As told by Maisie Smallwood,
Student
Everyone loved Professor Banks. He was our science teacher, an obsessive experimenter, a real brainiac. A master of medicine, an encyclopedia of botanic knowledge, an animal whisperer and a hero amongst students.
Day and night, Professor Banks could be found in his private laboratory surrounded by iridescent vegetables, levitating furniture and beakers bubbling with mixtures of every colour.
His lab was off limits to us kids, which naturally made it irresistible.
One evening I returned to the Academy to pick up a forgotten textbook. As per usual, there was only one light on in the entire school: Banks’ lab.
The Professor had been acting strange and secretive lately, retreating more and more into his lab. We figured he was on the verge of some great discovery. A cure for the common cold. Or a talking goldfish.
His door was cracked open so I peeked. Everything had changed. Terrified animals clawed at the doors of their cages. Beakers spewed noxious gases. The plants had all withered and died.
The Professor himself was hunched over his desk. Above his head there hovered a glowing orange pendant. It seemed to control him, and the longer I looked at it, the more I felt drawn toward it too.
That’s when I dropped my textbook.
The sound echoed through the empty hallway louder than anything I had ever heard. Its magic lost, the pendant hit the desk. And Professor Banks slowly turned in his chair to face me.
He removed his gas mask and looked at me through hollow eyes.
“Take a deep breath, Maisie.”
It was a woman’s voice, but from where? I didn’t stay long enough to find out. I turned and ran as fast as I could from the sounds of breaking glass and hissing gas behind me.
That was the last time I ever saw Professor Banks.
The next morning, I joined the throng of students gathered in front of his laboratory. It stood empty, as though he had never been there.
