Chapter 2
July 4th had been a wonderful time, and as Richard Oswald Kingsworth settled into bed, he couldn't help but to recount all the past weeks' happenings; after all, the food, fireworks, and family where his favorite part of summer. School had never been a favorite part of his life, however, and he hated how his summers seemed to get shorter and shorter every year. He was 12 now, and he hated it even when his relatives would ask him about school during the Holidays. Of coarse they didn't mean to ruin the moment; after all, they were adults and didn't know any better, but still, couldn't they remember all the years before when they would ask him and he would cringe?
The Family Picnic was always fun, all of his favorite relatives were always there, and the Family Water Fight was NEVER missed. In all of his years he could not remember a single July 4th going on where there wasn't massive amounts of H2O going every where. Yes, that had to be his favorite part of all, the water fight. Richard Oswald or "little Rozzy" grinned as he began to fall asleep. He was hearing Aunt Marry scream as he saw Uncle Gene dowse her from up in the tree again, when suddenly there was noise in his room. Opening his eyes and sitting up, he looked around his room for the source of the disturbance. It sounded like something scratching glass...and looking at his mirror, he saw the reflection of an owl sitting in his window sill. Turning to look at the window, he jumped a bit, but when he noticed the owl was not hooting menacingly like one might see in a horror film, but scratching at his window intently. He got up and walked over to the window. The owl noticed the attention and stopped scratching at the window, and as Richard opened the window, the owl curtly walked in and turned to its side, revealing a scroll tied to its leg.
"Well, that's awfully odd." Richard said to himself, and untying the strap gently, afraid of hurting the owl, he pulled the scroll loose and noticed it was addressed "Richard Oswald Kingsworth, 2nd second floor window, 1313 Church Street." Richard unrolled it and began to read it. "Aikenwood Academy wants you!" The headline read.
"Hello, my name is Thomaston Ebbershire, and I am Co-Headmaster of Aikenwood Academy of Witchcraft and Wizardry. It has been brought to my attention that you have wizarding blood, and whether you are aware of it or not, you yourself posses the rare and magnificent gift of magic. Now, you may not be aware of this, as The American Wizarding Community has tried to deter and diminish all American-born Wizards, but it is true, and as a result, we would like you to attend our school in the fall, so as to teach you to harness, control and command the rare talents you posses. If you are interested, please sign this parchment and return it with our owl and we will send a letter to your parents shortly. Please consider this invitation seriously, and we thank you for your time.
Thomaston Ebbershire,
Co-Headmaster of Aikenwood Academy of Witchcraft and Wizardry"
Not knowing what to think, he reached for the pen that lay on his nightstand beside his bed, when all of a sudden the owl let out a small hoot. Looking back at it, Rozzy noticed the owl was holding a feather quill in its beak, and it seemed to want Richard to take it from him. Reaching for the quill, Richard looked down at the letter in his hand and he noticed that in the upper left-hand corner there was now a glistening black spot of ink.
"Ok, here goes" He said unsure, and dipping the quill into the ink spot, he watched it absorbed some of the magical ink. Then, noticing the x and dotted line on the bottom of the parchment, he signed "Richard Oswald Kingsworth," rolled the parchment back up, tied it back to the owls' leg and watched as it marched back out the window and flew off into the night. Richard felt suddenly tired and lay back down and slept very soundly the rest of the night.
"Rozzy, wake up" where the first things he heard the next morning, followed by his mothers' fist pounding on his door. "Rozzy, phone, its Nikolas, honestly, are you going to sleep all day?"
He got up, walked over to his bedroom door while wiping the sleep from his eyes, opened the door and took the phone from his mother. His mother was slightly taller than him and slightly overweight with deep-sea green eyes and unnatural red hair, which was in a loosing battle with the gray hairs she had had for some time now. She smiled at him as he asked "mmm, what's for breakfast?" and she scurried downstairs to try to save the pancakes from burning.
"Hello?" Richard said dreamily.
"Roz, I gotta tell you about this wicked dream I had last night!" came the way-too-excited-for-this-early-in-the-morning voice of his best friend, Nikolas Newtree.
"Oh yeah, I bet I got one better than yours." Richard said, still half asleep.
"Dude, There was this owl, it came swooping in my window, landed on the corner of my bed, and DUDE, there was a letter addressed to me tied to his leg! It was so weird cause I could read-and you KNOW how you can very rarely read in dreams-it was about this school for witches' man, it was way-nefarious!"
Being set aback by him and Nikolas having the same dream, Richard rubbed the back of his neck where his hair was tickling it. He looked into the mirror and noticed his long, near naval-length "mop" as his step-father called it was in dire need of brushing. "Hey, Niko, let me call you back after I take a shower, ok man?"
"Alright man, but make sure and call me back, I wanna know what you think about my dream!" came the still excited voice of his best friend.
"Alright man, I will. I'll see ya..."
"Later man." came Nikos' response to their patented parting line.
Richard hung up the portable phone and laid it on the charger on the way to the bathroom. As he passed his sisters room, he could have sworn he heard her and her friend Tabitha still snoring and he wondered why his mother hadn't woken THEM up as well, but then he remembered it was the summer, probably even the weekend, and his best friend had called him, not her.
As he entered the bathroom and walked into his half of it, he reached over to his tub and turned all three knobs, the first and last halfway each and the one in the middle all the way, so he could enjoy a nice warm shower. He went back and closed the door to his half of the rest room and stopped at his toilet, took off his pajamas and proceeded to urinate, but noticed something weird about himself. He realized he had to lean almost to a ninety-degree angle so as not to miss the toilet, because his member was long, hard and quite unwilling to bend. By the time he was done his member had shrunk back to its normal size, and with a slight smile on his face, finally realizing what that meant, he stepped into the shower. He washed himself good, enjoying the feeling of the warm water rushing all over his body, the feel of the soap bubbles and then having them washed away, and then of course he washed his hair. Having not cut it since hearing that his father had died, it was almost always a point of agitation to his step-father, and it seemed to annoy him even more so when he was angered at him for some reason or another. Not that his step-father hated him, in fact, they got along pretty well most of the time, and he treated his mother the same way his father use to, as well as he could remember, and he knew that they both were good friends back in school. Reaching down and turning off the water, Richard shook his head violently, shaking out as much water from his long, brown hair as he could. Stepping out of the shower and reaching for his towel on the back of the door to his half of the bathroom, he noticed something in the mirror. Walking closer, he examined closer and saw that yes, he DID have a chest hair!
"Woot!" came his expression of excitement as he examined with more delight his first chest hair...then looking down under his belly button, he frowned as he saw no hair protruding yet from his pelvis. But then he remembered his first erection just this morning, and knew more hair would be coming.
After drying and brushing his hair, he wrapped his towel around his waist and walked proudly out of his half of the bathroom and back down the hall to his room. After shutting his door, pulling off his towel and examining his new chest hair again in the wall mirror, he walked over to his dresser and pulled out some underwear. Hoping they would be too small, he was disappointed as he found they still fit the same, but as he pulled on an ugly brown shirt his mother had bought him with and old airplane on it and his favorite jeans, he realized that that too, would soon come.
With his mind off his growing body and now on his empty stomach, Richard Oswald goes downstairs, skipping every other step. With the smell of the first batch of burnt pancakes still in the air, he sees his mother at work on a fresh batch as he reaches for the kitchen phone and dials up Nikolas' number.
"Yes, Hello, Mrs. Newtree, may I please speak to Nikolas?"
"Oh, Hello dear, I'm afraid Niki isn't here." said his mother, in her sweet yet slightly loud, almost grandmother-voice.
"Where did he go, he told me to call him right back?" Richard asked before thinking.
"He's on his way over dear; he should be there any moment. He seemed quite happy to know you were back this morning, said he couldn't wait to see you. Do have him call when he gets there, won't you?"
"Ok Mrs. Newtree, I sure will thank you." Richard hung up the phone, knowing he should have known better. He had been gone for 10 days to Aunt Marrys', and Nikolas hadn't been able to go this year because they were just getting in the day after Richards' family left for their summer vacation.
Just as Richards' mom sat the heaping plate of pancakes down on the table and Richard began to lob a few onto his own plate, Nikolas came bounding up the sidewalk and knocked on the door. As Richard let Nikolas in, his mother offered him a glass of milk as she finished pouring her son one.
"No thanks Mrs. Prince just finished my breakfast." Nikolas answered to Richards' mother. Sitting at the table opposite of Richard, Nikolas beamed as he said "So Rozzy, what d'ya think about my dream."
Richard, remembering what his friend had told him and remembering his own, similar dream thought at the question as he finished his mouthful of pancake, and answered "Tell me more about it."
After Nikolas recounted his dream in more detail and Richard had finished his plate of pancakes, the two went upstairs to Richards' bedroom, where Richard described to Nikolas his own "dream". As they both pondered the significance of the both of them having similar, though different dreams, there was a knock on Richards' door.
"Come in." Richard said.
The door opened and Richards' sister, Hope walked in. Hope is about 7 years old, with very short blonde hair (due to the fact that she pulls strands out to tickle her nose with while she sucks her thumb, so her mother keeps it cut short) and wearing a nightgown with winged unicorns on it. She looks at the both of them and says in a fairy-like voice "Mom wants you to come downstairs." She then turns around and heads back to her own bedroom, where a long-black haired, bright-orange eyed Tabitha is standing in a nightgown with flowers on it.
Shrugging their shoulders at each other, the boys walk downstairs, where Richards' mom has two bags of trash to be taken out (one which smells oddly like burnt pancakes). As they are toting the trash across the lawn, they notice the mail man stopping at Richard's mailbox to deposit some letters, and after heaving the bags of trash into the cans, they walk over to the mailbox, remove the letters from inside it and head back to the house. As they trot back across the lawn, Richard shuffles through the mail until he comes across an official looking document marked from "Aikenwood Academy". This catches Nikolas' eye too, and they stop and examine it together.
"No WAY!" Nikolas let's out "Rozzy, that WASN'T a dream! We really WERE visited by owls last night! There really are such things as witches and wizards, and we are going to be two of them!"
Not knowing what to say, Richard nodded in agreement and walked back inside with the letters and handed them to his mother.
Watching her as she shuffled through the mail ("Bill, Bill, Junk, Bill") and then finally coming to the Aikenwood Academy letter, the boys tried not to seem to suspicious (Nikolas poking about the pantry and Richard nosing through the refrigerator). As his mother tore it open and read it ("Dear Mrs. Prince...blah blah blah... new school...blah blah blah...bonefeied professors...blah blah blah...private boarding Academy of no cost..."). After reading it, she looked down at the boys who had abandoned their mock-refuging to stare at her, and asked "So, where did you hear about this new school?"
Shocked and not knowing what to tell her, Richard looked to Nikolas, who shrugged, and then he said the first thing that came to his mind, "A little bird told me".
After hearing this, his mother replied "And you'd be alright going to a boarding school, not coming home except for holidays?"
As he was about to answer, the phone rang and Richards' mother went to pick it up.
"Hello? Oh, hello Candice, how are you? Yes, he's here. What's that? Oh, he got a letter too then? Well, I don't know anything about it, but they seem to. Alright, I'll ask them."
Looking at each other as she turned back to them, Mrs. Prince asked them
"Well boys, should we throw these applications away or will you be going?"
Both being excited but very confused, the boys nodded then turned and smiled at each other.
"Ok Candice, will do, you take care now, ok? Uh-huh, will do, ok, goodbye." Mrs. Prince then hung up the phone and turned back to the boys. "Nikolas, your mother wants you home to help rake the yard."
"Ah, man."
"Go on now, your father's waiting."
"Alright."
"It was good to see you again."
"Yes ma'am, you too."
And with that, Nikolas hugged Richard and walked out the back door and disappeared up the sidewalk.
As his mother made her way to the laundry room, Richard snuck a peak at the application and noticed that it had no mention of witchcraft and wizardry or magical blood anywhere on it. No, it looked like an ordinary school application to him, only it wasn't an ordinary school. It was a boarding school, and despite his hopes, he couldn't help but feel slightly afraid that he and his best friend had just gotten themselves landed in a military school.