A little more raking earned Rachel a second decent size pile of leaves. It wasn't as big as the first but it was something. She spared a look around the room and noticed there were quite a few persons getting rid of leaves too and some working on other activities. At this rate, they would have an absoloutely spick and span room.

Rachel skipped off to get a thrash bag and returned less than a minute to the first pile. She held open the bag and started cramming the leaves into it using the rake. It was a bit tedious and awkward since she had to hold open the bag with one hand then sweep the leaves in using the other but in the end, she got every one of them in there. She then proceeded to repeat the action for the second pile.

With an enormous pile of leaves, she dragged the bag off to a corner of the room. There wasn't much else she could do with that, was there?

Despite the fact that she had flicked some soapy water his water Hady was thinking about the consequences of that action. Luckily for her it was just that bit from her sponge and not a bucket full, that could've been a problem! Or well more of a problem if the water had been tossed at HER! Zeke wasn't that way though...at least not in class.

Rolling her eyes playfully and clearly laughing at his comment the fifth year grinned. "Oh, I know I am." Mhmm. He should remember this. Just because she was smart and usually not a trouble maker didn't mean she didn't like having a good time or that she was incapable of doing so. It was all about timing and even more importantly...not getting caught. This though. This wasn't anything bad. Cleaning up and having a good time doing it was all good.

Following her much to tall friend Hady dipped her brush into the can of paint and began to paint a section of the fence with nice even strokes. "Painting your room? Didn't you plan on doing that like a year or two ago?" No seriously. Hady vaguely recalled remembering him mention something or the sorts awhile back.

Of course she knew it.

OUT. OF. CONTROL. Seriously, where was that prefect boyfriend of hers to keep her in line? Hhmm? At least he could hold his own against this Lady Snake. She wouldn't be much trouble anyway, and whatever water had spritzed him had already dried.

Painting was oddly soothing, it was... easy enough to do, and though he was no Picasso he was certainly capable of straight up and down clean strokes, the bristles getting into the nitty gritty parts that hadn't been sanded smooth. They weren't supposed to do that too, were they? Nooooooooooo.

"Over the summer," he chuckled, "but yeah, I never did get around to doing it, still don't even know what colour to paint it." Either way, the WHITE had to go. It was dull to look at in such large quantities.

Recharging his brush, Zeke continued coating the fence panes with smooth lashings of paint. Up and down, up and down, recharging, up and down, up and down...

A rainbow fence sounded pretty cool to Kitty. This girl obviously had style!

"Ooh thanks" Kitty took the gloves (which were a cool shade of black) and began picking up the leaves and trash with Ariadne. She found a disgusting empty bottle of pop and tossed it into the bag, glad that she had gloves.

"Nice to meet you Ariadne Greingoth" Kitty said with a smile. "Technically I'm a third year student, but this is only my second year at Hogwarts. I studied for a year in Romania, but then my family moved back to Scotland. I like Hogwarts better."In Romania she was bullied for being Gothic, but she didn't want to say that just now. "Your last name sounds familiar..." She thought it for a moment as she continued to pick up things. "Are you related to one of the Ministers of Magic?"It would so cool if she was!

Whatever Zeke was thinking just earned him a huge grin from her. Everyone knew she wasn't one to go throwing herself into trouble especially the Lion at her side. It wasn't her style. If trouble came at her then Hady would tackle it head on like everything else. There was no going half donkey for her on anything.

Flexing her fingers around the paintbrush she watched as it glide smoothly over the fence posts surface. It was an easy task and the rhythm of it was calming allowing her to also focus on Zeke's words. "Yeah? Seemed longer ago then that." Shrugging her shoulders the snakette looked over at him. "What about simple earthy tones? Like different shades of browns or grays?" Green was always awesome too but she doubted he'd see the appeal in her favorite color.

Spencer knew what to do, he done stuff similar to this every summer, so he was used to cleaning places like this. Spencer looked around, and seen that some stuff was already starting to get done, but then he seen a girl raking leaves and decided to be friendly and helpful. Walking over towards her he bent down to help her. "Thought you could use more hands, it'll be easier if you had more help. said Spencer. "I'm Spencer, Spencer Criswell. "said Spencer. Spencer looked at Rachel. "I'll hold the bag open and you rake in the leaves and what you don't get I'll stuff in? "Spencer asked her.

He supposed if the Professor was willing to look at it that way then he DID, in fact, volunteer some of his time. She was also right in that the creatures had enjoyed it--but of course she was right, she was like the smartest Professor in all of Hogwarts, and the nicest and had the best lessons and yes, he might really have been saying that because her subject had nothing to do with magic.

Blaise hopped off the tire, figuring Davie would want to move it when he'd asked the Professor what to do with it and the little boy grabbed at one of the fallen buckets. Right now, this seemed like the best container for some of the fallen trash so congrats to you Mr. Bucket, you would help make the place prettier.

The young Gryffindor placed it next to the tire he'd just been sharing and began tossing bits of trash that lay around him into it.

It wasn't until he straightened in search of more trash that he caught his friend's attention on the tire. "What're you gonna do with it?" Since Moxley DID say it was up to him.

Oh look, more trash.

Ariadne scooped up another piece of trash and tossed it into her bag. It was almost full now. She glanced around and noticed a small pile of litter nearby and decided to add that to the bag then tie the bag closed. "Oh, a third year? Wow, that's cool! I bet it was fun studying in a whole different country, too," she replied. "My mom homeschooled me before I came here. She used to teach here!" Ariadne was SUPER proud of that. She really looked up to her mom.

She made her way her toward the pile of litter she'd spotted and picked it up, adding it to the almost-full bag. When it was all in there, she tied the bag closed. "Where do you think we put the full bags?" she asked her partner. While waiting for an answer, Ariadne picked up a second trash bag and opened it up wide. "I think I'll rake up some leaves next." She collected a rake then began raking the leaves into little piles. Once she had a pretty big pile, she scooped it up with her hands and the rake and started packing it into the bag.

Cleaning?

They need to do some cleaning?

She HATED cleaning. Especially cleaning something that was not her mess. She even has her brother to clean her room back home and now she need to clean this mess? Sigh. She's not very happy with it but better get going. The quicker she start the quicker she finish.

First thing first. She need gloves. She didn't want her hands to be dirty. Nu uh. So with that thought, Candice grabbed a pair of gloves and put them on. Then she grabbed a few bin bags because she thought she might need more than one and a broom. After she got all her supplies, she picked a spot to clean and started to sweep the garbage and leaves with her broom.

Robin was pleased at how nice the Headmistress was- and how she taught muggle studies! That must be a step in the right direction for muggle- born students like her. Not like people weren't nice about it, but she wanted to prove she could do everything a pureblood could (not that she had anything against them either, it was a pride thing)

She took one of the rakes and began sweeping up some of the leaves that were scattered about the classroom.
"I guess my mom giving me chores was a good thing then" she mused as she swept the leaves into smaller and more condensed piles"

"I thought this area looked dirty," Olly suggested when Ava asked what they were going to do. He was already raking up the leaves. There weren't any trees in the classroom though, so where had the leaves come from? Whatever. Not important. "There's trash on the ground, too. You could get that while I rake up the rest of these leaves?"

They were disposed of in different ways, see. So when Olly put all the leaves in a trash bag or something, it would be good if there wasn't any trash mixed in. He didn't know exactly how they were going to be disposed of, but he was pretty sure there were different processes for different things. Anyway, he was busy raking up all the leaves by that wall. There were a few other people who'd had the same idea so between them they should be able to rake up the whole classroom. Olly made sure to get all of his leaves in one big pile. Not so he could jump in, though he'd like to, but so he could gather them up when he was done raking.

So their task was to clean and beautify the "classroom". OK, Janelle could do that. As pairs and groups started to form, she decided to start working by herself. Janelle was not opposed to working with someone, in fact she would probably prefer that. So if the situation presented itself, she would be all for it. In the meantime though, Janelle grabbed a trash bag and began to collect the trash that was strewn about. She felt like those people in orange vests who picked up trash from the side of the highway.

This was tedious work, but it needed to be done. Janelle thought that she would pick up as much trash as she could and then move on to another cleaning task. From the looks of things though, she'd be picking up trash for a while. The area was a mess. Janelle bent down, picking up one piece of trash after another and putting it in her bag. At the same time, she kept an eye out for anyone who might need a cleaning partner.

Seeing another girl grabbing gloves Robin was surprised at her thoughtlessness. There could be sharp objects in these leaves!

Glancing at the girl,She hurried over to get a pair of gloves herself, along with a couple large bags that took her two trips to carryover to where her piles were. She set them down and began picking up leaves from her pile and putting them into the bags. Some of them were pretty, she thought, but then again some were brown and already starting to decompose. She manhandled as many leaves into the bag as possible.

Volunteering. She'd done that, in the sense that she'd tutored younger kids in a variety of subjects and helped peers with homework. But Tia wasn't sure that really counted so she had remained quiet. So it seemed the activity today was beautifying a place that majority of the class had deemed unsafe and unfriendly. It seemed Moxley was maybe in agreement too and didn't see the potential and creativity in a place looking like the dumps? Did she really want them to paint over some graffiti? That seemed kind of upsetting because whoever did that graffiti was expressing themselves in a way they knew how.

Sigh.

She wasn't opposed to cleaning up though or getting her hands dirty. Especially as she wasn't doing this alone. However, the seventh year DID grab a broom to start sweeping the area she was in, which turned out nearby fellow prefect, Candice who had donned gloves for the cleaning bit. "Think these brooms work as flying brooms?" Tia asked her fellow leader, half-joking. She wasn't a big flyer like some kids were, but it was kind of fun the one lesson Tanner had given them.

Was no one going to help him with the tire? Obviously Davie couldn't do this all by himself. He didn't know the required spells, for one, and for another, he was still a fairly shrimpy twelve-year-old who probably couldn't lift this thing by himself if he tried...

And the professor had said no magic. So.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DaniDiNardo

He supposed if the Professor was willing to look at it that way then he DID, in fact, volunteer some of his time. She was also right in that the creatures had enjoyed it--but of course she was right, she was like the smartest Professor in all of Hogwarts, and the nicest and had the best lessons and yes, he might really have been saying that because her subject had nothing to do with magic.

Blaise hopped off the tire, figuring Davie would want to move it when he'd asked the Professor what to do with it and the little boy grabbed at one of the fallen buckets. Right now, this seemed like the best container for some of the fallen trash so congrats to you Mr. Bucket, you would help make the place prettier.

The young Gryffindor placed it next to the tire he'd just been sharing and began tossing bits of trash that lay around him into it.

It wasn't until he straightened in search of more trash that he caught his friend's attention on the tire. "What're you gonna do with it?" Since Moxley DID say it was up to him.

Oh look, more trash.

He bent down to start putting old leaves and scraps of paper and candy labels in his bag, wanting to make sure they had a nice, clean area for the tire firstly.

"Gonna make a tire swing," he replied to Blaise nonchalantly, as though he had this all figured out. "Wanna help?" Davie casually moved away from the tire a little, expanding his cleaning area, and in the hopes that some people would join his and Blaise's tired crew. Tired. Tire-d crew. Geddit?

She looked around and noticed that this area was so full of fallen leaves and the trash. "Yeah...." She nodded in agreement. So they were having class in the middle of dirty places like this. Merlin, if this wasn't a classroom and an ACTUAL neighborhood, her mother wouldn't be pleased if she knew about this. But Ava didn't really mind with the dirty job and stuffs.

While Olly was dealing with the leaves, the young lioness had to deal with the trash. Grabbing the broom, she started sweeping the fake alley. Sweep sweep sweep... There's so many trash around here. Somehow this reminded her of the detention that she once done when she was in muggle school... But at that time, she was forced to clean the backyard which was full of fallen leaves. "I don't really understand why Moxley had to make us doing this." She said to her Slytherin friend.

Aside from the trash he'd just picked up, Blaise was starting to think this would be a bit more difficult than he imagined. Why? Well...just...HOW was he going to get that tree branch into the bucket? WHAT was the tree branch doing there in the first place?????? WHY WAS IT NOT STILL ATTACHED TO A TREE???

Pause.

Where did it even come from in this concrete jungle??????? That was Profosser Moxley for you. So innovative when she did things. Such an inspiration--as was the idea of a tire swing.

Huh. It wasn't half bad. "Sure. It's kinda huge though." And muscles he had not. "We'll need manpower like maybe you can ask Ava and Ollie to help too." While he...broke this branch into smaller twigs. Now they could fit in the bucket. Genius Bellaire.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DaniDiNardo

Aside from the trash he'd just picked up, Blaise was starting to think this would be a bit more difficult than he imagined. Why? Well...just...HOW was he going to get that tree branch into the bucket? WHAT was the tree branch doing there in the first place?????? WHY WAS IT NOT STILL ATTACHED TO A TREE???

Pause.

Where did it even come from in this concrete jungle??????? That was Profosser Moxley for you. So innovative when she did things. Such an inspiration--as was the idea of a tire swing.

Huh. It wasn't half bad. "Sure. It's kinda huge though." And muscles he had not. "We'll need manpower like maybe you can ask Ava and Ollie to help too." While he...broke this branch into smaller twigs. Now they could fit in the bucket. Genius Bellaire.

Picking up a random red plastic cup and dropping it into his trash bag, Davie wondered if Moxley had thrown a party for all the teachers in here, and then decided to teach the students a lesson by making them clean up all her trash. It seemed like a likely idea, and kind of like an extra punishment for all the mess of the feast... but still. He wasn't too miffed about it, because he was going to make A TIRE SWING.

With Ava's and Olly's help. "Good idea," Davie mumbled to Blaise. Yes, neither of them had the required muscles, and Ava was a girl (but a SMART girl) and Olly was a cool guy so... together, the four of them could make this happen?

"Oi Olly, Ava," Davie called out to the still-cleaning pair. He wandered closer to them with his trash bag still in hand. "Do you guys want to help Blaise and I make a tire swing? We need some string or a chain or something... dunno if you've found any in your cleaning..." But if they helped MAKE the swing, then they could SWING on the swing too. So he added that. "Could be fun when we're done."

SPOILER!!: Spencer! <3

Quote:

Originally Posted by Savannah Granger

Spencer knew what to do, he done stuff similar to this every summer, so he was used to cleaning places like this. Spencer looked around, and seen that some stuff was already starting to get done, but then he seen a girl raking leaves and decided to be friendly and helpful. Walking over towards her he bent down to help her. "Thought you could use more hands, it'll be easier if you had more help. said Spencer. "I'm Spencer, Spencer Criswell. "said Spencer. Spencer looked at Rachel. "I'll hold the bag open and you rake in the leaves and what you don't get I'll stuff in? "Spencer asked her.

This was certainly a surprise- a Gryffindor offering to help. Rachel reasoned he wasn't one of the unruly ones. She smiled at him. Though she was finished raking, she was none the less grateful for his help. "Hello, Spencer. I'm Rachel. Thank you for your offer but I'm actually finished with that.'' She paused a beat, thinking about something.

"What do you think of us cleaning and painting those rusted old buckets?" This sounded like proper team work and Rachel thought it was a good idea. She moved to take a pail of soapy water and two sponges towards some of the old buckets they had been working on. "Just remember to let the buckets dry before you start painting them,'' she said before dipping the sponge into the water and applying it to a rusted one.

She scrubbed it thoroughly, inside and out to get muck and even some of the rust off. It would look as good as new when she and Spencer were done. After she finished scrubbing it, she let it dry for a few minutes before starting to paint it in bright pink. They could be recycled as plant pots or something of the sort.

This tree branch didn't stand a chance against him. Pretty sooner he'd reduced it to smaller, more controllable bits and now his bucket was full. It was an accomplishment in itself getting an entire bucket full of trash--nevermind that most of it was just a broken off tree branch that he'd further broken. FULL TRASH BUCKET.

The boy took hold of it and waddled his way over to where a little pile was slowly building because he assumed this was now one of the dump sites. It tended to happen when you couldn't just vanish trash.

Turning, he saw Davie doing that recruiting thing for the tire swing. His question had him thinking. They WOULD need rope but if he'd seen any, it must have been at the bottom of the bucket by now and...well...he just wasn't THAT interested in swinging to go ahead and empty the bucket's contents. They'd find something, somewhere. This place WAS a mess afterall--or well it was shaping up to look better now at least.

While he waited to find out whether they'd be getting help or not, Blaise began kicking things in the vicinity closer to the pile. Might as well while he was over here. Someone had to.

Woah, how could this place have SO MUCH TRASH? What if the class time was over but they hadn't finished with the cleaning and everything? Actually the easiest way was to call out the house elves and let them clean everything in here. Hehehe....

Wait a minute, was this related to what had happened at the start of the feast a few months ago? Well it could be.

While she was busy gathering the trash and put them into the trash bag, Ava noticed that someone had called both her and Olly. "Sup, Davie?" The young lioness asked him when he came closer to them. Listening to the Ravenclaw boy talking about his plan. Making a tire swing. "Well, that sounds like a good idea." She nodded. "I haven't found any ropes around here... We actually can conjure one, Professor Beatrice had taught us last term. But this was muggle studies class and I dunno if Moxley allows us to do magic."

Moxley could see the disappointment on the faces of many of her students but she couldn't find it in her to care. The thing was, she'd given them an awful lot of wiggle room with this task and she never said they couldn't make it fun. Perhaps they just needed to use their imaginations a bit. That was a thing children still did from time to time, right?

Noting her name was being called, the muggle studies professor made her way over to the young Ravenclaw and smiled. "That's a really good question, Jace. Perhaps we can hang some of the bin bags on the fence and label them with the paint. R for recycling, T for trash. That could work."

Olly felt pretty good about how much leaves he'd raked up. He'd helped his dads before when they raked in the fall. Well not so much helped as caused problems and made more of a mess by jumping in leaf piles but he'd been young. The point was that he knew that they would do next so that's what he did. Olly grabbed a garbage bag and lifted his pile of leaves into it. There. He didn't know what Moxley wanted him to do with it. He was about to ask her when the sound of his name distracted him.

He looked for the source and saw Davie waving him and Ava over. Olly set his bag of leaves down gently by the wall and hurried over. He could do something with that later. Davie and Blaise were working on something much more exciting. A tire swing? That sounded so cool.

"There should be something we can use somewhere around here." He heard Ava suggest that they could conjure something, but this was Muggle Studies so he didn't think that was an option. Instead, he searched around the trash. He thought he'd remembered seeing a rope. Or maybe he'd just imagined it. But it was certainly something he would expect to find in this mess.

Oh, he'd been right! Olly spotted the end of a rope sticking out from under a small pile of leaves. He pulled, glad that it was a lot longer than just the end he'd seen. Hopefully it was long enough. Olly grabbed the leaves and added them to his bag before heading back over to the tire swing crew. He held out the rope. "Is this long enough?"

Cleaning wasn't difficult. This was extremely similar to something Jaemin and his mother had done at one of the old people homes when he was nine; there had been a patch of icky area that people walked by every day and threw garbage into, because it was already full of garbage anyway. They'd cleaned it up and planted lots and lots of different flowers and bushes, and people had stopped throwing their trash there. Well... for the most part.

The boy spread his trash bag out on the ground and put one foot in either side of it, stretching it open and sweeping the garbage and dead leaves he'd collected directly into it. Gross. People were gross. Why did they think they could just throw stuff anywhere, didn't they know they were ruining the earth and making it hard for plants to grow?!

... thinking about plants did give him some ideas for the bigger refuse though. Jaemin scooped up the bag of trash and took off toward Moxley, skidding to a halt right in front of her and looking straaaaight up at her face.

"Miss Headmistress, do you have plants and stuff, like... flowers? Little ones?" He had ideas, okay?!

Oh see he was right on the money wasnt he honey? Improving the place!

But yeah theres that aspect about cleaning. He wasnt much for cleaning up really-- and thats even with magic. But it looks like they're gonna do this by hand. Oi.

He heard the Ravenclaw boy call about for the tire crew, spotting Blaise and Ava and other student he didnt know. Yep count him, the forecaster of tire swings yaaaaas!

But clean up. Ugh.

They needed somewhere to hang the swing that much he knew. The Gryffindor boy looked at the wall and observed how that was connecting to that part of the broken fence. That fence was pretty useless the way it is-- but can it be repurposed for something else?

Gryffinclaw wheels are turning mmhm...

"Hey guys!" he called out to the tire crew while waving his hand "Lets hang the tires in this area." he said gesturing near the wall and the fence. He grabbed a water bucket and a brush and proceeded to scrub the wall down.

He waited for the Headmistress to get within earshot of him and asked "Professor, are there any nails and hammers and maybe a saw in the supplies box over there?" wouldve been tons easier with magic but eh, today he's gonna be carpenter Ace!