Mr. and Mrs. Marbles, of 21 Chestnut Avenue, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were just your average rich parents with an average rich house and family. They had high-class, well-paying jobs and a son going into the fifth grade whom they spoiled and absolutely adored. The only thing that didn't seem to fit with the Marbles family was their other child, Miranda.

Young Miranda Marbles had known her whole life she wasn't like those around her. She was always teased for being different and didn't seem to fit in with her pristine, quintessential family. It was true that Miranda was adopted, but she was more different from her family and other human beings she knew than she thought she should be. However, it had never occurred to her that on her eleventh birthday, her entire world would change—and she would find out just why she was so different.

On June 7th, 2012, Miranda walked home from school with her best and only friend, Harper Jacobsen. It was their last day of school and they were both excited to be finished with fifth grade—and elementary school—forever. The two friends skipped happily down the road, arm in arm, throwing all their cares away. They weren't aware, though, that walking close behind them were the class bully, Peter Paxton, and his group of sidekicks, one of whom included Vincent.

"Hey there, Marbles," Peter sneered. "Have you lost your marbles?" He and his friends cracked up as if that was the most brilliant thing they'd ever heard.

Before Miranda could answer, Harper did for her. "No, I think you have. Back off." They continued walking, but Peter and his gang ran to keep up with them. "What are you gonna do over the summer, Marbles? Sit at home and play with marbles by yourself?" More laughter rang out at that.

"That's all she can do. She has no friends," Vincent said, starting a fresh fit of giggles.

"Can you believe your brother? I can't believe you have to put up with that!" Harper hissed to Miranda. Miranda, however, was used to such rubbish due to sharing a house with Vincent. It wasn't until Peter's next comment though that she started to lose her temper.

"You gals aren't gonna do well when we're in middle school," Peter continued. "You may think you're queens now, but just wait until all the seventh and eighth graders pick on you because you're so abnormal. It won't do you good to be that weird in sixth grade. Maybe over the summer you could take some lessons on how to be normal. Oh, and how to lose weight, Jacobsen," he added with a smirk.

That did it. Miranda could handle whatever Peter wanted to throw at her, but once he started insulting Harper too, he wasn't getting off easy. So Miranda became angry, and sort of lost control of herself. Strange, unnatural things always seemed to happen around Miranda when she got this angry. In the past, things had been blown up or knocked against walls. Miranda or anyone else had no idea what caused these incidents, but they always seemed to happen only when she was around and angry. This case involved Peter suddenly beginning to spin around in circles without being able to control himself.

"Whoa! What the—?"Peter shouted as he continued to spin around. All his groupies moved in closely to him to inspect. Though Miranda and Harper had no idea what was going on, they couldn't stifle more than a few laughs. It was quite funny and satisfying, really, to see such a thing happen to Peter, especially after he had just insulted them so.

Peter caught them mid-giggle. "You!" he shrieked angrily, pointing. "You guys somehow did this! It's all your fault! I'll get you for this, you just wait!"

The girls simply continued to laugh and ran off, ignoring Peter's meaningless threats and leaving him still spinning around and his sidekicks confused. They said goodbye and parted ways as they reached their houses, which were across the street from each other. Miranda's birthday had just been made a million times better.

When Miranda entered her house, something on the kitchen table caught her eye. Sitting among the mail was a letter addressed to…her?

Yes, it was for her. Miranda had to look at it again just to be sure. It was simply addressed to:

Miss Miranda Alison Marbles

21 Chestnut Avenue

West Chester, PA 19380

There was no return address, just an insignia of a dragon on the left corner of the envelope where it should have been. But return address or not, this was quite peculiar, as Miranda almost never received mail. Something was certainly up.

Miranda was tearing open the envelope when Vincent walked into the kitchen. "What was that whole thing with Peter about?" he asked.

Miranda shrugged, because she genuinely hadn't a clue. She tried to return to her preoccupation, but Vincent wouldn't stop questioning her. "I feel like you might've had something to do with it," he continued.

"And what makes you think that?" Miranda asked innocently.

Vincent shrugged. "I dunno, it was just kinda weird how he started spinning around in circles right after he said all that about you guys being weird and Harper needing to lose weight."

"So maybe he was just doing it for fun to have something to pin on me. So what?"

"Well, he really looked like he had no clue what was going on. And you were getting mad. I could tell because you did that thing where your eyes narrow and your face turns red. Why is it whenever you get mad and you look like that, weird stuff always happens?"

"I'd like to know the same thing," Miranda muttered, more to herself. She waited to be sure that Vincent was out of the room, then took a look at her mail. There was the same insignia of the dragon on the letter as well, which read:

Dear Miranda,

Congratulations! As you are now eleven years old, your admission to Dragonwings School for Magical Studies is hereby granted. As you likely know, acceptance to our school is a great honor, as not every human being is lucky enough to have the magical powers that you do. Some of the greatest witches and wizards of all time have ended up where they are because they attended Dragonwings. Classes at Dragonwings begin on September 4th, so we would like all our students to arrive by the night before. On September 3rd, the train to Dragonwings will leave Platform Six and Two Fifths at Grand Central Station in New York by ten AM sharp. Make sure you arrive on time. Enclosed is a list of materials you will need to buy for your first year at Dragonwings, which can be found in various wizarding shops on Firebreath Avenue in New York. We look forward to having you. See you in the fall!

Sincerely,

Mergott Brinx, Headmaster of Dragonwings

Miranda wasn't sure whether to be excited, afraid, or utterly confused. So she was all three. "Mom!" she summoned her mother into the room.

"What is it, Miranda?" Mrs. Marbles appeared, looking peeved. "I'm on an important phone call, so make it quick."

That was her mother all right, always too caught up in work to pay any mind to her but conveniently never too busy to spoil Vincent. This couldn't wait, though. "Mom," said Miranda, "I just got this in the mail."

As Mrs. Marbles read the letter, her eyes went wide. "Oh my goodness…it can't be," she murmured.

"What? What can't be? Is it true? Am I…magical? I've never heard of Dragonwings and I thought magic didn't exist."

"So did I," said Mrs. Marbles, "that is…until I met your biological parents."

A few hours later, after some in-depth explaining from both her mother and father after he came home from work, Miranda now knew why she had always been so strange, why unusual incidents happened when she was angry, and why she was adopted. She'd never thought to ask about her biological parents before, as nosing into things that weren't her concern usually got her in trouble, but now that she thought about it, she really should have had a right to know a long time ago. The Marbleses had just hidden it from her hoping she would turn out to be non-magical—a Friggle, as wizards called them—and never have to know the whole dark story of her parents.

The truth was Miranda's parents had both been very talented and powerful wizards, but got so wrapped up in their power and authority that it had caused them to turn evil. The Marbleses, some Friggle friends of theirs, took Miranda in as a very young child because they were concerned about her well-being around such evil wizards. Then her parents disappeared to who-knows-where. As the Marbleses raised Miranda, they'd avoided discussing her biological parents because they rather disliked talking of the story—and they were also afraid Miranda might turn out to be like them.

Miranda didn't plan on misusing her powers at all, though. Now that she knew she had them, she planned to take full advantage of them, but in the best way possible. Although she wished she'd known before, she was excited to finally have a chance to be her true self.

Miranda lay awake in bed that first night of summer, on her eleventh birthday, smiling to herself. Her parents were going to send her to Dragonwings (probably because they were just glad to get rid of her, but oh well)s. She was going to a magical school. She'd never have to go back to regular school again.

She was a witch. And she was going to become a great one.