#16 No Voice, No Sound

Saoirse let Alice pick up the wintercress herself, happy in the knowledge she had already secured a sample for her own use. However, there was an alarming amount of frogspawn that her kicking and treading hadn't frightened off. Saoirse stared at the wriggling creatures, frowning.

She hadn't collected a living animal for a potion before. She didn't want to just shove them into her pockets. Saoirse felt she was old enough that she had matured past her days of shoving bait worms in every available pocket- to the horror of her grandparents and amusement of her father.

Saoirse went through her cavernous pockets. She didn't have a proper jar like she'd seen the other students using. After a few moments of fishing, she found an inch-tall jar of raspberry conserve that she'd nicked from the breakfast table the other day.

Uncaring if anyone saw or complained, she popped open the jar, swirled it with her finger, and ate the jam. She loved raspberry jam so much. Then Saoirse bent down and washed the jar in the lake, careful to not be too close to the frogspawn.

Once it was clean, she scooped up a reasonable amount of frogspawn into the jar, and capped it. She made sure to leave several of them in the lake- their parents had worked hard to bring them into the world, after all. She then put the jar back into her pocket.

Saoirse looked after MJ and Alice's retreating figures, suddenly full of uncertainty. It was one thing to agree to socialize in the moment, but now she was full of doubts about how weird she would be. But she had agreed, and Saoirse refused to back down from a decision. So she followed the girls, only stopping to pick up her wet clothes on the way.

[Exit]