Chapter One
It had been a bad day for Alex Russo, she had been late for school and got a detention, tripped over and went skidding on the assembly hall floor, spilled spaghetti sauce on her new sweater and failed her Spanish midterm.
"How can my life get any worse than this?" she thought as she walked through the door of her family's sandwich shop.
"Hi honey, how did your midterm go?" asked her mom, Theresa.
"Err… I failed" said Alex sheepishly.
"You failed your midterm?!" yelled her Dad, Jerry, coming out of the kitchen.
"Yeah…" Alex said weakly, "I'm gonna go and study now, bye," and then ran up the stairs.
"You'd better study young lady!" Jerry shouted after her.
Alex walked into the living room where her younger brother Max was doing his homework in front of the TV.
"Hey Alex," he said, briefly glancing away from the screen.
"Hi," Alex said miserably, putting her backpack down on the sofa and taking her own homework out.
She then went upstairs to her bedroom and began writing out a history essay. Before long her phone rang and it was her boyfriend, Riley.
"Hi Alex, it's me. Listen, I don't think we should see each other any more,"
"Why?" said Alex, her voice cracking.
"I just think it would be better for us to see other people," he said, and then hung up.
Alex sat staring at the ceiling for a couple of seconds and then burst into a flow of silent tears.
Before long Max knocked on her door and told her that wizard lessons were about to start, when he got no reply he opened the door and saw Alex sobbing into her pillow.
"Alex?" he said uncomfortably, "What happened?"
"I broke up with Riley," came a muffled reply.
"Alex…" he said, in some attempt to comfort his sister.
She gave another heartbroken sob and sniffed self-consciously, she hated anyone seeing her crying.
"Do you want to come down?"
Alex shook her head.
"What shall I tell Dad?"
"Just say that I'm sick," Alex said tearfully.
"Okay,"
"And Max?"
"Yeah?" he asked.
"Promise that you won't tell anyone about this,"
"I promise," he said and left the room.