital visit. “P-p-professor?’’ Claudine let a sob escape her. It was a fake, okay? All the more dramatics to get Grantham into bigger trouble. “Can you help me up? I don’t think I c-can manage on m-my own."

Sob. Sniiiiiiif!

Finneas didn't say goodbye to any of the students as they started heading out of the classroom one by one. He had never been schmore angry. In this new grumpy state, he felt that he finally understood Professor Williamson.

Still agitated, Finneas managed to lift himself up from the slippery floor, only to hear Ms. Blaze whining about her back. While typically, he was very easy to sympathize he was simply over it. All of it. "Err... Alright. I can send a note to your next Professor." Because his class was over so if she wanted to visit the hospital wing, that was her prerogative. He was too tired to dispute the claim. He also wasn't about to make speculations as to who had done this to the floor. He would be talking to Ms. Grantham momentarily anyway.

Despite all of this, Finneas extended his noodle arm over to Ms. Blaze to help her up. Now if she could please leave the classroom so that he could lock up and head to his office to have a word with Ms. Grantham.