E.C. EDWARDS - The Mighty Antimagic Spell -
Chapter 41 - Who’d Have Thought Maths Can Be Magic
This is how they used to sit at maths time, which many professors avoided teaching to the children and which was then taught by none other than ... Professor Knudlac.
“Julian Southwood, please tell me how you find out what it means ...”
The professor read a recipe.
“What does it mean: 4 measures of beetle powder and 2 and a half times more ... juice of Dionaea Muscipulatore Grande? A carnivorous plant,” explained the professor to the children, poking his nose out of the book.
Julian drew on a small tablet 4 measures of beetle powder. After that he drew four measures of dust ... and four more and four more.
The students who already knew the result started laughing.
But with a simple, short-sighted piercing gaze of Knudlac’s, they twisted their guts for laughter.
“Let's see, Julian Southwood. Let's think about it,” Knudlac told the boy who was no more than nine. The first 4 measures of beetle dust are drawn very well. The rest of the measures, I say to delete them and think a little better.”
The boy did it.
“How much do you think it means 2 and a half?”
The boy thought a little, and then replied:
“It would mean to mix once the quantity of beetle powder, that is four measures.”
“Very well.”
“Then again four measures of beetle dust.”
“And that means altogether?”
“Eight measures of beetle powder.”
“Exactly ... Let's put them on the board.”
Julian began to draw the eight measures. When he finished drawing, Knudlac tried to help him further.
“But the quantity needed is two and a half. That means we have to add ...”
“Another half of the amount of dust.”
And the boy cheerfully finished the calculation very quickly drawing another half measure of beetle dust. But when he saw the professor's gaze, he realized something was wrong.
“If you have four measures of beetle powder, what does half that amount mean?”
"Two measures," said the boy.
“Then how much do you think it means two and a half the amount of beetle dust. The recipe says we need 4 measures of beetle powder and ...”
“Ten measures of beetle dust.”
Again they laughed, but Julian understood that now it wasn’t a mistake in mathematics, but because he was in a hurry, so he didn't get upset.
“Ten measures of juice from Dionaea Muscipulatore Grande,” he said, gloriously.
“Now do you think we can put it in the form of calculations?”
The boy nodded his head slightly.
“Then ... according to Merlin's recipe, we have to add: 4 measures of beetle powder, and two and a half more juice of Dionaea Muscipulatore Grande.”
The boy wrote the results on the board.
Another half of the already existing quantity of unicorn milk.
The boy kept calculating on the blackboard. He obtained seven measures of unicorn milk.
“Very good, Julian Southwood,” the professor smiled at the boy.
The professor made the following mixture on his table:
4 measures of beetle powder
10 measures of Dionaea Muscipulatore Grande juice.
7 measures of unicorn milk
After mixing them all in a bottle, he poured two drops of a blood-coloured substance onto the geranium and its flowers became very aggressive mouths of a carnivorous plant.
The children became extremely excited when they saw the plant was trying to bite almost anything closer to less than half an elbow. They were like hungry wolves in the form of flowers.
“And now, if those calculations were correct, I hope something cool happens,” Mr. Knudlac smiled out of the corners of his mouth, trying to snatch a pencil from the mouth of the aggressive geranium.
When he saw so much joy and happiness on his students’ faces, he smiled whole-heartedly.
Then he poured three drops according to the recipe calculated by Julian Southwood over the plant, and its flowers sprang back into shape, leaving the pencil chewed on in many spots to fall back on the table, in the children’s sighing voices.
"Well ... it seems that Julian has calculated very well," said the professor. “The role of the potion was to nullify the aggressiveness of the carnivorous plants. It can help you whenever you want to go through the huge, thick, carnivorous herbs from the Ancient Forest, up to the dark Swamp.”
The professor tried to cheer up the children, but for them, that normal and beautiful flower, devoid of that terrifying aspect, was more than boring.
“Woe, it’s late. Do we still have time for another recipe? I don’t believe that…”
“Oh yes ... please,” the children shouted in a voice, seeing there were several minutes until the well-deserved break. “Please ... we want maths!”
Mr. Knudlac asked another student to go to the blackboard:
“Who wants to come and calculate a new recipe?”
Lots of hands raised in the air. Of course, everyone wanted to. Everyone wanted maths ... as much maths as possible.
“Johnny Davies.”
But not this boy. Not young Davies.
He never stood up happily from his desk at maths time, as most of the others do, who, cheered by their colleagues waited to go to the blackboard and see the crazy outcome of the calculations made with the help of Professor Knudlac.
The impatience was seen on all the cheerful faces, but not on Johnny's.
The truth is that maths time was indeed magic for students and professor alike, but for Johnny it was terrifying. He considered it the only obstacle he couldn’t overcome to become one of the best wizards.
"Let's see ..." began Mr. Knudlac, facing the smiling gaze of the children.
Everyone waited breathlessly the outcome and the change through the potion obtained.
The professor quickly read the recipe to the end, and then began:
“A quarter cup of flying chestnut liquor ... that is ¼, that is, a quarter,” Mr. Knudlac helped Johnny.
The boy wrote it on the board.
“With less than a quarter ice dragons' scales. Yes ... it’s a little harder recipe, but that doesn’t mean we can’t pull it off,” Knudlac tried to encourage the boy, seeing that he was increasingly confused. “And then we add the same amount of basilisk glue.
The professor looked at the boy, who was lost like a comet in the universe.
“Do you think we can do the calculation, Johnny?”
The boy, confident in his own intellectual strength, began to calculate.
¼ - ¼ = 0
Even he was surprised by the result. He looked at Knudlac like a child whose ice cream disappeared from his hand just as he wanted to bite it.
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