Chapter 4- I Become the Almighty Queen of Bacon

We met up with Luis in what appeared to be a cafeteria. He was sitting at a table with another boy. The boy had short black hair and green eyes, and he smiled at us as we walked up. "So you're the new girl," he said as I sat down. He stuck his hand out to me from across the table. "I'm Digby Froggiver, Apprentice Theurgist." I chuckled as I shook his hand.

"Digby… Digby Froggiver?" I laughed. Digby frowned.

"It's a family name…" he said sadly. He was serious about his name. I immediately stopped laughing. My face grew hot.

"Grace," I said, "Novice Thaumaturge." Jaqueline glanced between us, and there was an awkward silence.

"Well, I did the amazingly wonderful thing of getting you guys some food!" Luis said gleefully, breaking the silence. He pushed a heaping plate of bacon over to us.

"That's just… It's all… Luis that's bacon," I said.

"What, you got a problem with bacon?" he said, somewhat defensively.

"No, no, no…" I shoved some bacon in my mouth. "I'm like, the queen of bacon."

"Grace, the Bacon Queen." Jaqueline chuckled through a mouth full of bacon. Luis smirked.

"Well I'm the Bacon OVERLORD!" he exclaimed. We all burst out laughing, and I almost choked on bacon. We were interrupted though by a low groan from Digby.

"Oh no, not again…" He moaned, and we all turned to see what he was looking at. A small commotion had started in the center of the cafeteria, and a few people were shouting.

A tall boy about Digby's age stood in the middle of a crowd of students. Static sizzled in the air around him, and his blue eyes glowed with energy. His purple cape whipped wildly in some unseen wind, and he lifted his wand. "You're gonna regret that, Rubycatcher!" he exclaimed. Suddenly, he drew a rune in the air, and chaos broke free.

A massive snake materialized out of nowhere, and lightning clanged in the air above. The boy pointed at a red haired girl, and the snake attacked. The girl pulled a card from her deck just in the nick of time, and a purple shield with a thundercloud on it appeared in front of her. The snake crashed into her shield, sending her flying. When the girl stood back up, I recognized her to be Keena Rubycatcher. She didn't seem to be very hurt, and she pulled another card from her deck. Keena smiled wickedly.

A huge fiery phoenix lunged at the boy, burning him badly. I turned to Digby, who was wincing. "Who is that?" I said, pointing at the boy.

"That," he winced again as a swarm of bats attacked Keena. "Is Wolf Skyhammer," he put his face in his hands. "My brother." My eyes widened, and I looked between the two brothers. They both had crazy black hair, but that seemed to be where the similarities ended. Wolf was tall and dashing, and Digby was shorter and had a friendlier look to him. Digby seemed to dislike violence, but Wolf clearly thrived on it. There was a loud crash.

Merle Ambrose materialized in the center of the room, and the two wizards stopped in their tracks. Ambrose raised his staff in an authoritative manner and said, "Both of you, to my office, now!" in a booming voice. The two students poofed away, with Ambrose following shortly after. The crowd quickly dispersed and the cafeteria regained its peaceful chatter.

I turned back to Digby, who was nervously picking at his bacon. "What was that all about?" I asked him.

"Wolf has issues…" Jaqueline muttered.

Digby ignored her and replied, "Wolf doesn't like Keena, because of a bunch of relationship stuff I don't wanna get into right now, but long story short they hate each other's guts. Wolf… He thinks he can handle everything with a fight." Digby sighed.

"So what's that got to do with you?" I asked, because the whole situation seemed to be getting on his nerves.

"I'm not even a year older than Wolf, but my parents still hold me responsible for everything he does. 'Digby's older, Digby should take care of him.'" he rolled his eyes. "They need to stop babying him, I mean, he is different, but not that different."

"Different?" I said, "What do you mean, different?" Jaqueline's eyes widened and Luis started casually whistling. Digby froze.

"Nothing. I meant nothing." He shoved some more bacon in his mouth and started humming. I just met these people, so I didn't know them very well, but I knew that they were acting strange.

"Fine, don't tell me," I said nonchalantly, curiosity bubbling up inside of me. We all finished our bacon, and I walked back to the dorms with Jaqueline.

"What was that about?" I asked her. She looked at something off in the distance.

"I'm not sure what you're talking about." She sighed. I sighed too. I obviously wasn't going to get anyone to tell me. We walked over to her dorm room, which, thank goodness, was only on the third floor. Her walls were covered in dark blue wallpaper with falling snow painted on it. Her bed was blue, her desk had the ice symbol on it, and several ice banners decorated her walls. It was beautiful.

"Where did you get all of this?" I asked, motioning around the room. "My dorm just has plain furniture."

"Oh," she giggled. "I bought it all at the Bazaar. You can decorate your dorm too, you know."

"I'd like that."

Jaqueline squinted her eyes all of the sudden, as if an idea had occurred to her. "Hey," she said, "Shouldn't you have a secondary class right now?" I raised an eyebrow, causing her to sigh in exasperation. "Hasn't anyone told you anything? What world are you from anyways?"

"Earth… Why? Aren't you?"

"Oh," she said, "That makes so much more sense. I was born and raised in Wizard City, so I already knew about magic… But Earth doesn't believe in magic, does it?" she said sadly. I shook my head.

"But… There are other kids from Earth here, right?" I asked, for reassurance.

"Not really. Wizards from Earth are extremely rare; one only shows up every fifty years or so, and even then they're all usually born here. You're kind of an anomaly, although your parents are probably wizards."

A question pushed into my mind, but I shoved it away in favor of a different one. "If I was born here, then how did I get to Earth?"

"Who knows? Teleportation accident, maybe, or kidnapping. Your parents might have just left you though… Oh gosh Grace I didn't mean it like that…" One look at my face told the whole story. She had just told me my parents had left me, maybe because I wasn't good enough, or they didn't want me. Whatever the case, they weren't there then and they weren't here now, so it didn't really matter.

Jaqueline was frowning at me with a concerned look, like she'd just broken me. I forced a small smile. "It's okay," I said, "You didn't mean it." Her frown deepened, and I saw the gears turning in her head.

"Hey, wanna go somewhere fun?" She asked. I nodded and she dragged me out of the room. Jaqueline ushered me out of Ravenwood, through the tunnel to a place I learned was the Commons, and then told me to cover my eyes. She led me up a hill, and then said, "Okay, you can open your eyes now."

I was standing in front of a huge carousel in what appeared to be some sort of fairground. Jaqueline smiled widely.

"So, what do you think?"

"I think," I said, pausing, "I want to ride that carousel."

She giggled and climbed on top of a huge fire dragon, I, however, chose to ride the storm shark. The carousel spun frantically and we both laughed like children, despite our age. Jaqueline waved to someone, and I saw Digby standing next to the carousel, just staring at us with a small smile on his face.

"Come join us, Digby!" I shouted at him over the music of the carousel. He bit his lip, considering, and then ran up and hopped onto the spinning merry-go-round. Digby latched onto a fire cat, and joined us in our laughter. I saw a flash and a blur, and then Luis was on the blood bat behind me.

"I'm a pro at riding merry-go-rounds!" he shouted, "Watch and learn fools!"