text: For a long moment no one spoke. Thornmallow could feel a kind of heat rising to his cheeks, and behind his eyes unshed tears prickled.
  
  At last Magister Hickory stood, his voice soft as a cradle song. "Without a good breakfast," he said, "we will none of us have the strength for tonight's work."
  
  "Whatever that shall be," murmured Thornmallow, but he was all of a sudden hungry, as if the magister's suggestion had been spoken directly to his stomach.
  
  The four children rose and filed out of the room, boys turning left, girls right, but Magister Hickory did not follow. Instead he closed the door softly behind them.
  
  Thornmallow was not surprised to find himself suddenly in front of the dining hall, side by side with the other three. They glanced briefly at one another before going in. None of them remarked on Magister Hickory's absence.
  
  "I hope," Thornmallow said, trying to change the mood, "I hope it isn't lizard soup."
  
  In fact it was porridge, a lighter shade of brown than the soup, and when Tansy mentioned raisins, they immediately popped up like freckles in the bowls. Thornmallow wished she had mentioned strawberries instead. But when he tasted his porridge he realized it was just the appearance and not the actual fruit, so it didn't matter after all.
  
  The four of them stumbled through Elementary Spelling and Curses and first-year Names, their attention wandering. They kept giving one another little frightened, rabbity looks. However, their distraction was hardly noticed. The magisters, too, seemed unable to concentrate on the lessons, and the classes became strange combinations of badly articulated questions and barely understood answers.
  
  None of the magicks worked.
  
  It was rather like a half-holiday, only they were still in their seats.
  
  At lunch the strange mood at Wizard's Hall was all anyone talked about. One of the fourth-year students remarked, "I've never seen anything like it."
  
  When they went back to Transformation class, there was a note on the door: