Bean Tasting PV Mikey Forville

Mikey walked into the courtyard holding half a slice of toast, crumbs running down his jumper. He noticed Ellie the moment he stepped in to the open space. She was laid out like she'd been doing homework, but he could tell it obviously wasn't homework. There were dozens and dozens of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans lined up on her paper like some kind of potion test. The names mixed with the efficiency of the ‘experiment’ made him laugh, cheese, hay, bubble gum. He hung back behind her shoulder head cocked so that he might take it all in.

“Dang, Ellie,” he said, voice full of half amused wonder. “You’ve turned eating beans into a proper research project.” He leaned forward a little, eyes darting over to the pile marked hay. “Still torturing yourself with that one, are you? You are a brave soul Ellie. I’d have retired it permanently after one try.” He sat beside her on his heels. "Grading them? I remember last time you had a hay flavored one you wouldn’t stop telling me how gross you thought it was. I see that hasn’t changed at all.” He let out a small laugh, his curiosity now peeked.

His eyes jumped to the cotton candy bean in her palm. At least he thought it might be cotton candy "Need some assistance? "he said, half serious, half joking. "I can do the control test. Or, you know, be the poor guy who eats the suspicious ones so you don't have to." He adjusted his posture and stance trying to look heroic. "I'll do it for science." He playfully nudged her shoulder with his in a gesture of friendship. "Think you could let me be on the judging panel? Two critics are better than one right?”

"Dang Ellie" The voice said. Ellie recognized that voice. Mikey! Her best friends. They had had multiple adventures together and where really good friends if Ellie said so herself. Ellie quickly turned around, a big smile on her face. “You’ve turned eating beans into a proper research project.” Mikey finished, then made a comment about the disgusting and revolting hay flavored bean in front of her.

"Mikey!" She exclaimed the cotton candy bean still in hand, "I do this every once in a while. They add new flavors all the time. Hay is your least favorite too? It makes my mouth feel dry and like I just ate a bunch of dead grass, which I guess in a way I did. I keep on trying it just to see if my feelings change for it. They did not." Ellie pointed at the two out on ten on the paper. She erased it and replaced it with a zero out of ten. She placed the cotton candy one on her tongue and chewed it contently. Ten out of Ten was recorded.

"Well, I don't mind eating the gross ones, but we can definitely rate them together. Anyones that have double, I'll give you one and you can have the other one." She picked up cheese which had two and gave him one. "All you have to do is eat it, then just rate it out of ten. No numbers higher then ten or negative numbers. Although hay is negative 100... Feel free to join! Trust me when I say its fun, and sometimes funny."

Ellie looked at the cheese bean in her hand. She didn't even like real cheese or the cheese bean and she already knew her answer as she placed the cheesy bean in her mouth. she couldn't wait to see how a like or similar Mikey's ratings would be.

@Mikey Forville
word count: 300

Mikey took the yellow bean Ellie had pushed into his palm, holding it awkwardly as if it would bite him back. "Cheese now?" he accused. "I promise you, Ellie, this one is already guilty looking."

Though reluctantly, he put it in his mouth. The reaction was swift, a look on his face that suggested he'd just swallowed a foul taste. "Wow," he spat out. "That is not cheese." More like… if cheese were left in the sun to rot and returned as a ghost to seek revenge." He shook his head rapidly, grimacing intensely as if that would scare the taste away. "Three out of ten. And that's me being generous. At least it didn't kill me." With a flourish of drama, he wrote the score on the edge of her paper, underlining it for emphasis.

His smile split a second afterward. "You know, that's brilliant. We can make a living on this. the Official Hogwarts Bean Review Board. Generations in the future going on their appreciations for rescuing them from the horror of bad tastes." He playfully prodded her with his elbow on her shoulder. "Although if you send me an earwax one, I'm out of here. That's my limit."

Spotting a second matching pair, Mikey pinched one between the fingers of one hand and held it aloft like displaying evidence to a jury. "All right judge, what's the next one? Can we get through this experiment without them coming back up?"

"It is" Ellie said, but she popped the bean in her mouth. Eww Ellie didn't like cheese and the bean was plain digusting. She picked up her pencil and wrote a two out of ten.

Ellie laughed at Mikey's response to the cheese bean, "I know! It's so bad!" She took a peak at his paper where he had written a three out of ten. She smiled, "We have similar views in that bean! There is something about it, where its not too bad but also not... good. At all."

"You know, that's brilliant. We can make a living on this. the Official Hogwarts Bean Review Board. Generations in the future going on their appreciations for rescuing them from the horror of bad tastes." Mikey said and Ellie laughed again. this is why she missed hanging out with Mikey. He always made her laugh.

"Hm... not a bad idea. We could send them out in the newspapers." Ellie joked. "They should be so grateful for our sacrifice to the cause of tasting these revolting beans, like earwax."

"Okay, so now we taste a sweet bean since we just ate a gross one. I'll let you choose the bean. Whatever sweet bean looks the best to you. Or I mean if you already know how you like each flavor, pick that bean." Ellie told Mikey, looking into his bright blue eyes with hers, she held out her hand, waiting for him to drop the bean into it.

@Mikey Forville
word count: 213

Mikey leaned over the neat rows of beans with the kind of concentration he usually reserved for potion making or solving riddles in the common room. His eyes scanned the colorful display until they landed on one near the middle, a soft pink bean flecked with white. “Alright, this one looks harmless enough,” he declared, plucking it up between his fingers. “If it turns out to be soap again, I wont be responsible for my actions”

He dropped the second into her outstretched hand, and then picked up its twin to eat himself. "To science, and to the brave doomed taste testers who save others from this fate," he said with a wry grin, flipping his bean into his mouth.

The transformation in his face was immediate. The shoulders slumped, and a wilted grin took the place of the scowl he was preparing. "Good, at last! Something that doesn't taste terrible. Strawberry cream, is it?" He nodded in satisfaction. "Ten out of ten. Eleven if you can cheat.".

As he watched Ellie write down her rating, he chuckled softly. "This could be the one experiment we will not regret our life decisions about. We can divide the entire range of flavors one vile, one delicious, so we will not lose heart."

He rested back on his hands, sun shining in his hair. "You see, Ellie," he said with a still-grinning face, "we may have cracked the code of Hogwarts snack abominations survival. Team effort. Fifty-fifty bravery and taste buds." He looked over at the pile once more. "Alright, Ellie, your call."

He placed the bean in her hand. It was white, with pink dots or sprinkles in it. Most of the pink ones where promising and good, like cotton candy or bubble gum. Unless it was ham. He mentioned soap, the best disquesting bean there was.

"Soap? That one's good! Not great, but good!" Ellie laughed. "But, soap doesn't have pink, so you're safe. Don't worry."

She placed it in her mouth and let the flavor of it flow through her mouth. It tasted like strawberry ice cream but she knew that was not a flavor options. Strawberry Cream maybe? She took some time to think it over nine point five out of ten she wrote on the paper. She looked at Mikey's paper where he had written a ten out of ten.

"No cheating! We have similar views on beans I guess! Funny." Ellie said to Mikey with a smile on her face, then faced a way to an invisible crowd, "Yes, doing this is not for the weak. This takes courage and the belief that no matter how gross the bean is now, it won't effect you in the future" She turned toward Mikey again, "Do you like my speech? I think we should put it in that article you were talking about.

She picked up a green one, it looked gross, a defiant zero. But, she was going to try it anyway. She handed it to him, "On the count of three, one, two, three." They put the beans in there mouths and chewed.

@Mikey Forville
word count: 256
OOC note: the flavor is bogey.

Mikey flipped over the green bean in his hand, scowling at it as though it had personally betrayed him. "This one's questionable," he said, eyeing the tiny speckles. "Why do the green beans have to be the guilty party all the time? They're always smiling and happy like they're inviting you to enjoy an apple or a lime, and then out of nowhere, bam! betrayal dressed as a bean. He came face to face with Ellie's smile and rolled his eyes so theatrically his shoulders slumped as if he was off to face his doom. "Okay, okay. For science," he declared gravely, holding the bean aloft like an offering to destiny. "One, two, three."

The moment it touched his tongue, the confidence was lost. He winced first with shock, then horror, then sheer despair. He was rigid, eyes gazing off into space as if he'd just seen something that would change his life. "Oh no," he croaked after a moment. "Nope. Nope, that's all wrong." He coughed once and clenched his teeth as if he were struggling to breathe. "That's not lime, or apple, or anything that goes in your mouth." He gagged slightly, shaking his head in horror. "Ellie… that's bogie, isn't it? Don't say it isn't, don't lie to me." He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, attempting to clear the taste. "It's like, if a toad and a broom cupboard had a kid. That's what this is like."

Ellie was laughing so hard she was leaning forward, so Mikey cracked up and laughed along with her, half tickled and half appalled at it. "I swear I can taste regret," he laughed, hilarity suppressed by a campy moan. "Zero out of ten. Negative ten, really." He staggered back, reclining in the grass for an instant. "Why do I always do these things with you?" he muttered, covering his eyes with his hands and looking up at her over them to smile. "Oh yes, because it's fun, and because you're terribly persuasive."

After a brief spasm of overdramatic complaining, he sat up again, shaking grass out of his robes and smiling. He glanced toward her pile of remaining beans and raised an eyebrow, pretending to look nervous. “Alright, Randensmith, what’s the next test subject? Please tell me it’s something pink or purple. No more greens. I’ve reached my personal limit on trauma for the day.” He settled back on his elbows, wry smile but sparkling eyes. "Although actually," he murmured, looking over at Ellie, "Eating disgusting beans with you, it's not too bad a way to spend an afternoon." He said, happy to have such a good friend in Ellie.

The green bean she placed in Mikey's hand was unlabeled, but she could tell what it was. And she felt bad. She didn't know if he had a clue what was coming in store for him with this disgusting bean. On the count of Mikey's three, she placed the bean in her mouth. It felt... almost slimey in her mouth and tasted like it had been rotting for years upon years. Ellie had never eaten a booger and this was as close as she would get to eating one, and lets just say, it was not a nice taste.

She wrote a zero out of ten on the paper with no hesitation. "Yup, it's bogey all right. A toad, and a broom cupboard... having a kid? That's an interesting way stop say something. I mean it does taste musty like a broom cupboard smell and for the toad... I mean I've never ate toad or seen one since you didn't make a fool of yourself at the sorting so there was no reason to see them." Ellie shrugged, then started laughing. Really hard and when Mikey said he kept doing these things with her because it was fun and she was persuasive, she starting laughing even harder.

Once she had stopped laughing enough to choose a bean, she picked up a pink one like Mikey had asked for and handed it to him. "Pink like you asked buuuuuut it's ham. I think!" She handed him the bean. "Enjoy!"
@Mikey Forville
word count: 248

Mikey eyed the pink bean suspiciously, holding it up like it might confess its crimes. “You think it’s ham?” he asked, his brow arching. “That doesn’t sound all that reassuring Ellie.” Despite his skepticism, he sighed and smiled anyway. “Alright, fine. For science,” he said, tossing it into his mouth before he could talk himself out of it.

The reaction was instant. His expression went blank, then twisted into pure horror. “Oh no. no, no, that’s not ham!” He coughed once, clutching his throat. “That’s what is that, salmon? Oyster? It tastes like someone bottled the smell of factory runoff in to the ocean in July!”

He gagged and wiped his tongue with his sleeve shaking his head furiously. “Ellie, I think I just ate something that used to swim in toxic soup.” He reached for his water bottle, downing half of it in one go before slamming it back onto the ground. “That was evil. Negative a hundred out of ten. I don’t even want to know what flavor it was supposed to be. Rotten fish surprise? Barnacle and gasoline deluxe?”

He looked up again, Ellie was laughing so hard she could barely breathe, which made him crack up too, half horrified, half amused. “You knew,” he accused between laughs, pointing at her. “You totally knew that wasn’t ham! Admit it!”

Still grinning, he leaned back on his hands, shaking his head. “Alright, your turn, Professor Bean Taster. But for the love of sweet treats, no more expired seafood flavored disasters. Maybe something safe this time like marshmallow, chocolate, happiness, I don’t care.”