Ecsepting

September 3rd, 2001

Phewf!

I was so worried. Dear Journal, Isn't that entry above mine peculiar? I don't know how it got there, I don't know how anyone could have got hold of my diary so I can't explain it. It has to be enchanted. I was terrified about what that Tyne person wrote though. I was worried that he really did curse my book with the fingernail ripping thing he talked about. But then I got Maury to write something down for me (I asked him how to spell excepting and he wrote it down for me incorrectly) and his fingernails were fine. But I wasn't sure, so I quickly scribbled into the page and nothing happened. So either he forgot to curse my book or his spell didn't work. Or, o my goodness I hope there wasn't a different curse he replaced it with, a worse one! I feel fine though. Oh dread.

I can't understand how it works. I don't know why anyone would want to write in my journal at all, or how they could have or anything. It is so strange. At first I blamed Maury, but now I know better because, after all, he could never fake that handwriting. And it looks as if the person thought I was writing in their journal. Do ghosts write? Aunt Moesha has a ghost in her house, so she says, and it might be that. But one weird thing is that after I read the entry over, I went to talk to Maury and I asked him stuff like "What's dark arts?" and "where's Hogwarts and Durmstrang?" "who's Harry Potter" and "who's You-Know-Who?" and he kept answering me and then he said "Molly, what are you on to? Why are you asking me all these things anyhow?" and then I thought it best if I stopped because I don't want him reading my journal. But I think he helped me understand this witch stuff a little better.

Well, I don't really understand what is happening and I would rather forget this all right now and write about me like I normally would. I am going to start off with the very first thing this morning. Moesha woke me up at about 8 o'clock and said it was time for us to go. We went downstairs and paid the inn keeper for the night and then Moesha asked him if there was a floo accepting fireplace in the building and he said there was but there was a toll on it. I was trying to hold back a laugh because it was so amusing whatever it was they were talking about. So the inkeeper led us to a grand fireplace in one of the back rooms, and Moesha was muttering under her breath about tolls and dirty tricks. When we got there we stood in front of it and I just kept looking at it waiting for the gag to make sense. Moesha said to me " Now listen Molly, this is very important, you haven't done this before and it isn't always so easy for beginners. Now hold on to my arm very tightly and hold on to your luggage tightly with your other hand. Now whatever you do, don't…" I was only half listening because I was watching her dig into her sac and pull out a little red packet. She opened it up and inside was this fine white powder. Maury took a pinch and Moesha said "you go after Molly and I". Moesha then took two pinches and put the packet back in her sac. She blew the dust into the place and the flames made a great whooshing sound and the fire blew out leaving little blue embers on the rake, glowing like stars. She got a firm grip of my arm and picked up her luggage and clearly said "Haddletoe Market". Then to my surprise, she stepped into the embers and pulled me in with her. I gasped and this was a big mistake because immediately my throat and lungs began to burn. All around me were colours and flashing pictures of houses, chimneys and fireplaces. It was so odd, I felt so dizzy and I knew I would be sick. I couldn't even imagine what was going on because nothing so strange a sensation had ever overcome me and I was worried I was in the wrong place or that Moesha had made a mistake. The flashing pictures of homes stared to fade and I was suddenly plunged into a straight blueness. It shimmered all around me and it was mostly blue all around me but sometimes I saw shadows and silhouettes of ships and a whale. The blueness seemed to last so long, I couldn't really say how long it just felt it. I felt sicker and sicker and the dizziness was so overwhelming I felt as though I might fall, or faint but I was scared to do so and somehow I forced myself not to. It was just about unbearable when a new surrounding flooded me. At first it was just colour but then I saw not only houses and chimneys, but great tall buildings and skyscrapers. Abruptly, there was a great jolt and I felt hard ground beneath my feet and then all over me like hurling into a wall. I opened my eyes and found I had fallen onto cold ground and I felt smothered. I took a deep breath and began to cough uncontrollably. Lifting myself off the ground I saw those little white fuzzy things pop up all over where I tried to see, and I felt light-headed and hazy. I could barely see the outline of Moesha and I heard her say "Oh, Molly, you don't seem to have taken that well". I meant to reply 'no' but something else came out and it was gross. I didn't know where I was and I made no attempt to run elsewhere, I just got sick all over the ground. Once it was all out of me, I felt a little better and I had regained my sight. This time when I looked up, I saw three figures: Moesha, looking bewildered, Maury looking very, very disgusted and another woman, round and shorter than Maury, looking quite sypathetic. The short, round woman cried "oh, you poor thing!" and reached out to help me up. "Whatever happened? Bad day with the floo? Dear me, you look like a ghost." She sat me down in a chair, got me a rag and a mug of water. "What happened?" she asked Moesha. Moesha responded with a slow tone "well, it's her first time with floo, I had no idea it would be so hard on her." She spoke like I wasn't in the room. The bustly woman began to chatter on about her half sister who used floo powder once when she was four years of age and was sick in bed for a week from it. She was saying "it's a dangerous, dangerous thing, I wouldn't trust my life with it" and she handed Maury a mop while she carried on. This made me giggle to see Maury's face like that. "That was very risky, trying it out on her if you didn't know what would happen." She looked very sternly toward Moesha. She asked me what my name was and so I told her. Then she said, smiling "well, Molly, you sound like you're from Britain? Am I right?". I nodded and said "I was just there, actually, am I in United States right now?" I guess this was the wrong thing to say because the woman's smile faded and turned to a look of terror. I tried to think of what I could have possibly said to offend her but she looked up at Moesha with horror, it was frightening actually to see this cheery woman so grave. With a bit of a shaky voice she asked Moesha "Do you mean to say that you just travelled from Britain to here? Do you mean to say it was her first time and you took her all away across the ocean?" Moesha stammered "well, yes". That was that and the cheery woman was on to her like a gnat "Are you insane? What were you thinking? People have died from such things; I should report you!" I was listening but thinking that perhaps the woman was exadgerating a bit. Finally, Moesha looked, her expression said she was about to explode but she said (with a set jaw) "you look better, shall we go? Now?" So I got up and we left. I asked her "was it really all that dangerous?" and she was quick to snap back "of course not, really Molly!" Then I shut up. She stopped in the middle of the doorway to fish through her bag and I looked out into the street. It was not really a street but a wide dirt walkway like the kind you would see in older days. All around me were people shopping in their queer outfits, some even funnier than what Moesha tends to wear. There were tents and rickety wooden shops with old fashioned signs hanging over them like Athelgar's Apothecary, Wanda's Wands or Jonah' shop for Practical Jokers. There were stores and tents and shops for every peculiar thing imaginable- Curse's candy or Almathia's animal haven. Some towered above the rest: Orianna's potion house, which was more than a house, it must have been nearly three stories tall and on the other side of the street was Watkin and Willard Robery, which was nearly as tall. Some of the shops had advertisements and sale signs in the window that flashed and shone. Moesha handed me a list and said "here it is, your school supplies." I hadn't seen the list before and I eyed it like I would a three headed goldfish. I still have it; I think I will copy it out in here so that if anyone reads my diary one day when I am dead and gone they may also agree at how odd it is.

Standard School list for First year Students attending Swampwash School of wizardry

The first year students will require:

three sets of plain work robes one plain pointed hat for day wear one pair of dragon hyde gloves

and the following sets of books:

'The Standard Book of Spells' by Miranda Goshawk 'A Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi' by Phyllida Spore 'A History of Magic' by Bathilda Bagshot 'Magical Theory' by Adalbert Waffling 'A Beginners Guide to Transfiguration' by Emeric Switch 'Magical Drafts and Potions' by Arsenius Jigger 'Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them' by Newt Scamander 'The Dark Forces: a Guide to Self Protection' by S. Trimble

All students must be equipped with

one wand one standard size 2 pewter cauldron a beginners assorted potions set

Students may bring one pet to Swampwash. We have acknowledged that many of our students are coming in internationally and wish to bring a foreign pet. To confirm your pet, check with your local pet dealer. If your pet is not on the list of acceptable pets for Swampwash School of wizardry, your pet is NOT permitted to enter our school.

Douglas Lionel Geromino

Chief Attendant of Witchcraft Provisions

Don't you find that funny? Moesha said "We'll have to get money first. Maury, I'm going to get money, go to Branconnin's and order breakfast, I'll be back to pay soon." So Maury and I walked through the busy street, which had no cars, just walking people, and we walked into a shady café that had 'Branconnin's' written on the sign above the doorway. We sat down at an empty seat and I looked around. There were other people that looked older than me, but not by much, who were eating and chatting and laughing at the corner table. I didn't realize it for a moment but Maury was watching them too. Then he turned to look back at me and his face was a little bit pinker. I asked him if he knew them and he stammered "Them? Over there? No, I ,no I don't know them." I looked at him and started to giggle. "So if they saw you, would they know you?" I asked him. He went a little redder and buried his face into the menu. So I faked a really loud cough, and he looked up at me and whispered "don't you…" but it was too late, because One of the girls at the other table looked over and said "Maury?" He glared at me before he turned around and said (well, he kind of croaked) "Hi." One girl at the table said: "who's your friend?" and he said, I was his cousin and then they invited us over. I found out that one of the girls was named Florence, and she seemed to know Maury pretty well. I got talking to Florence's friend, Alaina, who was really nice and explained stuff to me. She also pointed out that the door on the other side of the café led outside to New York, but that only witches ever noticed the entrance. She also explained how the school had four different houses and that I would get sorted out by a hat(maybe I heard her wrong)into which one I got put into. "I'll bet you'll be in Cranewood. We're all in Cranewood and your cousin Maury is too, so I bet you'll be" Then she went on explaining how in the wizarding world they send their mail by bird. She talked all about her crow, Gaddy, until Moesha arrived and she was irritated because we hadn't ordered yet. Then we ordered and I ordered eggs and toast, because I was afraid that I'd get something weird otherwise. When I finished eating my delicious eggs, and after Maury told me that they were turkey eggs, we got ready to go and Florence and Maury waved to each other.

When we got out onto the road, Moesha said "I suppose we should get our books first, it seems to rule out the list." So we went to a bookstore, Juniper Books, that was dusty and dry and I wouldn't say it was organised. The books were all over the place, shelves and shelves. It was a sort of pell-mell library I think. And the man who owned the bookstore, he didn't seem to know what he was doing. I can only guess that he was Mr. Juniper. He sat in the corner and read. When Moesha asked: "Where can I find this book?" he'd say: "oh I think there was one of those in that pile over there last week, but I don't know if it is there now, just look a bit, you'll find one". It wasn't very helpful, we spent a long time searching and found most of them. We had searched very hard for 'Magical Theory' but it was nowhere to be found. Moesha got very impatient and shouted at the man "sir, I don't have the whole day to look for this book! This is most unprofessional!" The man slowly lifted his head up from his book and said "What book?" in a manner as though he just noticed we were there. Moesha took a deep breath and said in a flat tone " Magical Theory". Mr Juniper said "oh" and then after a few seconds he raised his wand and said "Accio, Magical Theory book". There was a funny sort of rustling in the piles and deep inside the bookshelves, like rats, and then to my surprise books flew up into the air and they all came soaring to where Maury, Moesha and I stood. I'll say there were 15 of them and not one of them missed us, they came pelting into us and all but Mr. Juniper got hit. As they tumbled down to the ground around our feet I laughed. One book that was either slower than the others or had been buried deeper in a pile came whizzing through the air and almost hit Moesha in the head but she caught it and slammed it down onto the counter. She glared at the man and he said "that will be four sickles please". We left in a hurry. I have all my books now but I still thought it very strange when I first saw it. I looked through the books and tried to memorise some things because I don't want to enter the new school looking ignorant. Oh, and the pictures in the books move! They don't just blink like the Cleopatra book, they strut around, or wave at you and sneeze and everything! Maury said I was batty when I declared the pictures in my books move. He says that the only place he's ever seen pictures stay still was at my house. Maury is the one who is batty.

Then we went to the wand shop. I have a wand now; it's an eight inch, non-flexible, ebony, dragon heart-string. It took them forever to pick one for me. The lady there had big hazel eyes and she was tall and thin. She was wearing a sleek black robe with long wavy sleeves and she spoke in a voice that was quiet, like a breeze, and almost monotonous except when she declared something. First she took out two measuring tapes and they flew around me, taking all sorts of measurements. The measuring tapes suddenly rolled up and leapt into her outstretched hand. "Small" she said, looking me over. "You will require a smaller wand size. She floated around the room, looking at the shelves of boxes out of the corner of her eye. "Try this one" she said and brought me a pink box. "You'll have to wave it around, if it does nothing then put it back". She gave me all sorts of boxes. "Mahogany, Unicorn hair, 7 inches, try this one." I tried it and red sparks flew out the end like a sparkler. "Here! Look!" I said to her and she shouted "Oh, no! That one does NOT agree with you!" Finally, I came to the one I have and when I waved it around, a calm flow of white sparkles, like a waterfall, came out the end and she said "Aha. You've found your match." With that, Moesha paid her and the lady put it in a box with a free case of my choice. I chose a leathery black case with criss-crossed silvery string holding it together.

Our next stop was the Robery. Moesha insisted that Watkin and Willard robery was the best of all the places that made robes in Haddletoe. I have nothing to compare it to, but I thought it was quite magnificent myself. At the entrance was a counter where two secretaries were standing gabbing. One was a blonde and the other a brunette. The brunette was the nicer of the two though. The blonde one just glared at my and loudly chewed her gum. "Whajawan?" she said over her chewing. Moesha looked at her and said "I'm sorry, I can't understand a word you're saying, would you mind taking that stuff out of your mouth and saying it again?". For a long pause, Moesha and the blonde glared at each other, then the blonde said " Ackshully, yesh I goo mind" and then she walked away. Then the brunette came and said "so sorry, can I help you?"; she was not chewing on gum. Moesha sighed and said: "I need school robes." The brunette tilted her head and squinted. She asked "What school?" as she led us into a hall with many doors and stairs. We came to a door with "Swampwash Academy" written on it. It swung open and revealed a very big room draped with material and there were sewing things floating all around me. We walked in and I saw many others getting fitted into uniforms. On the wall were big posters with patterns and pictures of uniforms.

A woman greeted us with pins sticking out of her pincushion-like bun. She led us on a tour of the room. In the middle of the room was a big divider for the girl's side and the boy's side. She told Moesha all about the new school uniforms for Swampwash, and pointed at diagrams. "This is how the first year's uniforms will look this year, nice don't you think?" she said. She led me through a maze of flying rolls of material to a little curtained room on the girl's side. I stood on a stool in front of a mirror and stood alone for a little while.

Soon another lady entered and she was really nice. She had a box of sewing things and she dropped them at my feet. The things started to float around me and I was instructed to stand still with my arms straight out on either side of me. I was measured by all sorts of measuring tapes and measuring equipment while the nice lady showed me pictures. She said that the robes were all a basic black but that we were allowed to choose colours for certain parts of the robe. She said that the uniforms were also a little more personal this year and that I had a choice for the embroidery patters as well. It was really amazing too, because she had a piece of very thin, white wood standing up against the wall beside the mirror. At first, the wood was blank, but as the magic measuring tapes measured me, an outline of a plain robe and me wearing it appeared on the wood. It was like a page out of a colouring book, just pale blue lines, but as the lady showed me patterns, she would point to the picture and it would magically fill in the colour, or pattern, I chose. I could then see the robe before it was made and I made a few changes too. For my trim, I chose a material called 'Sky material' which was blue, but the lady said it changes colour to match the sky depending on the hour. There was also a little 'Swapwash' emblem badge that was to be sewn onto the middle of my chest. The emblem was to be held by, and I picked the pattern, two black dragons. There was also intricate swirls in silver on my sleeves and top of the robe, which was separated from the bottom by an empire waist line. Soon enough, the lady said "all right then" and then she flicked her wand at the materials scattered across the floor and left.

The material and needles surrounded me like bees and started pinning and fixing all by themselves. I stood there for another two minutes and then Moesha came in and took a look at the little white board. She said: "Very nice. Maury's robe is done. We're going to go and shop for the other things on your lists, mind staying here an hour or so?" I sort of did mind, but I told her I didn't.

Standing there for the hour was slightly odd. I wasn't used to having pins and cloth float around me without hands holding them up. One zany thing about it is that the pins and needle's seemed to have personalities. There was one gold pin with a green head that kept poking me when I slouched or let my arms drop. It made me a little queezy to see those needles darting around in and out of my robe, or the scissors hurl themselves toward me at lightning speed. None of the other pins hurt me, though, not once. But time passed by fast enough and it was entertaining watching the instruments do their work. I was fascinated by the embroidery needles that worked their way along my sleeves and chest; there were times when the seemed as if they were dancing. Sometimes, the different coloured threads intertwined like girls doing the May-pole dance. When the material was done its job, it folded itself up and piled back up into the box. Even the scrap material was organised. It would float up from the floor and make its way to the waste material basket. When all was done, the materials made their way into the box and lay immobile. Except for that darned gold pin, which poked me in the back and forced me to walk around the room a bit before it made a 'tink' sound and joined the other pins in the box.

I waited a bit longer, but no one came and I wasn't sure what to do. I peeked around the corner but no one was there so I stepped out and wandered a little. There were many curtained rooms and I got a little lost. Deep within one room I could hear muffled sounds of frustration. I peeked through the slits of the curtains and saw a girl on top of a stool, screeching and flailing at the pins. She had hold of a ruler and was hitting the pins down so that they hit the floor like darts. She had straight, neat blonde hair and cold brown eyes and looked a little vicious, actually. She screamed out "Mo-THER!!! They are poking me! MOTHER!!!" Then she looked up and saw me and said "What are you staring at? Who are you? Do you work here? Go get my mother! NOW!" I felt my face get hot and I turned and walked away. Then I ran into the nice lady who said "I was wondering where you got to, do you like your robe?" I told her I did and thanked her very much, although I wouldn't say she did the work. She led me back to the curtained room and I changed back into my old clothes while she folded and put my new robe into a box. She also gave me a wide-rimmed, pointed black hat in a hat box and another robe, which had been made at the same time I was being fitted. This robe was plain black and dark phoenician purple with the emblem sewn on the front. "This will be your casual robe," she said: "everyone gets one." She led me back out of the maze and asked me things about school and those things that nice people talk about concerning school and friends and nice people and when she went to school there. She took me to a waiting room and there were lots of cushions and puffy pillow seats. I waited there for Moesha and I was joined by another person a while later, a boy. We didn't talk to each other though, but I looked up at him a few times and he looked at me too, but we pretended we weren't paying attention to each other.

Then Moesha came and got me. She had a platter of food for me, which I was very happy to see. We went to pay for the robes. When she heard the price, she blinked hard and her jaw dropped, but she paid anyway.

"It's late and we need to be getting back, but we should stop at the pet store first, I'm getting Maury a crow this year so you can send mail to your Uncle Elmo and I."

We went to the pet store, called Almathia's Animal Haven and it was unlike any other pet shop I'd ever been to. When we entered, we got into an elevator (Moesha said it's a transportator, not an elevator, even though it was pretty well the same thing only a cylinder not a box)which had buttons that said "fowl" or "adoption center" or "dangerous beasts, ministry pass protected". Moesha poked the fowl section and we started moving. When the door opened we were standing at the entrance to a noisy store. There were feathers all over the floor and birds everywhere. And I mean everywhere! Some were perched on the doors, penguins waddled by and raced puffins in the halls, and there were some on countertops. A great majority was perched on the gigantic chandelier. It didn't smell too good either. There were signs with arrows on them (covered in birds) which had different bird types written on them in alphabetical order, the most organised thing in the whole store. Moesha looked at the top of the list for 'crow' and we followed the arrows until we reached a door that said "Crows" on it, and we went in. It looked like a scene from "The Birds". Black crows sat on their perches and made rustling sounds and looked at us. When Moesha said "Maury, pick a strong healthy one" they started to move. Mobs of them descended on Maury and perched on his shoulder, cawing in his ear, flapping their wings in his face. He cried out "Mom! Can't we get a parrot?" and Moesha, who was inspecting her nails, said "I've spent too much today already, and I can't afford anything except a crow or a pigeon, and we aren't getting a pigeon because they're useless. Pick a crow." Maury didn't look to keene on this and he was shaking them off one by one as they flew back. I walked around and looked at the other crows. There was one really young one with grey eyes and I liked it so I said to Moesha "What about this one?" and she said "Fine, Whatever". So we took it back to the first floor and paid for it. Then I quietly said to Moesha "It says on my list that I should bring a pet too." I had hoped that she would get me something then too, but she only said "Don't worry, not everyone has a pet". It was ok, though, she'd spent so much on me already.

Then it was time to go to Aunt Moesha's house, so we went back to Branconnin's (Moesha didn't want to go talk to that lady, so we paid another toll) and used Floo powder. Only this time, I held on to a whole cauldron full of books, a suitcase, two boxes, a crow and Maury's arm and he said "Home" this time. We landed in a room that looked like a dungeon, but it was Moesha's living room. Maury showed me to the spare room and I threw my things into a pile and began to write in my journal. Maury told me about what we were going to do tomorrow and gave me my first wand lesson. If I hold my wand carefully ballanced and say 'lumos' then the end lights up like a flashlight, only wands don't need batteries. Then we ate when Uncle Elmo got back from his work and after, I continued to write in here. It's late now and I am still up, but I wanted to finish before I went to sleep, so good night.

I can't sleep, we're going tomorrow and I am too excited, or maybe I'm too nervous, to sleep. I took out my robe and looked it over, and I am even more awed by it now then I was before. Looking at the robe made me feel nervous about tomorrow though so I read my diary over again and I think I would like to write to the mystery person who wrote in my diary. If they could read what I wrote, and I can read what they wrote too, maybe I can leave them a note. Can you read what I am writing about you? I feel very foolish writing this. Sort of. Can you read what I am saying? Are you there? If you are then write down something. Or not then, If you will be that way. Look, all I want to say is that I am sorry that you think this is your diary, but it isn't, it's mine. My Aunt bought it for me and I intend to use it well. So if you are there and if you can read this…{Tyne writes something}