In which I learn of my many unknown talents
“Open Sesame!” I shook
the little silver ball as hard as I possibly could.
Thirty
seconds had passed since Remberence had given me the miniature
impossible-to-take-apart ball. So
far I tried the spell Mistress Toad taught me.
Nope. Didn’t work.
He grinned watching me struggle.
“Not funny!” I snapped.
This is a magic school so it must have to do with magic.
No! It doesn’t!
They know I don’t know magic.
“Ok,”
I told Remberence, “Here goes some common sense.”
I slammed the ball down onto the table, but nothing happened.
“Ok,” I repeated, “Here goes some girl skill.”
I screamed at the top of my lungs, which, trust me, is extremely loud.
A glass cup cracked and shattered.
The silver ball did the same.
“One minute and twenty-three seconds!
Beating my record of an hour.
“It’s the first test all students take.
You were supposed to “Use your talents,” of magic really.
But screaming talents work, too,” he stuck his finger in his ear and
twisted.
“Though I prefer magic, I think I’m deaf
now.”
I
smiled at him. I was really starting
to like him.
He
stared at my braid for a long time and said, “It’s fake.”
“My
hair?” I said confused.
“Beautiful
enchanted hair,
You’ve
been changed in color,
I’ll
give you back your true color flair,
Please
be glad I bothered!”
I heard
him mutter.
“What?”
He
smiled and reached out to me.
I
felt myself begin to recoil. I held
my back straight and let him come closer.
He
grabbed my braid gently and said, “Look. You’re
hair was disguised by a weak magice. Here’s
your true color.”
I
slowly took my braid from him and lifted it so it was under my gaze.
My hair was pitch black. I
released it from my braid. It came
out wavy like oil spilling down over an endless moor.
I thought it was beautiful.
I laughed, “Thank you! I
love it! I’ve always wanted black
hair!” Note: not a lie. I hugged
Remberence tightly then released him without noticing the uncomfortable smile
pasted his face.
I ran to the door and jumping up and down said, “Dani!”
I opened the door and it sucked me through.
“Look at my hair! Remberence
said a spell that changed it to the color it was supposed to be!”
Dani
jumped three feet in the air, “It’s nice,” she said, shaken by my sudden
appearance. She had been walking
down an empty hallway before I was thrown in front of her.
“C’mon!”
I pulled her toward the door.
“I’m
glad you’re getting used to using enchanted doors for travel,” Dani said
with a crooked grin as I cried “Scarlett” and let the door suck us through.
We found ourselves at the entrance of a garden marked “
“I
can walk!” Dani exclaimed as I continued to pull her through the gate.
I let go and she hurried after me as I jogged through the garden past
flowers of all colors that I had never seen before.
Who cares? I had a mission to
complete: tell everyone about my hair.
Whoa!
I
thought, Am I
turning prep?
That
mission kinda died when we found Scarlett sitting on a stone bench talking to a
brown-haired girl she called Jennifer. Jen
had brown-gold hair, layered and a few inches lower than her shoulders.
Her eyes were gray-green and she had pink and green braces.
When
Danica and I approached them, Scarlett stood up and introduced us.
“Luella, this is Jennifer. Jen,
this is Luella.” We exchanged
“nice to meet yous” and then I began to tell Scarlett and Jennifer about my
hair.
“My
hair was dyed white by someone I was dueling, once, and I didn’t know how to
undo it so your grandma had to do it for me,” Jennifer said with an
experienced nod.
Changing
the subject, Danica asked me, “I guess you’ll be getting your robes when you
start your classes, right?”
“I
don’t know,” I said with a shrug, sitting on a stone bench.
“I
bet you get them when your classes start,” Jennifer said with a positive
smile.
“Hey
girls… and Dani. Danny’s a boy
name.”
We
all turned to see a blonde trotting down the path toward us
“Here
comes the devil in person,” Danica announced, a mocking smile invading her
queen-like face.
“Yeah
I know, I see her,” the blonde growled.
“Look
in the mirror,” Dani said rolling her eyes, “Oh wait!
If you did, it’d break.”
“Speaking
of ‘breaking’,” I said quietly to Jennifer, “I broke the silver ball by screaming!”
“Really?”
Jennifer said eyes widening.
“This,”
Scarlett said over our private conversation and the blonde’s comeback, “Is
Buffy. Buffy this is Luella.”
Once
again I exchanged “pleasures” and soon Buffy was in our conversation.
“Ew.
I hate your hair Luella.”
I
felt my jaw grind.
“Oh,
come on! I’m kidding.
That’s the nicest hair I’ve seen in forever!
Some people don’t care about their hair,” Buffy shot at Danica.
“You
mean me, blonde?” Dani asked her.
“I
don’t see any other losers here, do you?”
She asked Jen. She cocked her
head and her eyes danced with trouble although her face showed fake innocence.
“I’m
not getting into this,” Jennifer said slowly.
“I’m
looking right at one,” Dani snapped looking directly at Buffy.
“Scarlett!”
I cried, a professional of friend troubles: my friends from school were
always at each other’s throats, “Jennifer!
Remember, we’re going with Danica to do… stuff.
Sorry, Buffy, top secret. Does
one of us have permission to hang with Buffy?
“Nope.”
“Uh,
uh.”
“Mimmy
told me I couldn’t miss this…”
“Ditto.
Well gotta go Buffy! Later.”
“See
you,” Buffy murmured, hurt.
“Um…
I think she said I didn’t have to
go,” Scarlett said with a worried grin.
“Thanks
Scarlett,” I told her, “Now Buffy won’t have to be alone – what fun
would that be?”
“I
wouldn’t leave my bud!” She
exclaimed wrapping her arm around Buffy.
“Later.”
I nodded to the two.
“Bye,”
Scarlett and Buffy chorused.
“Danica, chill.”
“I’d bite her again if I could!”
Dani told us. A snake,
split-tongue flicking out of her mouth.
I stepped back and slammed my back into the wall of, yes, another
corridor, frightened.
“You haven’t seen morphing, have you?” Jen said with a frown,
“Dani control yourself!” Danica
had started to grow scales around her eyes.
“No,” I said firmly, “Do I want to?”
“You should!” Jen told me, turning down
“How do you morph? How did
you know what I was? Phoenixes
exist?” I took a breath almost as
long as Jennifer.
“Jen,” Dani interrupted, “Buffy isn’t a dwarf rabbit, she’s my
lunch.”
Jen ignored her.
“Even
if you hate her guts, that doesn’t mean you have to give Luella a bad
impression of Buffy.” Jen turned to me as we rounded the corner, “You met
her at a bad time. If Dani hadn’t
been there, she would have given you gum and complimented you on everything.
Then she would force you to go shopping with her and so on.”
Jen
and Dani wheeled me around another corner and through a wooden door.
“My
questions?” I said to remind Jen
of what I had asked them.
“You just do. Your grandma
owns the place, who doesn’t know? And
duh,” Jen told me as we entered the room.
Like the room Remberence was in, it was all brown with a brown fridge,
bird perch, cage, kennel, and a pool in the middle, along with the stuff I saw
in the other brown room.
“Huh?” I said, completely
muddled by what Jen said and by the room.
“Duh to the “Phoenixes exist” comment,” she added as an
explanation.
“Well, let’s show her how to morph!”
Dani exclaimed, her queen-like features returning.
Dani bent over in front of the pool and Jen took a few steps back until
they were two yards apart.
Jen
began to run toward Dani arms outstretched like she was going to give her a hug.
Instantly when the two were so close they could touch, Dani jumped, and
in the air was covered in red, black, and yellow scales shrinking until she was
two and a half feet long and much skinner. Her
circlet melted into her scales.
Jen’s
whole body sprouted silky, pale silver-white feathers, her clothes disappearing
beneath them like Danica’s clothes had with her scales.
Jennifer’s arms turned into feathery wings and her feet to claws.
An eagle-like beak formed where her nose was and connected with her
mouth. Her eyes turned a full-moon
yellow and soon they had both completely morphed.
Jennifer
caught the snake in her claws and dove into the pool.
They came out laughing and soaked humans.
My
mouth was hanging open and I couldn’t close it.
It was on lock-down or something. “Close
your mouth, dork!” Dani said with
a grin, black braids released into curls.
I shook my head rapidly. My
life is SO weird!
