This chapter was written in a number of sittings, many more than usual. Small details were changed a number of times, and it would be wonderful if you readers could report any confusing bits. As the author, it's hard for me to realize when I'm not telling the whole story, so any help you could give me would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
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The following Sunday found me sitting in my dad's car at five in the morning, yawning every few minutes and feeling decidedly grumpy. My mood was not helped by Jane's cheerfulness; she was sitting next to me in the back seat, and had leaned forward so she could talk more animatedly with her father, who was in the passenger seat in front of her. My dad was driving, and looking quite cheerful as well. In fact, they were all positively beaming, so glad were they to be awake and alert at this ungodly hour.
I was most definitely not with them in that view.
I'd been shaken awake only an hour previously, giving me just enough time to shower, dress, and eat before climbing in the car, holding nothing but the Burnside letter. I was still half asleep even now, when we'd been driving for almost fifteen minutes. The car's vibrations actually seemed to be making me even more tired than I already was.
The car ride passed in a haze of jaw-cracking yawns, and many hours later we pulled to a stop outside a small church. My dad and everyone else got out of the car, but I just stared at the chapel before us. This was where we intended to buy cauldrons and wands?
Dad opened my door and beckoned me out. I obeyed sleepily, still staring around, looking for some kind of huge mall or something. Or even just a cleverly disguised shop with special rooms in the back for all your wizarding needs. I didn't know what to expect, but I was certainly not ready to believe a church would sell items used to make (gasp) magic. Dreaded, evil, devilish magic. I smirked at the thought, then realized everyone was walking away and quickly ran to catch up with them.
Jane's dad led us to a very narrow alleyway behind the church. We had to walk single file to fit through it comfortably—the church garden wall was on one side, reaching up past our heads, and a collection of dingy houses squashed us in from the other side. As I entered the alley, I wondered if I'd have even seen it if I didn't already know it was there.
Mr. Nelson, just visible over Jane's shoulder, pulled out a long, straight stick, stained a dark mahogany and polished to a fancy sheen. He smiled slightly and held it up in front of him, level with his eyes, and pointed it at something I couldn't see.
"Mumblewumble!" he said clearly, and a jet of purple light shot out of his wand. I gasped as it hit a wall and exploded into purple and white sparks, which showered thickly over us and obscured everything around us from view. I felt a distinct change in the ground beneath my feet and looked down to see that I was no longer standing on hard asphalt, but thick green grass.
The sparks fell away and disappeared into the grass, and I stared around in shock. The alley behind the church had disappeared; indeed, the church, the houses—the whole neighborhood was gone. We were now standing on a low, grassy hill, looking down the slope at an open-air market. The market was huge; brightly-colored tents and awnings filled the meadow like so many tropical fish in a sea of green. An outrageously colorful sign at the entrance informed us that we had reached Pike's Place Magical Market. It occurred to me that the name sounded familiar, but I was too much in awe to really care. All tiredness forgotten, I happily followed the others down the hill and into the market.
Something—magic, most probably—was preventing the grass from getting trample by all the shoppers and stands. It was lush and springy beneath my feet, and brushed harmlessly against my jeans, some blades as high as my knees. When I wasn't staring at the enchanted grass at my feet, I was staring around, fascinated, at all the shops that had been set up. The tents, too, were obviously enchanted; I saw one woman disappear through a flap in her tent into what looked like another tent beyond, then reemerge with a pile of books moments later. But when we passed by and I looked back, there was no additional tent behind hers; all was grass and shoppers. At another tent we passed, a little boy who'd been sent to get more quills disappeared into the ground, having walked down what looked to be an enchanted staircase.
I never grew used to seeing odd things around the market—salesmen showing off magical products such as self-cleaning dishes, books that held themselves open suspended in midair over the reader's head, and propellered beanies for children that allowed the wearer to float a few feet off the ground. The woman selling these had her daughter with her to demonstrate, and the girl looked rather bored, as if she'd done this thousands of times and had lost all interest in it.
To my great disappointment, dad and Mr. Nelson led us through the market without stopping, along a kind of pathway between two rows of tents. I was so occupied with trying to keep up with them while staring around at everything in sight that I didn't notice when they stopped and nearly walked right past. Jane grabbed my sleeve and pulled me back, and I saw that we were standing before a very wide staircase. I followed it up, but it seemed to disappear into the clouds. There was nothing visible at the top, and there was no one climbing up it.
I turned to stare in horror at my dad. He didn't expect us to walk up that? He smiled at me and gestured at the stairway, inviting me to lead the way. Feeling thoroughly disgruntled, I placed a heavy foot onto the first step. I had placed myself carefully in the center of the staircase; it didn't have railings, and I didn't fancy getting blown over the edge when fifty feet up in the air.
But the minute my foot made contact with the step, there was a tug from somewhere behind my belly button, as if someone had tied a knot back there and was pulling steadily on the loose end. Shocked, I tried to jerk my foot off the step, but it was stuck there as if glued down.
Within a few seconds the tugging sensation stopped. I stumbled slightly and looked around dizzily. There was no staircase stretching upwards before me; in its place was a huge white building settled comfortably on a cloud. I turned around and saw the wide stairs disappearing toward the ground below.
"Portkey," dad said from just behind me. "A special kind of enchantment, so it doesn't wear off after one use. Very tricky to get just right." He smiled down at me, then led me into the Monticello-styled building before us.
The white structure that reminded me so much of the government buildings in Washington, D. C., turned out to be a bank. Inside it actually felt more like an airport, with long lines of people everywhere and security gates at the end of each one. The most noticeable difference was that the people manning the gates were short, burly men with long braided beards. The tallest one came up to my belly button, but they were all terrifyingly strong and fierce-looking nonetheless.
We got into one of the shorter lines, whose gate was labeled "Withdrawals Only" in large fluorescent letters. Perhaps the line was enchanted too, because it didn't seem to take all that long to get to the front. I peered closely at the security dwarf; his dark brown beard reached to his belt and was tucked in, but for two large chunks, which had been braided then tied together. His hair was the same color as his beard, and just as long. Some of it was hidden under a loose leathery cap that vaguely matched his belt and his boots, in a worn-out, battered sort of way. He wore a button-up shirt and black slacks under his deep red tunic; the effect was very odd, and I had to hold back giggles.
When we reached the front of the line, I could see a small black name plate on his chest, on which was written HERBERT in gold letters. I smiled at Herbert, but received no response from the stalwart dwarf. He turned to my dad; Jane and her father were in line behind us, as their money was in a different vault.
After glancing over us both, the burly little man waved us through the gate, which emitted two soft beeps, then nodded that we could continue. Dad led me along a wide, crowded hallway and down a left turn. My impression of an airport was immediately reinforced; there were numbers on glowing signs up near the ceiling, reading 400-450, and so on. We turned down the hallway just past that one, and I was now reminded of a fancy hotel. Large, brass doors lined the hallway, each equipped with a wheel much like those found on doors in submarines. Numbers were carved into each door and painted a shimmering gold that shone brightly despite the dim lighting.
We quickly found our vault—the second one on the left side of the hallway—and dad pulled out what looked like a coin, but with deliberate mistakes. Chunks had been taken out of the edges and one surface, in a completely random pattern. Dad placed the chipped side into a small circular cutout in the center of the wheel. When he took his hand away, the edges of the cutout seemed to melt and shift; suddenly they were completely and perfectly formed around the contours of the misshapen coin. I watched in wonder as the wheel turned itself a few times and the brass door swung out towards us.
My jaw dropped further as I spotted what was being safeguarded in that vault. A glittering pile of gold, silver, and copper coins sat in the middle of the plain cement floor, atop a shimmering circular rug. With a small smile, my dad entered the vault and calmly filled a leather bag with small stacks of the precious metal coins, then stepped back out and prepared to close the heavy door.
"Dad?" I said suddenly, stopping him. He glanced down at me.
"Yes?"
"Could I…do you think…could I maybe, y'know, go in there? Just for a bit?" He raised his eyebrows, then shrugged and stepped aside to let me in. I walked in with a feeling of entering a sacred chamber, and carefully moved closer to the glittering heap of coins before me. The gold looked so rich and yellow, shining in the light like that. It didn't occur to me to wonder where the light was coming from, though there were no bulbs in that vault. My eyes were drawn solely to the riches now filling my vision.
I couldn't resist taking a handful of gold coins and letting them cascade in a river from my hands. I imagined what my neighborhood friends would say if they could see me like this, all this gold in my possession, and smiled happily. I was rich!
"Dad, why didn't you tell me we had all that money?" I asked when we were back outside the bank, waiting at the steps for Jane and her father to join us.
"Well, I don't tell you how much money's in our bank account at home, do I?"
"No…but that's different."
"Is it? How so?"
"It—it just is," I said firmly. This was gold, not some computerized representation of real cash. "Can't you turn gold and stuff into dollars?" I asked after a moment.
"Of course you can. Right here, in fact—too risky to have people taking these coins to jewelers for melting down, the Muggles would start wondering where they came from. There's a place in that bank where you can get your money changed."
"Then why is all this money here?" I asked. "I mean, you never really come here, do you? Why not just make it all dollars—then we'd be rich!" I was suddenly very excited. Maybe dad just hadn't thought of that! Surely it was a great idea. By the end of the day, we'd be millionaires! Or however much money was in that vault. It certainly looked like a lot to me, but at eleven years old, a thousand dollars seemed like a fortune.
"Because it's for your education, of course," dad informed me with a laugh. "I've been saving it in Galleons and Sickles and all so I wouldn't have to get it changed back later. There is a small fee, you know."
"But what if I wasn't a witch after all?" After this exposure to such a huge gathering of magical people, I was growing much more used to the fact that I was among them.
"Then I would have had the money transferred to our other bank account and saved it for your college."
"Oh." I was severely disappointed. "We're not millionaires then?"
"Of course not, Ryann. Your grandmother—my mother—was quite well-off, but she was adamant that all the money she left us go toward your education, and Phoebe's." That sounded a very boring way to spend money, but at that moment Jane appeared at the doorway and I let the matter drop.
After a quick discussion, dad and Mr. Nelson agreed that we were old enough to manage the market on our own. We were instructed to be on our best behavior, and to meet with them in two hours at the foot of these stairs. By that time, we were to have all our school supplies purchased—I suppose this was their way of ensuring that we didn't have enough time to get into too much trouble.
Thrilled at our freedom and our heavy money bags, Jane and I set out into the crowded market. She'd never been there before either, but she'd heard plenty about it and knew better than I did where we needed to go. We found a kind of directory in the middle of an aisle between rows of tents, and stood over it trying to figure out where everything was.
It occurred to Jane after a few minutes of staring in pointless bewilderment at the confusing map that it was probably enchanted somehow, just like everything else here.
"What do you think it does?" I asked excitedly.
"Tells us where things are, obviously," she replied, rolling her eyes slightly. Then, with complete confidence, she politely asked the map where the apothecary was—we were both anxious to get to the weird, slimy things right away. Being thoroughly grossed out was a great pastime among us kids.
Before I could wonder aloud whether that would really work, the map began to move and change. It sort of zoomed in on one box, which had been highlighted in pink and was now labeled "Aspen Apothecary". A little red dot a few boxes away was labeled "You Are Here". I assumed it meant us, so Jane and I walked past the directory and a number of tents. To our left, just as the map had indicated, was the apothecary.
The tent itself was a cheerful yellow, and the sides were painted with aspen trees whose leaves really rustled in response to a passing breeze. A delightfully rustic wooden sign hanging from the awning was painted with an aspen as well, though the leaves on this one were stationary, accompanied by the words "Aspen Apothecary" in curly letters.
The woman inside the tent was as cheerful as her shop, and welcomed us with a large smile and a hearty greeting. This wasn't what I'd expected at all; why would this happy woman be selling pickled tentacles and intestine of newt? But she truly seemed to love her job, and was very knowledgeable as well. She got us our starter kits in moments, but we hung around talking with her for a long time afterward. When another customer appeared in the tent, she suggested we go to Stacey Spice's for our school robes, and told us how to get there.
I glanced at my supply list as we made our way through the crowds to the clothing shop. I didn't remember seeing robes on the list before, but there they were, at the very bottom. There was a note just below this, which read:
Specific robes are mandatory at Burnside, and are available at any wizarding clothing shop in the Northwest. Non-regional students should contact ProfessorBelindaAppleby for information on robes.
I looked up just as we reached the tent, which was a soft pink and glittered slightly in the sunlight. The awning was a patchwork of cloth swatches, ranging in color and texture from a dark green corduroy to a flaming orange silk. Sewn on were black letters made of felt, reading Stacey Spice's Clothes Shop. Jane led the way into the tent.
From the outside, Stacey's had looked about the size of all the tents in Pike's Place. But now I was in the shade of the patchwork awning, I could see that the shop was indeed much larger on the inside. Racks of clothing filled the space, stretching off in all directions. I was immediately overwhelmed, and wondered how we were supposed to find school uniforms in all of this.
Jane and I stepped forward to inspect the rack directly in front of us—it seemed like a good place to start, after all. It was crammed with soft sweatshirts in a range of colors. I wondered suddenly where Burnside would be, and how cold it was going to get there.
I mentioned this to Jane, who nodded. But as neither of us knew the answer to my question, we could do nothing but move on. Just as I was wondering if there was someone we could talk to, a young woman appeared at my side.
"Sorry for taking so long, I was with another customer," she said quickly. "I'm Stacey." I shook her hand and smiled, though I was rather surprised. This person looked to be no older than twenty, yet it seemed safe to assume she was the owner of the store.
"Don't worry about it," Jane said cheerfully as she shook Stacey's hand as well.
"New Burnside students?" Stacey guessed. I nodded, and she grinned. "I can always tell. It's the lost look you all have… Right this way, girls, I've got all you'll need for school."
Lost look? I couldn't help feeling slightly nettled as I followed Stacey through the mass of clothing, and past the occasional shopper. We finally came to a stop before a table with a number of black robes folded carefully on it. They all looked exactly alike, but Stacey pushed a few aside before picking one up and letting it unfold. It was very simple—long and straight, with sleeves that flared slightly from the elbow, a hood, and a silvery neck clasp.
"This should fit you perfect," Stacey said cheerfully, holding the robe up against me. "Yes. Go ahead and put it on while I pick one out for your friend."
I undid the neck clasp and pulled the robe on. It was surprisingly heavy, and when I redid the neck, the folds of fabric in the front completely covered the clothes I was wearing underneath. I took a few steps, but although the robes did not trip me, they didn't open to reveal what I was wearing, either.
"Nice, aren't they? That's why Burnside doesn't have uniforms, like some of the schools here do. These robes are special made so they stay closed like that, unless you need something from your pockets or something. Kinda wish I'd gone to Burnside, if just for the no uniforms thing. You shoulda seen what we had to wear at Elk Creek…" I looked quizzically at Jane, who shrugged and smiled politely at Stacey.
When we'd been equipped with a number of robes for everyday use, Stacey quickly listed off the essential clothes we'd need for school. Mostly warm clothing—long-sleeved shirts, sweaters, pants—with a good bit of cooler stuff for the spring semester.
"But you don't have to get all that now, realize," she assured us. "You won't want to bring most of your spring clothes with you this semester, it won't stay warm too long, and it rains most every day. And I'm sure you've got your own clothes at home you'll be wearing, it's just that some people come from Arizona or something and don't have enough warm clothes. Where are you two from, anyway?"
I let Jane chat with Stacey while I rummaged through the sweaters. I was in need of a new one, as I was growing so fast, but I didn't know about prices here and wasn't sure if I was wasting money or not. As exciting as all this was, it was also extremely complex, and I was growing increasingly nervous about leaving home for a whole semester. I couldn't escape the twisted feeling in my stomach, but all this talk about clothes and other permanent necessities wasn't helping my nerves.
When Stacey finally disappeared to talk to a new customer, I asked Jane about prices. She didn't know how to convert gold to green any better than I did, so we left the store with only our robes, resolving to ask our dads later.
Our next stop was the bookstore for all our textbooks. This was also a new concept to me—buying my own books—and made this school seem far too much like a college. Even high school students didn't have to buy their own texts! But when we reached SpellBound, the bookstore a few tents down from Stacey's, my fear quickly made way for excitement. The place was just what a bookstore should be—dry and comfortable, and slightly musty, with the smell of books strong in the air. The old man sitting comfortably by the entrance didn't jump up to help us, merely glancing up from his reading of a lengthy novel, but we didn't need anything from him anyway. He'd thoughtfully made a display of all the textbooks Burnside students would need, and had grouped them by year. Jane and I went straight to the Freshmen pile and grabbed one of each, then lugged them to a desk with a "Checkout" sign over it.
We'd spent a good deal of time in Stacey's, so we didn't stay to poke around in SpellBound but went straight on to buy the next items on our list. It took the better part of an hour to find the few remaining supplies, which included a cheap set of magical paints and brushes for beginning art, and enough quills and ink and parchment to last us the semester. When our lists were completely checked off and our money bags were depressingly lighter on our belts, Jane and I set off to meet our dads. They'd been adamant that we not buy our wands without them present, and that was the only item not crossed out on my list.
Jane and I arrived at the stairs a few minutes early, and plopped ourselves down on the grass to go through our purchases and imagine what Burnside would be like. Jane got a kick out of my wish to be picked up by a witch on a broomstick, and told me we were actually going to school by bus, just like normal.
Ten minutes later, we'd been picked up by our dads and taken off to the wand shop—the only one in the market, according to Mr. Nelson. This was slightly surprising, as there were at least six bookstores and twice as many clothing stores. If wands were so important, why not have more selection?
The tent was army green and had some leaves and burrs stuck to it, but not for decoration. There wasn't even a sign hanging from the sagging awning. The whole tent was rather worn and beaten, and looked as if it had just been transported quite suddenly from the depths of a forest or mountain pass. When we stepped inside, it occurred to me that the young man sitting inside had the same look.
He was sitting comfortably in a simple wooden chair, which he had kicked back onto two legs. His own legs were resting on the desk before him, and he was smoking some kind of cigarette that gave off blue smoke. When he saw us, he grinned widely and stood to shake our hands, letting the chair fall over behind him. I saw that he was young, probably in his late twenties, and had the lean, rugged look of a hiker or a mountain biker. An outdoor kind of guy. He was even wearing stereotypical hikers' garb—cargo shorts with frayed hems, a dark green shirt that looked older than I was, an unzipped vest with pockets all over it, and hiking boots over thick socks.
I kind of liked his stubbly chin and rugged appeal, and I could see I wasn't the only one. Jane was staring at him with her mouth open just a little, and when I nudged her, she turned bright red and looked at her feet.
Dad introduced us all, and the young man introduced himself as Carl White. He had a very white smile, and I had to stifle a giggle when I made the random connection.
"You girls looking to get your wands?" Carl asked cheerfully, rubbing his hands together in excitement. "Come on up here, I've got some fairly popular designs set out." He led us to a table piled with long, thin cardboard boxes. A few on top had been opened to display the wand inside, and I couldn't resist taking a peek. It was a dark, shiny black, long and thin, but slightly thicker at one end. There were small ridges carved into the thick end, for grip I supposed.
"Ah, that one." Seeing me looking at the wand, Carl had come to stand behind me. "Brand new, just finished testing it yesterday. Popular combination, that one—ebony and unicorn hair. A little longer than I usually make it, eleven inches. Give it a go, why don't you?" I stared up at him blankly.
"Um…what do you mean?" I finally muttered, my cheeks going red. Carl laughed heartily and picked up the wand by the ridged end.
"Of course, you're a Muggle-born! Or is it half?" He looked at my father, who nodded and smiled. "Well, then, which is your dominant hand?"
"My right," I said softly, even more embarrassed somehow than I had been before. Carl held out the wand.
"Take it, then, and just give it a wave. We'll know if it's yours." I was about to ask how, but decided that would be embarrassing and just did as he said. Feeling slightly foolish, I moved the wand around a bit, but nothing happened. Carl took it from me gently.
"Not your wand, then," he said cheerfully. I couldn't help but think it had been me, and not the wand, that wasn't right, but didn't say anything. I wasn't sure what he really expected me to do.
I waved wand after wand, while Jane and everyone else watched, but nothing happened with any of them. We went through all the most popular combinations to get them out of the way, then Carl started browsing the shelves behind his desk, looking for something specific. I had no idea what he was looking for, or how he might know what wand would "suit me," but I was much too flustered to ask. The knot in my stomach was back, and I couldn't help but wonder if it took everyone this long to find a wand. What if I wasn't magical after all, and I stood there all day trying wands until Carl kicked me out in a rage?
But to be truthful, Carl didn't seem the type to get angry. In fact, he was growing decidedly more gleeful as I returned each wand to him. Perhaps he liked a challenge.
After about ten minutes of trying wands—the longest ten minutes of my life—I stopped listening to what the wand was made of. Carl would hand me a wand, talking excitedly about its potential, and I would wave it listlessly before handing it back. It became routine, really.
Then he handed me one made of a reddish wood, with a zig-zag pattern in the ridges. The moment I touched it, a kind of delighted chill went up my spine and I shivered, suddenly awake again. I didn't need to look at Carl to know what to do; I raised the wand and brought it down in a fast arc. Bright blue sparks shot out from the end, and though they disappeared quickly, everyone applauded me. I beamed at my dad, then at Carl, who carefully took the wand from me and packed it up in its box. I sneaked a glance at the label, feeling suddenly guilty for not knowing what my wand was made of. Cherry wood, dragon beard hair, nine inches. I smiled and took the precious box from Carl, who was talking happily about his trip to China to gather the dragon hair.
"That wand's just excellent for transfiguration, Ms. Patterson," Carl informed me as I rejoined my dad by the door. I smiled, but had no idea what transfiguration was.
Carl got Jane trying wands right away. He'd put away everything I'd tried, so I couldn't tell if there were any repetitions, but it seemed inevitable that there would be, especially considering how many wands she tried. I'd thought it had taken me forever to find a wand, but twenty minutes later a very embarrassed Jane was still wandless.
Carl wasn't discouraged by this, but he did seem rather tired. He'd given up putting away all the wands, and the haphazard pile on his desk was growing steadily. After Jane tried ten more wands with no results, Carl frowned and stared at his desk, now sagging under the weight of all those wands.
"You said you were right-handed, Ms. Nelson?" Jane nodded. She looked close to tears, and I knew she was wondering if there was no wand for her, just as I had. "You write with your right hand?" She nodded again. "And throw with it, and catch with it, and eat with it?" Jane started to nod, then hesitated.
"I throw with my left," she whispered. Carl's face brightened suddenly, and he began to dig through the pile of wands on his desk, muttering to himself. He came up with a whitish wand and held it out to Jane.
"Birch, braided dragon heartstring, eight inches."
She took it with her left hand, having caught on to his train of thought, but still nothing happened when she waved it.
"No worries, no worries," Carl said cheerfully. He seemed to have gotten all his energy back, and dove into the pile of wands once more. This time he emerged with a dark brown, rather short wand.
"Walnut, unicorn hair, seven one-quarter inches." Jane took it from him, and her eyes grew very wide. "Aha!" Carl laughed when he saw the expression on her face. "Give it a wave, go on!" Jane made a long slash through the air, and sparkling white streaks followed the wand tip's path. She was beaming now, though her cheeks and nose were still red.
"Wonderful!" Carl exclaimed, taking the wand from her and replacing it in its box. "I haven't had that problem in a good many years, but of course it's always the obvious things that go wrong…" He handed Jane the box, now reminiscing happily about the time he went through every wand in his store for a boy before he realized he'd dropped one underneath his desk, and that was the right one. I wasn't sure whether to believe him or think he was exaggerating, but after Jane's performance it did seem to be a possibility.
When we left the wand shop, a tent across the way caught my eye. It was painted sky blue, and the sign hanging from the awning was decorated with cats, dogs, and snakes, all moving around on the letters. Amazing Creatures, it was simply called, but I liked the look of the colorful bird in its cage out front.
"Dad, can we go there?" I asked, tugging on his sleeve and pointing to the pet shop. He glanced at where I was pointing and made a face.
"Ryann, we really ought to be going if we want to get home before dark…"
"But I could get a pet to take with me to Burnside!" I pleaded. "They allow everyone to have a pet, and maybe then I wouldn't be so lonely." I knew I'd hit the perfect argument—my negative reaction to the fact that I'd be away from home so long was a major source of worry for my parents. My mom would be especially relieved if I put up less of a fuss about it; she tended to feel guilty about things out of her control.
Dad hesitated a long while, then shrugged.
"Wouldn't hurt to take a look, I suppose," he conceded, and we walked over to the pet shop. Jane and her dad were a few tents away, looking at something in a glass case, but Jane had a parakeet already and probably wouldn't be allowed to get a second pet. Besides that, she was only allowed to bring one to school.
The inside of the Amazing Creatures tent was as simple as its name, but the animals in cages along the walls were as amazing as they were implied to be, too. Some of the birds were beyond colorful—they had color-changing feathers. I saw one cockatoo-looking bird that seemed to be made of silver filigree. There were lizards and snakes in terrariums below the bird cages, and beneath those were the cat's cages. Dogs were in kennels on the other side of the tent, and a few well-behaved cats wandered around freely. A sign on the cashier's desk explained that these belonged to her and her husband, and were not for sale.
I glanced at the dogs first, but my dad shook his head.
"No good if you're taking it to school with you. How do you expect to play with a dog in your dorm room?" This made sense, and I didn't like dogs much anyway, so I turned to the other side of the tent to look around. My first impulse was to get a snake—they were just so cool, and there was an albino one at one end whose scales turned into rose quartz when they fell off… But that didn't seem like a very cuddly pet to have as a comfort object at school, so I scratched the reptiles. That left birds and cats—I refused to own a mouse or a rat, which were in cages near the cashier's desk.
I was sorely tempted to get a beautiful songbird with shining blue wings—it was guaranteed to deliver letters faithfully, and to sing beautifully when home—but then a cat in a cage on the floor caught my eye. I kneeled down to get a better look at it. Its fur was tiger-striped ginger and white, and it had yellow-green eyes and a darker orange tail. The cat raised its head and looked me in the eye, and I felt almost as if I'd found my wand all over again. I stood up to get my dad's attention, then pointed at the cage.
"Come look at this one, dad," I said excitedly. He came over and crouched next to me to peer into the cage.
"That's a nice-looking cat," he admitted.
"I want him," I said firmly. Forget the songbird; this was love.
Ten minutes later, I had a cat carrier cradled in my arms, with the ginger cat inside. Jane was ecstatic, and had to be reminded rather forcibly of her own parakeet at home to keep her from entering the pet store and finding a new friend of her own. I knew she felt guilty for wanting to replace Cheeky, because she turned pink and said she'd only wanted a friend for him, anyway, and if her dad wanted to let Cheeky be bored and lonely all the time, that was his decision and there was nothing she could do about it. And she wouldn't hear anything about it after that.
It was getting late, and we had to be going home. The many excitements of the day left me feeling so tired that I nearly dropped the cat carrier on the walk back up the hill. I was terribly glad to reach the car again and be able to sit down, with the cat carrier between me and Jane in the back seat, and just think about the day. I fell asleep before we'd gotten back on the highway.
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"I'm naming him Quiz," I announced at breakfast the next morning. My long nap in the car had enabled me to stay awake in bed long enough to think up a good name for my new cat, who had been sleeping on my chair at the time."That's an odd name," Phoebe commented. She was back from her friend's house, where she'd spent the better part of the last three days.
"I don't think so," I replied stiffly. "It's from a book. A witch has a cat named Quiz, and I thought it was appropriate." Apparently this was the wrong thing to say to Phoebe, who had just been told yesterday that I was a witch and would be going to Burnside. Even though she hadn't gotten her letter, my parents had explained about magic to her after she saw dad using it to clean the kitchen. He never really used it around the house after that, just in case I saw him, but now that everything was out in the open, it became a common thing to see him sitting lazily in a chair at the kitchen table, reading the newspaper and flicking his wand at the sink, where dishes merrily cleaned themselves. Mom found this a great relief, that she could dump the tedious work on him and it would get done so much faster, so now dad was overloaded with little chores.
"It's a fine name," dad assured me, but Phoebe was glaring daggers at me across the table, and I knew I'd gone a bit too far. I had to admit, I'd be jealous of her if our roles were switched.
Quiz had taken to domestic life very well. He was already two years old, and had obviously been raised in a family. I was very pleased that he took especially to me, but I suspect that was due mainly to the fact that I was his source of food and water, and that his litter box was in my room, and that he slept on my chair. He only ever saw the rest of the family during breakfast, when he would laze comfortably on the kitchen counter and watch us eat. The rest of the day he was outside chasing things or sleeping on my chair. At night he began creating a routine hunt of the neighborhood, and I wondered how he'd take to dormitory life. It actually made me hope for a ground floor room, so I could be sure to let him out the window at night.
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Life during my last two months at home was centered entirely around my going to Burnside in September. Phoebe never quite got over her jealousy, and spent a lot of time away from home, but even mom was excited in her way about my learning magic. She still acted disapproving, but I could tell she half wished she were going to Burnside, too.
Dad was just ecstatic that he had someone to pass down all his knowledge to. I wasn't too excited about reading some of the basic things from my textbooks before school started, but he assured me it was important to have the basics down flat, and anyway it was a lot more fun learning the boring stuff when my dad was quizzing me over dinner, interrupting every few minutes with memories from his years at Burnside. He even let me go through his photo albums and his senior yearbook while he was at work, and I never quite got over my fascination of the moving pictures. They seemed to be doing something different every time I looked, except the boring photos of people waving. It was also fun to look at all the professors and wonder who'd still be teaching there, and what he or she would be like now. The transfiguration teacher looked particularly fun; he was wearing a Hawaiian shirt under his robes in his staff photo, and his silly grin was contagious even through the picture.
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The night of September fifth, I could not sleep at all. I went to bed at nine on my dad's orders, but lay awake until long past midnight thinking about the next day. I must have finally drifted off, because when a screeching of brakes jerked me awake, it was morning.I quickly came to my senses, and my stomach dropped to my feet. Those brakes must have been the bus Jane had mentioned! My ride was here and I was still in bed!
I jumped out of bed and hurled myself out of my pajamas and into the clothes I'd nervously laid out for myself the night before. My heart was racing, and I wanted to scream at the driver to stop—
Bacon was sizzling downstairs, a special last breakfast at home for me, but I didn't have time to eat it. I raced through the kitchen yelling "DAD!" at the top of my lungs, and flung open the front door.
The street was empty. There was no bus waiting outside my door. My whole body seemed to hurt suddenly from the cold dread in my belly. I'd missed the bus. How was I going to get to school now?
But when I turned around, tears already welling in my eyes, my dad was standing there in his pajamas, rubbing his eyes and looking like he, too, had just gotten up.
"What are you yelling about?" he asked sleepily, glaring down at me. "It's six in the morning!"
"Dad, I—" Six in the morning? I stopped and frowned. Of course. I couldn't have missed the bus. I'd set an alarm for six-thirty, because the bus wasn't coming until eight-thirty, and that would be plenty of time to get ready. Everything was already packed, all I really needed to do was shower, dress, eat, and leave. How could I have forgotten all this?
"Sorry," I mumbled, walking past my dad and back upstairs for an extra half-hour of sleep. I obviously needed it.