walking blind in the dark [wendy]

Wendy promised herself to beat him next time, but she wasn’t much of a runner, or any good when it came to sports. She was the bookworm in the group.
“Oh yeah, I get what you mean,” Wendy agreed. The young witch also felt relieved when the bad guys (or girls) got in trouble in the end for their terrible acts, especially if they had caused a lot of problems throughout the story. “But I kinda like it better when they turn good or like realize that they’re wrong,” she added. Wendy wasn’t a big fan of gory character deaths or senseless killing, the young girl was not particularly fond of the concept of death in general and really hated characters to suddenly disappear when she had built feelings for them, even if those feelings were not the best. “I hate when characters suddenly die, even if they deserve it.”

Wendy turned her attention to the food that Benny was pointing at, not sure if it was actually made on purpose or just a collection of all the ingredients the cafeteria ladies wanted to get rid of. “It smells good,” she offered because it did have a nice smell but it wasn’t like anything she’d seen before. “I dare you to eat it!” she added with a grin, really hoping Benny would eat it so that she would know if she should come back to get it or just let it be. Wendy didn’t like being wasteful, after all. “I like it when they stick to pizza and hamburgers, at least I know what they’re suppose to taste like,” she added quietly but smiled in appreciation to the ladies behind the counter, not wanting to offend them.

“The fruit cups over there look yummy, and that over there looks safe,” she pointed at another dish that looked like steam vegetables with some sort of sauce but she wasn’t completely aware of what it was. It looked okay though.

Benny agreed with her silently, hating when characters were gone from the books or stories for good, even if the other characters might have been better of that way. The finality of it didn't sit well with the twelve-year-old; he had yet to have any real-life experiences with death; he hadn't needed to face it yet. Shrugging and nodding all at once, the little Gryffindor moved down the line of glass windows. He leaned forward at the strange soupy mix and took a smell, he supposed it did, it had a chicken smell to it, but he didn't recognize the gravy or the spices.

"Oh yeah!?" He asked her suddenly, excited by the prospect of a dare, and then he pointed to another strange-looking dish. "Well, then I dare you to try that!" The one he'd been leading to had decidedly more vegetables and less meat, but it had a redder sauce. Silently he wondered if it was spicy before adding a scoop of both to bowls and putting them on his tray. He'd try anything really, even without the dare.

When she mentioned fruit cups, Benny followed her finger and moved forward to get some. "Oh, I hope they have ice cream again." He said, eyeballing the end of the line and searching for the magical machine that had pumped out soft-serve last night. He'd come back for seconds if they did. "What is your favorite food, Wendy?" He asked her as he waited for her to add things to her tray as well.

“Uhh—” she started, a little unsure of whether she wanted to risk eating something with so much red sauce on it. Wendy wasn’t a fan of spicy food to begin with so the idea of accidentally eating something that would set her mouth on fire was certainly not her idea of a snack. Then again, this was America and from what she had understood, Americans were not so big on the sort of spicy curries and the like that one found in places like London. But in an effort to impress her friend, she smiled and shrugged, extending her tray out so that the lunch lady could put a portion, maybe a bit too big of a portion, of the vegetables on her plate. If Wendy had done it herself, she might have chickened out. “If I die, you can have my dessert,” she promised with a grin.

“Me too! The toppings were soo good too, I think we can many really yummy sundaes!” she offered enthusiastically, also hoping for ice cream, knowing that it would help ease the spiciness in case the dish deceived her. But even on her tray, it didn’t have a very strong smell of danger so Wendy was starting to feel like maybe the red sauce was tomato sauce or something like that. But also, gross, who put tomato sauce on top of vegetables like that? “I like curry but the baby ones, not the proper spicy ones, they’re too much for me,” she confessed with a small smile. “Fish and chips are good too, though!” she added, thinking about how she had been craving something greasy in the last few days but the fried chicken they had made for lunch last week had not been bad even if a little salty. “Mum makes the best fish and chips ever,” she added with a dreamy sigh. She missed her mum’s cooking.

“What about you?” she added a cup of fruit to her tray then went on to get a small container of milk, it came with the meal on a daily basis. “Fan of all the mystery meat here?” she teased.

"I knowwww, right?" He said to her with a bit of exciting sing-song in his voice. Benny loved desserts, anything sugary sweet, almost as much as he loved spicy home-cooked foods. He wanted to move toward the ice cream machine, but his mother's voice rang in the back of his head. He should eat his dinner first and then dessert, and even though the idea of doing the opposite of what he was supposed to was interesting, he listened to it. Regardless of whether it was his mother's advice or his own choice, the little Gryffindor had a feeling ice cream wouldn't pair well with the chicken surprise on his plate.

"We'll come back for sundaes?" He asked her, eyes hopeful, "Bet I can make mine bigger." The little wizard told her with another exciting grin He turned out toward the hall and looked for an excellent table to sit at. For as many twelvies that had come to camp, there were just as many people Benny didn't know yet. Lots of strangers from all sorts of places, most of which he'd never even heard of. Pointing to a table by lifting his tray and moving it in the direction the boy spoke.

"How about that table?"

“Yeah definitely!” Wendy responded excitedly looking forward at the prospect of leaving plenty of room for the delicious dessert that was sure to follow. “Nuh-uh, I am the queen of ice cream sundaes,” she proclaimed with a laugh, following him as he moved to one of the tables to sit down. Wendy looked around to see if she could spot any of her other friends but couldn’t, she figured they had gone on one of the extracurricular adventures or it was just too early for a meal at that point. But that was all good in her head, that just meant that she could have the ice cream machine to herself instead of waiting in a super long line. “I bet you I can use all the toppings too, make something super fancy,” she added as they took a seat.

“Go on! Try it” she said. Wendy looked over the mystery food one more time before daring to poke her fork into it, procrastinating for a few seconds as she gave Benny a frightened look. “Wish me luck,” she said, leaning forward to sniff the food lightly before putting it in her mouth. It was a confusing taste, but not as spicy as she had imagined, just a little heavy on the pepper; Wrinkling her nose just slightly, she opened her milk to wash down whatever she had just eaten with the refreshing beverage. “That was—strange,” she said after several moments, deciding to move for the fruit cup instead. “Do you eat a lot of spicy food at home?”

The idea of making a heaping sundae made Benny grin, he was going to add so. many. toppings. Like a ridiculous amount of toppings, enough to give him a tummy ache for sure, but it would be so worth it. He nodded at her assertion that they could use all the toppings, glad they were on the same page as they took their seats. Benny was already loving summer camp but every day was like a new adventure. He loved that most of their friends were here too and that they got to make new ones.

Sliding into his seat he took a deep breath and stuck his spork into whatever it was on his plate. It was strange looking and had a mushroom kind of smell, but the gravy wasn't half bad once he'd tried it. He licked the spork first, getting his feet wet, and then took the full bite. He chewed it slowly nodding. "Not bad... it's like... it's kind of like stew?" He said, hoping the crunchy bit was a vegetable. He followed her lead and popped open his milk to wash it down before trying the red sauced item.

"Oh yeah, everything is spicy and like suuuuuuper flavored." He told her, missing the food back home. His Lola was a great cook, his mom too, and Tomie's mom. He ate over at her flat as often as he did at home. "What about you?"

“Stew..?” she replied slowly, unsure if that made it a good thing or a bad thing but smiling anyway, glad that he had gone through with his promise to try it out. Wendy was curious about everything, especially all of the food in the cafeteria but wasn’t so adventurous when it came to eating it. She had a sensitive stomach and a very imaginative mind that often times could even just make the idea of trying something leave a bad taste in her mouth. Upon closer inspection as Benny ate, however, it seemed alright. “I guess that’s not so bad, I kinda miss food back at Hogwarts though,” she added. The meals were familiar and very tasty.

She nodded as she listened on to Benny explain about the food he ate back at home. “That’s cool! Mum’s tried to make spicy food before but it’s never been like super, super spicy,” she explained, but that was something she was willing to try out. Wendy didn’t really care for spicy food but the way Benny made it sound, it sounded pretty awesome. “Mostly what the inn guests eat, I guess? A lot of like traditional British stuff, full English breakfast, bangers and mash, shepherd’s pie, things like that,” she listed off some of her favorites as she thought of them, reaching for her fruit cup right away.

“Are you starting to miss home yet, Benny?”

Benny slopped up the rest of the weird stew as she told him about what her family ate at home. He looked up when she mentioned the Inn, remembering she'd told him about that once, and about all of her siblings, and nodded. "Bangers and mash." He said with a chuckle, despite being British he was still a preteen boy and he couldn't help but find that one funny. He finished the slop on his tray and moved onto the fruit cup she had gotten for him when she picked one up for herself.

Peeling back the lid he drank the sugary juice first and then used his fork to scoop up the peaches and pieces of pineapple. "Yeah I guess, but it's cool here too," Benny said with a shrug. "I am glad to be going home after this session though." He finished the fruit cup in record time and smiled brightly because that meant it was nearly time for ice cream sundaes.

"What about you?"

Wendy wasn’t really sure why Benny thought the word bangers and mash was funny but she laughed anyway, just in case she was supposed to laugh and wasn’t aware. It sounded like something one of the characters in the novel would have found funny which was amusing for her though she wasn’t sure in what context just yet. She’d have to ask Tomie about it later. She considered eating the rest of the red sauced mystery thing on her tray but decided that she’d just have to fill up on ice cream instead. If she was hungry later, she had a ton of snacks ready for her and hiding under her bed.

Wendy picked out all of the pieces of pineapple from the cup before eating the peaches. “Yeah, I think so, too, I’ll come to camp again if they have it here next year,” she added. Wendy had been worried about going to Vermont for several weeks without her family but was realizing that it was very similar to the farm. The biggest difference being that her friends were also in Stowe and that she had a bunch of new things to do and try. “I don’t think I’d last five weeks, I’m starting to miss mum, plus need to catch up on my reading before term starts,” she added. “We should meet up after we get back, though, if you’re not busy! We can do something cool like work on our own story,” she suggested.

"Are you not going to eat those?" He asked her, pointing to the pineapples she'd picked out and put in one of the empty compartments on her tray. A little bit of sugary syrup dripped off of his spork as he held it in the air, pointing at her, and he watched it plop onto the table. "Yeah me either." He admitted, he was loving camp but he was also thankful to only be signed up for one of the sessions. He hadn't applied for both, but he wasn't sure if he would have to reapply if he wanted to stay. Not that he was planning to.

Nodding enthusiastically at her idea it was ridiculously clear how much Benny loved the thought. "Yes I will draw comics for us!" He said loudly, jumping out of his seat a little and the tops of his things hit the bottom of the table. The metal legs screeched a little on the tile from of the mess hall and he smiled sheepishly as he sat back down.

"And we need awesome characters... Any ideas?!"

Wendy shook her head, “They make my tongue hurt, I think I’m allergic or something,” she offered, making sure to leave them in a neat pile before moving on to eating the rest of the fruit. It was a shame because Wendy really liked all her fruits and most of her vegetables and it didn’t seem fair that she had to be allergic to it. Or maybe she wasn’t allergic but the last few times she had tried to eat pineapple it had made her tongue sore for the rest of the day. “But it was fun, I really liked it,” she added. It had been a great experience, being at camp even if just for the first session.

“That’d be awesome! And we can ask Tomie for advice, she’s like the queen of comicbooks,” she added with a smirk, knowing that their friend could probably give them some good insight once they had done enough to show it to someone else. “I think I’d be fun to start with something really random like a girl that has a unicorn, maybe she gets it from a dark wizard that asks her to keep it in exchange for something else—I don’t know, does that make sense to you? How can we build from there?”

When she told him she wasn't going to eat them Benny scooped the pile of pineapples neatly off of her tray and into his. He loved pineapples, they were tangy and tart and reminded him of the little candies the sold at Tomie's parent's shop back home. "Oh really, that sucks..." he commented as he shoveled the rest of them onto his plastic tray and then settled back in his seat. He wasn't sure if he was allergic to anything, nothing he knew of yet, but he knew it couldn't of been fun. Especially if they made her tongue hurt.

"We should tell her you said that she would love that nickname." Queen of Comicbooks, he repeated it to himself and smiled. Tomie was so naturally the leader in their little group, so the little Gyfrrindor had a feeling she'd enjoy the title. "Oh yeah, that is great!" He exclaimed, the front of his thighs hitting the table again as he bounced nearly out of his seat. Benny wasn't creative as far as writing or storytelling, at least not like Wendy was, but he could draw and he thought that made him useful.

"What iffffff....." he was drawing a blank so he popped another bite of food into his mouth and then finished the thought. "Does the unicorn talk? Maybe he was stolen from some magical forest?"

Wendy was glad that the pineapples weren’t going to waste and if Benny didn’t have a problem with scooping them out of her tray to eat them, she wasn’t going to stop him. The young Willbond had always been a little sensitive about being wasteful where food became involved but she figured that it had something to do with her upbringing. Her parents wouldn’t really force them to eat everything off of their plate if they didn’t care for it or anything but they had always reminded her to be conscientious.

“She might like Queen better than princess, right?” Wendy said with a smile. Wendy figured that Tomie was too cool for those kinds of super girly titles but Queen had a feeling of nobility and power, much more so than the title princess which just sort of sounded like the name of a cat or a bratty underage witch. But she didn’t dwell on the idea, distracted by Benny’s very good reaction to what she had considered to be a rather poor, uninspired idea.

Wendy took another scoop full of fruit, shoving it into her mouth as she considered his idea and nodded wholeheartedly. “By the dark wizard?” she wondered, “Maybe the talking unicorn is a person that was cursed by the dark wizard and traded for like secrets? Would that be the love interest? Is that weird?” she considered before shaking her head, “Maybe the unicorn was a bad guy that was turn into a unicorn by some other magical person?”

"Yeah definitely," Benny answered without looking up from his newly acquired pineapples. Tomie was way more of a queen than a princess, she was a leader, and he wasn't sure if he could even remember the last time he'd seen her in a dress. He finished what he was eating and pushed his plate away symbolically. Benny had gotten used to the House Elves taking care of the dishes while they were at Hogwarts, he was a bit spoiled, but eventually, he'd remember it wasn't going to just vanish and that he'd need to take it to the tray return.

"What about... both!?" He exclaimed, excited by the idea of a redemption story. "What if, oh, what if," he started, getting too excited for his own words and then his hands started flapping for extra enthusiasm (not that he needed it!). "The bad guy was turned into a unicorn to teach him something, and he has to help the main character before he can go back to normal? There can be a whole chapter about when the main character finds out who the unicorn really is? And like he can be upset about it but then they can be friends again?"

He placed his hands on the table, outstretched, both palms down (because this was serious business now!), and gave her a look. "Whatcha think?"

“But shouldn’t he be turned into like an ogre or a goblin?” Wendy suggested, suddenly realizing that there had to be a reason why villains never turned them pretty into a unicorn, wouldn’t that attract too much attention? It made sense. “Maybe he should not be able to talk, whatever he is, or maybe he talks in secret code because then he’d just outright say Help me! I’ve been curses and then the story would end right away,” she added. Wendy was all for a good, lengthy mystery but not one that she could predict right away.

“But I definitely like the part where he has to help the main character,” she added with a smile, thinking about what on her plate she might like to eat next but not finding any of the possibilities very appetizing. No matter how hard Wendy tried to become accustomed to the American way, she still very much missed her mum’s cooking. “Maybe he helps guide the main character around like without talking and then for whatever reason, maybe there is like a magical temple sort of thing, he is finally able to talk,” she added.

“I think we’re onto something here,” she exclaimed excitedly, her enthusiasm obvious in her facial expression. “But what about the romance, there must be at least one good love story in every book!” she continued, her expression turning serious for a moment to show just how important that was to her. “The unicorn and the heroine?” she suggested, “Or maybe the sidekick if there is one?”