"Thanks, Professor," Violet beamed, pushing a stray lock of hair out of her eyes. Good, Professor Mancini hadn't noticed Mack's misbehaviour. That bird had better be heading back to the animal sanctuary and not off to do some new mischief, but somehow Violet doubted it. If she managed to graduate without that bird getting her expelled, or at least detention, it would be a miracle.

But now--one more egg. Violet tried to pick an easy tree for the last one, because she was tired of climbing. She found a likely target, one not too tall (or at least so it appeared from the ground), recast the gripping charm one last time for good measure, and headed up. But although it wasn't as tall as the others, the tree's bark was really quite rough and its trunk was full of bumps and knotholes and jagged broken stubs where limbs had broken off in past storms, so it was really not such a good choice after all. However, it was her last one and she was halfway up already, so Violet thought it best to continue on. "Ouch!" she exclaimed as she grasped a particularly sharp stump, which hurt a bit even through the gloves. But finally she had reached the egg in the top branches--a nice robin's-egg blue coloured one this time. Pocketing the egg, Violet climbed carefully down, trying to avoid any more hazards and eventually reached the ground. Opening the egg, a slip of parchment with the number 119 floated out of it and into her waiting hand. "Done!" she said happily, glad to be finished, and went over to turn in her gloves and display her eggs to the teacher.