The travel agent 5/21

Jennifer Jane was attending her first lesson in self-defence in the advanced class for fifth year apprentices. She had long ago passed the elementary level of throwing cups full of water at her opponents. Because she had been exposed to unexpected dangers so often in her travels around the alternate world, Abigail had already taught her far more techniques than the ordinary second year apprentices ever needed.

The senior witches had decided therefore, that she should take an advanced course to prevent her from making silly mistakes and endangering anyone other than her target.

The teacher had welcomed her new student and was explaining to the class about the ‘paper, rock, scissors’ side of combat with other witches using spells.

“As you all know, there is a defensive spell against every form of attack. Equally there is a reply to every defence; you have to learn more of these sequences than your opponent if you are to win. You also have to learn to react instinctively and make your reply before your opponent can follow through with her own attack. To illustrate the point for our new pupil, let us suppose that she has been attacked using the simple cup of water. Given enough time, this is usually followed by a freezing spell which slows down your opponent."

She paused for a moment to allow the class to absorb the information they’d just been given

“However, if a shield is used to prevent the water from reaching the target,” she continued when the class had settled down again, “you might wish to use a fireball to knock the shield out of the way. If you’re fast enough, the reply can be made before the defence is properly in place and you may well win. Now suppose you’re on the losing end of a spell fight! There is always an option left to you to run away and fight again another day. This option is invisibility, although naturally enough this also brings it’s own problems.”

She taught the class the required spell to make themselves invisible and then paired them off for practice. Jennifer Jane soon had a lot more practice than most; the older girls were very fast by her standards, until she remembered some of the real fights she’d had in the past.

Her next opponent lined up with a grin and started as usual with a cup of water. Before the water arrived in her face, Jennifer Jane replied with a large sticky chocolate swiss roll that prevented her classmate from twiddling her fingers in any sort of meaningful spell. The poor girl couldn’t even turn herself invisible.

The teacher blew her whistle to stop the fighting. “Now that really is something new, even to me! I honestly don’t know of any defence against that sort of spell. If you can’t twiddle your fingers what are you supposed to do I wonder? There must be a counter spell, but I confess I don’t know of one!”

“Now then,” she continued, “as I said before, there are some precautions to take if you have just made yourself invisible. Although you can’t be seen, it may be possible to find out where you are by looking carefully at the place where you’ve just disappeared.”

She stopped for as moment to think of a scenario to consider a few observations that the class might have to make.

“Suppose you’re out of doors, the grass might be flattened slightly where you’re standing. If you move off through long grass it might be seen to be waving as you brush past it. Let’s say that none of these signs are noticed, then perhaps birds might give you away by flying off as you get near them. Any one of these signs may lead to another attack. Another one of the problems with invisibility is that fairly obviously you can’t see your own fingers. Now you can begin to see why I insist on making you practise your spells without looking at your fingers. You really must be able to defend yourselves, even in the dark.”

She turned suddenly and without any warning threw a cup of water at her new pupil. Because she’d spent practically the whole lesson using the new spell, Jennifer Jane reacted without a thought and disappeared before she even got wet. The class broke out laughing and began to clap.