Before they knew it, morning was upon them and Katy was awakened by Deen early, unreasonably early, the next morning. She jumped up in a start, not prepared for that, and she let out a little scream.
“Hey, Katy I saw you didn’t have a watch so I thought I would come wake you up. You might want to order a clock or watch, make sure it has an alarm though.” Deen was still in his pajamas. “It is only 5:30 so we have some time to kill before we go have breakfast.” He said as he sat down on her bed.
“I am going to get dressed, be back in a moment.” Katy grabbed a uniform and cloak and went to the bathroom and got ready for the day. She walked out, quite refreshed, even for only five hours sleep, and watched as Deen played with Starlight.
“Hey Katy, guess what?” Deen said as he looked up. But before she could ask, he told her. “Mom said that there is a new professor for Creatures this year. I guess it is the brother-in-law of Professor O’Conaill. He is supposed to be a werewolf!”
“Like a real werewolf? Are werewolves and vampires really real? I thought that was joke!” Katy said as she sat back down on her bed, again she got the sense dread, she was overwhelmed. Would she ever feel at ease with her new life?
“They are real, those non-magical movies have it all wrong, well not all wrong” Deen said as he pulled out a sugar wand from his bag; he had gone to change when she had it seemed. “There are evil ones out there that give the others a bad name, I think, but even in the magical community people fear them. I hear your martial arts instructor is a vampire, man I wish I would have chosen that class now. But the Arts professor is a merman!”
“Wow!” Katy said as she stood up and grabbed her bag, as she pulled out her schedule. “What time is it?”
Deen looked down at his watch. “Breakfast time lets go.” He dropped Starlight back down on the bed and grabbed Katy and rushed out the door. When they got to the dining hall, it seemed to be that they were the first ones there. They went to their table and as soon as they sat down it filled with a whole lot of different foods.
“Where does the food come from?” Katy asked as she grabbed some eggs and hash browns.
“The kitchens, my brother says Brownies make the meals. As long as they are kept happy, they will make our foods for us. Brownies become quite attached to a place they are living in, and as long as they are given cream and sweets they stay put.” Deen said as he grabbed some sausages.
“Cool! Hey how can I order a watch and an alarm clock” Katy asked as she grabbed the strawberries.
“Oh, I got my brother to give me a catalog from Kane Resources, so you just have to choose your items, and then fill out the order form, put your money in the envelope and then tap it with your wand saying ‘Kane Resources, Order Department‘. And tomorrow a package will be delivered during breakfast. It is kind of cool.” Deen told her and pulled the catalog from his bag and handed it to her.
For the rest of the breakfast hour they looked over the choices of watches and clocks in the catalog. Deen helped her decide on a simple silver watch with a small ruby at the twelve o’clock position. They also each choose a cheap travel alarm clock to go on their nightstands. At first Katy thought the watch was a little much but Deen told her it was worth it to have a good watch, so Katy put her Berry in the envelope while Deen put in his five Jewels. After they placed their money in the envelope with the order form, Katy tapped it and said, “Kane Resources, Order Department” and watched it disappear.
“Well we better get going it is almost time for History.” Deen said as he looked at his watch, and then finished his pineapple juice.
So, they both stood up and Katy pulled out her schedule and tapped it so it could give directions, she asked it to “show me the way.” The schedule started speaking and gave the instructions. Deen and Katy followed them to the fifth-floor classroom for their history class. Since they were the first ones there, they took two seats in the back of the classroom.
“Brilliant, Katy I bet this is going to be our most boring class, I mean, no actual magic, only hearing about the history of our people.” Deen said as he pulled out his book, and supplies. He kept his wand in his sleeve pocket, as they would not need it for this class.
Katy got out supplies as well and sat lost in thought about what Deen had said; after all, if this is all about the history of magic it couldn’t be too boring. Katy would soon learn that she was wrong. Deen just drifted into a sleep like state and drooled while Professor Gary Tuchman taught. He was a tall man, a little too thin, with graying hair, and large glasses, he wore old fashioned pants with high waistbands and button down shirts, and worst of all he spoke in a monotone most of the time. He started the class without much introduction and gave them all a syllabus, he said he took the book and divided into five, then each section of five into four, as they would get though the book before they dropped his class.
“I know most of you if not all of you will drop this class after five years. But that is fine, as I plan on giving you a great background in history. Now you will have one major project each term, I have given you your instructions. Each of you will define the terms in the section and then outline the section. You will also answer certain questions at the end of each section. The questions you have to answer are outlined on your syllabus. Do not lose the syllabus. The project will be due on the day of your exam on the section at the end of each term. You will also have a test each term; the final term shall have a compressive test over the four terms. So, to recap four projects, four tests, and at least one quiz each month. Quizzes are over the notes taken in class, the tests over what is in the book. Now write what is on the board.” He flipped the board by magic every so often as he lectured about the subject, the first being Dragon Wars.
Katy took the notes like a good student, Deen daydreamed. Katy had tried to get Deen to pay attention a few times but gave up and listened to the professor. Every so often she would glare at Deen as she watched him doodle on his paper. But finally, the bell rang, and that brought Deen out of his dream world and back into reality.
“Brilliant, I was right, that was a boring class! Hey Katy, did you take notes?” Deen asked as they followed the instructions to their Spells class.
“Yes, you should have as well they will be a big chuck of our grade!” Katy said as they sat down in the back of the new classroom, this one being on sublevel two.
“You can always help me.” Deen said as he handed her a sugar wand and set up his supplies for this class.
“What if I won’t? What if I decide to let you fail? You shouldn’t take me for granted!” Katy said then sat down and took her own supplies, she was angry, the same heat came over her, just as the other two times she had gotten angry, she wanted a true friend not someone to use her.
Deen looked shocked. “I didn’t mean it like that Katy, it is just you seem to be a lot smarter than I am already, you actually paid attention in history! I didn’t mean to assume anything, but I figured since we are going to be friends you would help me out.” Deen said and gave her a great big smile; he knew Katy would let him off the hook.
“Well, okay then, I was joking about not helping you by the way, but can’t you try to make an effort in history?” Katy was happy with Deen’s response and let the issue drop, as the heat subsided.
“Sorry, but I am sure that class is a lost cause, not all of us can be brainy like you. I am sure you are going to get all our classes perfectly. I mean you actually read some of our schoolbooks already.” Deen said and dug into his bag as he looked for another sugar wand. “Brilliant, I am going to have to order some more sugar wands; I have a catalog and a lot of extra order forms for Kandi’s Sweets. That has to be my favorite store.”
“Oh, look is that our professor?” Katy asked as a small woman walked in, her hair was shiny silver and her eyes were a light red, she was very pretty, but seemed to be a little cold.
“Yes, my brother told me she used to be an Ondine, until she married her husband and had her son of course, now she is a mortal witch.”
“What is an Ondine?”
“Don’t really know. Ondine’s are the symbol for the Water house like the Salamander is ours. They are water creatures, which are immortal until they marry and have a son. They gain their soul then. I think we learn more in Creatures.” After that they both fell silent as the professor started to lecture.
“Now I really have no use for books in my class, we will however read the safety sections. We will learn spells of everyday to the most extreme of spells in your ten years of study. Now my name is Professor Lexis McRaov.” The class today was mostly a lecture about safety when performing spells. She did show them how to move things through the air, at the end of class.
“Now repeat after me Attollo.” She told the class as she flipped her wand and made the book in front of her float.
The rest of the class tried as well, but Katy’s was the only book that lifted. Katy moved her wand back and forth and the book moved as well. She could not help but smile, maybe she truly did belong in this new world of hers.
“Very good, Miss Fitz! That will be five bonus points for you. The rest of you I want you to practice for your homework.”
Katy and Deen put their things together and walked out of the classroom, they had a little break before Potions.
“See I told you Katy, good in everything.” Deen said with a smile, as he searched his bag for something sweet. “Why don’t we go to the dining hall and get something to drink before Potions.”
“Okay,” Katy reached into her bag and grabbed her sugar wand she bought on the plane. “Here you go Deen.” Katy said as she handed him the sugar wand.
Deen took it excited “Thank you!” They reached the dining hall and sat down each took their cup, as it filled with pineapple juice. “I will fill out the order form now.” He took out the catalog and one of the order forms. They looked over it; Katy got some more gummies and a couple of sugar wands. Deen got a lot of sugar wands and chocolate cauldrons, filled with all sorts of sweet stuff.
Once break was over they went off to their next class, which was high up the tower, it was on floor ten, and it took the whole floor. Again, Katy and Deen took seats in the back, not that they were far in the back with only a class of ten, but still.
“Welcome class I am Professor Antonio MacCathmhaoil Sr. and this is my apprentice Antonio MacCathmhaoil Jr.” Professor MacCathmhaoil said as he walked in and closed the doors. “Now this is potions, we will teach you the basics your first year and so on, now most of you will only take the five years and move on, others will continue to their ninth year, very few will continue to the tenth year and beyond. Now today I am going to just talk about safety. Please take notes.” He said and tapped the board and the notes appeared.
Both Deen and Katy took notes in this class, but Deen was also had written down a lot of questions. They did no potion making that first class, but there was a lot of stuff to learn before they even thought about creating their first potion.
“Wow! Potions is going to be hard!” Deen said as they walked down to main yard for their Creatures class.
“Yeah, but we will get it.” Katy said, she wondered what they were going to do in Creatures. “I mean we may have to work hard but we have to do it if we want to be good at it. And you want to be a Guardian; don’t they need to be really good at Potions?”
They reached the main yard and were they stood and waited for the professor. “Yeah, we need Potions, Spells, Magical Defense, Healing, Elements, and Pyrokinesis if you are a Fire elemental. So, I will have to work really hard, I have to get top grades in all those classes, and take them all though my tenth year. After my tenth year I will focus on Magical Defense and Elements. We need to know everything about all the elements.”
Katy’s reply was cut off when the professor walked over to them; he was tanned with dark black eyes with a yellow tint. He was extremely tall and with long sharp fingernails. He was also bald. Then Katy remembered Deen told her he was a werewolf. Strange, she always imagined they would have long hair in a human form.
“Welcome class I am Professor Orlando O’Conaill. I will be your Creatures professor, now you all have a basic book on care of the creatures, but I found a hands-on approach is a lot better. Today we are going to learn about Alats. They are funny little creatures they talk in their own way; they are never more than a few inches high. They are cousins of the brownies. Except where the brownies are helpful, Alats are destructive most of the time. Now, they can be tamed and helpful just like the brownies, but most are playful, and want to play and wreak havoc.” He flipped his wand and a box sat down in front of each one of them. “Well sit on the ground and open your box, these are Alats.”
They each did as they were told and when Deen and Katy opened their boxes they looked at each other, there was a creature whose fur was a bright pink, their heads shaped like a humans but with a cat’s nose and ears. The Alats played with the objects in the box, common everyday things like string, and a few little tin toys.
For the rest of the class they observed the Alats and listened to the professor tell them about them. Katy took notes while Deen stopped their Alats from escaping. By the time the class ended, Katy had a couple pages of notes, and the two Alats were chasing some gummies that Deen had brought to life to keep them from escaping. They placed their Alats in the box and handed them back to the professor and went back up to the school for lunch.
After lunch they had Magical Transportation with Professor Arthur Hermes, he was short balding man with orange eyes, he seemed to be always floating just a few inches above the ground. Katy was able to move a few inches, but not much, but the rest of the class had not moved much either so it didn’t worry Katy much. They also learned that on Tuesdays they would focus on teleportation and on Thursdays it would be flying with and without brooms.
Katy was quite excited about that aspect of transportation and could not wait until Thursday.
Thaumaturgy was fun, Professor Rian was short with grey hair cut chin length, and she is a kind motherly woman. Katy took an instant liking to her. They used the lifting spell they learned in spells again, this time most people were able to get their items to hover. Katy was able to make her book fly around the room.
Telepathy was with Professor Xavier Basset, he was average all away around except his hair, it was pitch black, and his eyes, which were an icy white, and the class was not as fun as some of the others. The class consisted of sitting there trying to read each other’s minds, it was kind of simple with Deen, and he was busy thinking of dinner. Katy did a good job blocking the others students, and just as good of job reading them, but Katy wondered really why this class was five years long, but Katy knew she would go along with it, maybe they learned to do other things with their mind later on in the course. Reading the mind was a lot like reading facial expressions and body language. Her mother had taught her that, so she could lie when needed to, and know when to run. She could steel hear her mother’s words.
“Remember Katy, when all else fails, run. Run fast.”
Katy shook her head and turned back to the class at hand, after all, she wanted, no needed to prove she belonged.
On the way to languages, Katy told Deen about when Professor O’Conaill had her repeat the words and she told him about the last word was in some kind of dragon language. “At first I thought it was really insulting to see if I understood the words, but then I learned they were other languages I thought that was very cool and couldn’t wait for this class.”
“Brilliant, you got that one! It sounded like gibberish to me when she said it; you must be like one of a handful of people who can understand that one. People try to learn all the time but not until like their eighth or ninth year. Brilliant, you are lucky, this class will probably be super easy for you!” Deen told her as they sat down in the back of the new classroom.
They did not get a chance to continue because the professor swept in, she was tall, really tall, like giant tall, with really short black hair and royal blue eyes and ruby lips.
“My name is Professor Sabrina Roux; you shall call me Madam Roux or Professor Roux, ma’am or professor. No variants. This is a serious study, and it looks like only four of the Fires managed to make it into this class this year. We will be learning to read write and speak the languages of the normal world this year, focusing on Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, French, German, Latin, Portuguese, Arabic, Italian, Dutch, and Swahili. That is four languages per term, since you are young witches and warlocks, I expect you to do simply fine. We will cover more if we have time. Next year we will start with the languages of our world, cat, dog, dragon, and so on. But this year we will focus on these. Now most of you will understand the spoken language, but now we must teach you how to speak it, and how to read and write it. We will have a lot of homework in this class. It will be difficult, and most likely only one or maybe two will continue after your fifth year, by your tenth year I doubt any of you will continue. Of course, I may be wrong, even hope I am, but we shall see.”
The class continued with her going through the Russian language, Katy and Deen seemed to pick it up fast and spoke in Russian all the way though dinner, and they did their language homework. Professor Roux had assigned them, which was to read the first five chapters of their book which focused on Russian verbs.
“Brilliant! Katy languages is going to be great; it seems like we are both naturals in it! Maybe once we get to our tenth year you can help teach me that dragon language, which will be so cool!” Deen said between bites.
“Yeah! You know I was thinking this Guardian thing sounds cool, do you think I could be one too?” Katy had thought about it and from what Deen had said Guardians were like the cream of the crop, and she wanted to be the best she could be. She felt this need to prove herself and that course seemed the best way to do it.
“You? Absolutely, you see how quickly you got things in our classes; you would be a natural. But they don’t take a lot of girls; in fact, I don’t think there are any girls on the North American unit.” Deen told her. “Not because they are biased, it is just the physical training can be a lot, and with so many other options I the world it turned out to be men. Typically, guys who were raised by Guardians, like the regular police, sorta a family tradition. There have been women in the past, and in other units around the world.”
Katy wasn’t worried though, if Deen thought she could do it then it was all right, and who knows Katy might change her mind after all she has ten years of under schooling, and who knows what can happen in ten years.
They walked to Healing together, and continued to speak in Russian, and sat down in the back again. Again, the whole Fire class was not present in this class, but Katy and the six boys. Katy stopped to think, in fact now that she thought about it the only classes she had with the girls were the required ones, she wondered what they were taking, of course she knew there had to be more classes, but she was just now wondered about it. “How many classes are there here?’
“Oh tons, we got the best ones though, I wish I had chosen mythology now, it seems like the rest of the guys except Oscar, he took mythology too, took cryptography and the other girls took Arts, so I will be the only guy in it.”
“Well how about symbols?” Katy asked, she knew it was one of the two classes Deen and she did not have together, she had Martial Arts instead.
“I know that most of the guys took it, I think Rory is in Martial Arts with you, but the rest of us are in symbols.” Their conversation could not continue as the professor walked in, he was a short man with skin that was snow white, he also had eyes that seemed to change colors, during class they seemed to change from green to yellow to orange to red to violet, never staying on one color.
He introduced himself “I am Professor Drake Marko,” he then launched into his lecture. “You will find that we will focus on many different things within this class. We will be focusing on normal means of healing, standard first aid and CPR this first term. After that we will get into spells and crystals.” They were told some basics and then dismissed from class.
“Well see you after your class. You will have to tell me how it goes!” Deen said and went one way while Katy went another, and Katy, for the first time that day, felt worried about going to class.
She walked down to sublevel seven where the Martial Arts Class was, there was a sign that said to change in the changing room. So, she went and changed then came back to the classroom and waited. Deen was right it was only her and Rory.
“Hey Katy, I really didn’t want to take this class, but it is only for five years I can deal with it.” He said while they waited for the professor. “I would have rather taken something else, but all my family had taken Martial Arts, so I was expected to as well.
Katy did not respond as the Professor came in, he was pale, his eyes a deep blood red, he had black hair slicked back and he wore a white martial arts uniform with a black belt. Katy looked down at her own uniform which was black and red with a white belt.
“I am Professor Bryan Pratt; I am the Martial Arts Master. You may call me master or professor. I am here to teach you Martial Arts, this class will not be easy, first we will cover the basics.” The class went on from there, when the class ended Katy was sore, she had used muscles she had never used before.
She climbed back to her dorm, and jumped in the shower, after she changed, she wanted nothing more than to climb into bed, but instead she pulled out her History book and started her homework. She had great progress when Deen came in with a cup of something.
“Hey Katy, I grabbed some pineapple juice for you.” He said as he set down the cup, and then jumped on her bed, he grabbed Starlight as he went. He lay on the bed and petted Starlight as he talked. “Brilliant, Katy! You have started your homework already? It isn’t even due until March 16th!”
“Thank you for the juice.” Katy said as she grabbed the cup and took a drink. “Yeah but we have so much to do, we have to define about thirty terms then we have to outline ten chapters, and each chapter is about ten pages, but there are a lot of events that have happened!” Katy said as she picked her quill back up and finished the description of the word aura, and then put her quill back down, she was quite pleased with her work tonight she got ten of the words described.
“Yeah but we have a long time yet, you can’t do everything right away! After all there are so many things to be done, what other homework do we have to do? The rest of the professors gave us ‘practice’ homework.” Deen said as he made quotation marks in the air. “Well, I take that back in Symbols we got to write a paper due by the end of term about symbols and their meanings to us. Brilliant, I am really wishing I didn’t take that class now, maybe if I go to Professor MacCathmhaoil I can get switched to something else. How did Martial Arts go?”
“I have discovered muscles I never even knew I had; I am going to hurt worse tomorrow morning.” Katy said as she put her homework away and prepared her bag for tomorrow. She knew how sore muscles felt the next day. Forced child labor in some foster and group homes saw to that. But this was a different Hurt. A good hurt, it meant she was growing, was learning.
“But you don’t have to write a paper now do you.” He said as he jumped off the bed. “Brilliant, look at the time, it is almost midnight, I guess it is time for bed see you in the morning.”
“G’ night!” Katy called to Deen as he walked out of her dorm. The other girls started to come up just as Katy came back from brushing her teeth. Katy got into bed. They did not say anything, so Katy turned out her light and turned over to fall asleep.
Kris Charles - Author 