Eitak Sitzes

The Roomy Inn

Chapter Two
The Roomy Inn

“Your are now in the Horizontal Ally, basement of the Roomy Inn, please file out in and orderly fashion, and remember have a nice day because you deserve it!” the elevator voice turned off and the doors slid open.
Ms. Fraig stepped out and turned back to look at Eitak, “Com’on now, we mustn’t be late. There will be plenty of time to browse later.”
Eitak walked out very cautiously, as behind her the elevator shut with a loud bang, and with a swoosh was moving again. The basement had a wooden floor; covered entirely of cardboard boxes. On her left Eitak noticed a strange assortment of candy. There were jellybeans called “Bertha Beans” which stated that they had beans of every flavour imaginable. Suckers called “Radium Pops”, and chocolate covered spiders. She cringed at that one. In addition, on her right Eitak saw posters. However, they were no ordinary posters, they moved! Eitak stared at them in utter disbelief.
Ms. Fraig must have noticed this because she laughed and turned around now facing Eitak. “I can see that you’ve never seen one of these before. They’re called posters; people like to put them up on their walls for decoration.”
“I know what posters are!” snapped Eitak, “what I don’t know is how there moving!”
“Oh” said Ms. Fraig, “we’ve bewitched them.” she stated simply
“Welcome to the Roomy Inn Miss Eitak.” One of those bloody posters were taking, and addressing her by name!
Eitak collapsed onto the floor. She was feeling quite dizzy, and was beginning to question her sanity. Thoughts begun flowing through her head, was this some kind of freshman prank, had she fallen asleep in study hall and this was all a dream? Did she hit her head on something and just simply slipped away into her subconscious mind?! She had no idea what the hell was going on, but she knew that it could not be real. Witches and Wizards, sideways elevators, strange candy, and talking posters! It seemed like something out of a bad 80’s sci-fi movie.
Ms. Fraig was standing over her, “Are you okay honey? Do you need help getting up?” She had her arm outstretched towards Eitak.
Eitak grabbed it, as Ms. Fraig pulled her up on her feet again. “Thanks, I guess this is just a little over whelming. I mean I want to believe it all, but my brain keeping telling me it’s impossible.” Eitak looked back at the posters, and she noticed that a couple of them were not posters at all, but very elaborate paintings.
One painting in particular had caught her eye. It was an old painting of a young witch holding a wedding ring in her hands, she was crying. Eitak just could not help herself. “Um excuse me miss, but uh why are you so upset?” She knew that she must have sounded crazy, talking to that painting as if it were a real human being.
The woman stopped crying and looked at Eitak, “It’s my husband. He has gone off with that young lady in the castle. Oh…” she looked taken aback. “Oh my, I am so terribly sorry. I shouldn’t have bothered you with my troubles like that.” She bowed her head, “please do forgive me.”
Eitak was at a loss for words. Her mouth wouldn’t form what she wanted to say.
Ms. Fraig walked up beside Eitak, and spoke to the painting, “Patricia, this is Eitak, the young girl everybody’s been talking about. She’ll be joining the first years for the student orientation this afternoon.”
Patricia’s eyes got big as she stared at Eitak, “Finally! I have the honor of meeting you!” once again she bowed.
Ms. Fraig put her arm around Eitak’s shoulder, “Well, we must be going, so much to buy before this afternoon. Have a good day Patricia.”
“Good luck with your studies at Remmington’s Miss Eitak.” Patricia was waving good-bye, her hand frantically moving up and down.
They were climbing up the basement staircase, as they were, Eitak thought to herself, “Today is going to be quite an interesting day.”
Eitak was the first one to reach the top of the stairs. She grabbed the doorknob and tried turning it, but it was no use. Apparently the door was locked, trapping them inside. Eitak became frightened and pounded on the door.
“What is it with you and banging on doors?!” said Ms. Fraig as she slightly nudged Eitak out of her way. Now standing directly in front of the door, she pulled out her stick thing. “Step aside” she ordered as she pushed Eitak slightly further. Ms. Fraig pointed her stick into the keyhole located on the door.
“Alohamora!” Click. The door basically unlocked itself. She put her stick back into her cloak pocket, and opened the door. “Well Com’on we haven’t got all day.” She continued to hold the door open.
Eitak wanted to scream, she felt as if her whole world was melting away, lost into this psychotic oblivion. She started walking backwards down the stairs.
“Oh no you don’t!” Cathy reached for Eitak, and yanked her up the few remaining stairs.
Eitak stumbled and fell on her face, half of her still in the basement, but the other half now in a strange new room.
Cathy put her arms under Eitak’s pits, and picked her up. “You’re going to have to trust me Eitak, I am here to guide you, not place in harms way!”
Eitak let out a sigh and walked out of the basement door.
Ms. Fraig walked behind her, now standing in front of Eitak, “You’re going to witness things that you previously thought were impossible, and at some point today, you might question your sanity.”
“Yea, that was about 10 minutes ago!” thought Eitak. She looked around the room. At first glance it looked nothing more than an ordinary bar. But the harder she looked the more she noticed. Round wooden tables covering the also wooden floor which was very dusty. Stools took the place of chairs, and the people, they were all sporting some kind of pointed black hat or another.
Ms. Fraig turned around and slammed the door shut; everybody was now looking at them.
“Sorry Professor, I didn’t see you there” a very large, and very hairy looking woman was addressing Ms. Fraig, “oh, and you must be Eitak. I’ve heard so much about you. Yet then again haven’t we all” she chuckled deeply scanning the room of people, who were all nodding. “You must be excited though. I men I knew I was when I first found out that I was a witch.”
The world seemed to stop. “A witch?!” she thought…bloody hell! “She just told me that I’m a fucking witch!” The world started moving again, and Eitak was thrown back into reality.
She had swallowed her gum in shock. Ms. Fraig raised her hand and hit Eitak square on the back, causing Eitak to let out a very large burp.
“Much better dear.” Cathy glared at the large woman. “Now Renatte, you mustn’t scare her like that. Today has not been an easy one for Miss Eitak here and….”
Eitak cut her off mid-sentence. “A witch?” she mumbled. “As in I’m a witch, as in I can do magic?” her voice was shaking.
Cathy looked at her meaningfully. “Please dear, take a seat.” She said quickly, “you might want to be sitting down when I tell you this.” Ms. Fraig pulled out a stool for Eitak, she sat down and scooted herself into the table, as Cathy grabbed the stool across from her and sat down herself.
“Okay, first of all before we do anything else, let me gibe you some background information. In the wizarding world you start school at the age of thirteen, and continue until your twenty years old. As a first year student you must be sorted into your proper House. There are four House’s: Nasturtium, for the sly and cunning. Marjoram, for the smart and resourceful. Calendula, for the brave and daring, and lastly Pennyroyal, for the kind and empathic.”
“Student’s at Remmington’s are required to take certain courses every year, bust as in your case, well dear to be quite honest, we don’t know what to do with you. I mean one minute you’re just another noffle in high school, and the next I get an owl from the Ministry informing me that we have an unregistered, underage witch roaming around. And so here we are!” She looked at Eitak, waiting for her to say something in return for the shocking message she had just delivered. –Nothing- She reached into her cloak pocket and pulled out her stick. “Do you know what this is?” she asked.
“Yeah…uh shinny stick?” Eitak knew that wasn’t the right answer, but she didn’t know what the right one was.
Ms. Fraig shook her head, “No dear, it is a wand.”
“A wand?” said Eitak. It was supposed to be a rhetorical question.
“Yes, a wand. Every witch and wizard needs one to be able to perform magic. And we are going to buy you one. But first you need to go to that bank over there.” She got up and walked over to a very odd looking machine. It seemed to be a fortune teller from the 40’s. Ms. Fraig stuck her wand into a hole on the side. The thing lit up instantly, and the lady inside began to move.
“Password” said the machine lady. It looked really life like…almost too life like though.
“Eitak, could you come here please. You need to tell her your password.” Beckoned Ms. Fraig.
Eitak gave her a genuine WTF look. “My password, how the hell am I supposed to know that?” she snapped.
Cathy glared at her, “Trust me dear, you know your password. Have you ever used a word, that wasn’t actually a word, you just made it up, yet you still gave it a definition, but not really?”
Actually there was one word, but Eitak wasn’t going to let her know that. “No! Are you crazy? What the frak are you talking about? You’re not making much sense. Why would I make up a word?” she had her hands on her hips.
“I think you’re lying” Ms. Fraig said dangerously calm.
“And I think you need serious help!”
Ms. Fraig held her arm out with her palm turned upwards showcasing the bank teller machine thingy. “Just tell her your password…please.” She sounded exhausted.
“Fine, whatevs, this is so stupid though.” She walked over to the bank, “Ummm yeah hi…” she felt very uncomfortable talking to this thing, “ischabishcabooboo, so do what you do ok?”
The machine lady spoke up, “Hello Eitak Sitzes, your pin code please.”
“My what? Oh, ya uh sure…932700” Eitak told it the first number to come to mind, her school ID.
More noises from the machine. “Welcome Eitak Sitzes, no. 932700. You currently have 506,899 galleons, 6,248 sickles, and 832,600 knuckles. Do you wish to make a withdrawal or deposit?”
Eitak looked at Ms. Fraig, “What the frak is that thing talking about?”
“It’s the wizarding from of money dear. Tell her you would like to withdraw 200 galleons, 500 sickles, and 3,000 knuckles.” Cathy explained to a very confused Eitak.
“Ummm okay, I would like to make a withdraw of 200 Galleons, 500 Sickles, and 3,000 Knuckles.” She told the machine.
The machine started to rock back and forth, and then the lady opened her large mouth, Eitak slipped her hand into the hole, removing three large red bags. They were a lot heavier than she had expected them to be.
“Thank-you” said the lady. The machine lights went off and the lady inside stopped moving.
Eitak held the bags by their golden threaded drawstrings, “Well” she said, “let’s go shopping!”