Chapter 5
The weekend flew by before Rozzy and Niko knew it. They hardly talked about Nikos' mother at all, in fact, it wasn't mentioned but once, and that was when she had called and Hope had asked about her. Niko didn't shed a tear; he merely turned his back on her and looked at Rozzy when he said "Sh…she's doing fine." Of course she didn't know, and there was no need to tell her, either. She was just a stupid little girl after all, and stupid little girls didn't need to know about such things. That's the way Rozzy looked at it, and he was sure Niko looked at it the same way.
Niko went home early Sunday evening to pack his bags. Another letter had come, which had said a bus would be picking them up from their homes Monday morning. This hadn't seemed too odd to either of them, as they had rode the bus to school before, but Rozzy still couldn't help wondering whether it would be Wizard or a War pig driving the bus. The idea of a witchcraft school was still a bit farfetched for him.
Monday morning came after a good nights' sleep, considering a weird dream had made the night pass rather quickly. In this dream, Rozzy was back in the woods in his back yard. He was climbing the telephone old poles again. As he looked over the wall, he saw the black haired man in the black shirt and pants once again. He heard Niko coming up behind him, he turned to look at him, then turned back to look at the intruder once more. There was the loud "pop" but instead of seeing noone, he saw a coin. In fact, it wasn't just any coin; it was a coin that looked a lot like his dad's coin. No, it WAS his dad's coin. He could tell because as it rotated on some invisible axis, he saw his father's initials scratched into the back of it. Just as it was rotating back around, everything went black…then a second later everything went white. All of a sudden Rozzy was looking at his reflection in a mirror…when he noticed it wasn't a mirror at all, but panes of glass in a door. This door belonged to a school bus, and as the doors swung open, he saw middle-aged, shaggy-haired man wearing a tattered old denim jacket over an old t-shirt of what looked like Ac/Dc. As he stepped up into the bus, he felt light-headed at first, but finally comfortable as he took a seat right behind the bus driver. He noticed his bags where in a seat across from him. He sat down and the bus rolled forward. He was about to ask the bus driver his name when he said "I'm Charles Goodenough, caretaker of Aikenwood Academy." As they passed Nikos' house, before Rozzy could open his mouth to ask if they were going to stop, Charles flipped a switch that sent the bus rocketing. The bus was going so fast that it seemed as if they had slipped into a worm hole or time warp or something. All the color was gone outside the bus except for random blurs here and there. Just as soon as it had began, the rocketing stopped with the flick of the switch once more by the caretaker. They pulled up behind a line of school busses, which had all seemed to arrive at the same time. Indeed, it seemed odd that they all looked the same and only one child stepped out of each bus as it pulled up to the front of a decrepit looking old building.
When it came turn for Rozzys' bus to pull up to the building, he grabbed his bags and went to walk out the door. As soon as he did, he found himself lying back in his bed. He sat up and looked around. He was still in his bedroom at his house. He lay back down and tried to think about the first half of his dream. "Why was dad's coin in the middle of the woods where that man was the other day?" he thought to himself. He thought on this a good while, trying to figure out who that stranger might have been, why he had dreamt of it and then what it had to do with the second half of his dream. By the smell that had floated into his room, breakfast was being cooked downstairs, so he got up and dashed down to see how badly his mother was going to burn it today.
After a surprisingly well cooked breakfast, Rozzy toted all his stuff he was taking downstairs and into the living room. Out the front door at a little past 7 and onto the sidewalk next to the mailbox he waited for the bus to arrive. As he waited, he wondered how many people were going to be on the bus, how many of them he would know, and most of all, how many of them, like himself, still thought the whole wizarding school idea was a crock of bologna. Rozzy was taken aback a bit as he watched the bus approach from around the corner. It was the same bus from his dream last night. "Coincidence," he thought. As it pulled up to the sidewalk next to his house and the door opened, Rozzy knew he was dead wrong. The same shaggy-haired man in his mid 30's was at the helm of the bus, wearing the same denim jacket and Ac/Dc shirt from his dream last night. Rozzy toted his stuff into the bus, piled it in the seat opposite the one behind the driver and sat down behind him. The door closed, and Rozzy knew what would happen next. He gripped the edge of the seat in front of him as the driver flipped the switch and the bus rocketed forward.
"You're Charles Goodenough, right?" Rozzy said to the driver
"Yeah, that's me." The driver chuckled.
The same random blurs of color were the only light now that the bus was blasting by everything. This got the best of Rozzy, so he spoke up and asked "How fast are we going?"
"Couldn't tell ya." Came Charles' response
"What do you mean; doesn't this thing have a speedometer?" Rozzy replied
"Well, it does, but Muggle devices like speedometers can't calculate speed for magical travel. See, we're not exactly driving down the highway. You'll soon learn all about magical traveling once ya get to school, but since I'm just the caretaker, it ain't my place to teach ya stuff like that." And with that, Charles flicked the switch on the dash once more and the bus was rolling down a path in the woods, though Rozzy had no idea where.
The bus came to a stop behind a line of other busses just like the one he was in, and he watched as they one by one pulled up to the same decrepit building, unloaded one child and their luggage, then sped off into the woods and disappeared with a loud "crack". When Rozzys' bus finally pulled up to the building, he noticed it looked like an ancient catholic church. After unloading all his stuff, he turned to ask Charles something, but already the doors were closed and he was seeing his reflection in the glass pains of the door. The bus sped off and then, just like all the others, disappeared with a loud "crack" as it turned the corner. Rozzy looked once more at the building, and just when he was making up his mind to go in, the next bus had pulled up behind him. He turned to look at who climbed out of it, and who should he see but the Lancaster sisters, getting up from their seats in the back of the bus. Hastily turning back around, he hefted up his gear and headed on towards the building, hoping not to have caught the glance of the girls. Just as he made it up the stairs and reached the front door as it swung open, he heard their shrill and high-pitched demon-like voices call out "Oh little Raaaah-zzeeeee!" in unison.
Not wanting to look around to see how close they were, he held tight to his bags as he saw Nikos' arm reach through the door and yank him and his stuff in. The door slammed behind them and Rozzy poured out thanks to Niko for saving his life yet again as he dropped his stuff on the floor.
After regaining his composure, he looked around and saw some 30 students standing around, all gazing down at the floor. Moving his stuff against the wall where Nikos' travel bag, teddy bear and pillow were, he then walked over to stand with the other students to catch a glimpse of what they were looking at. The pattern of the floor was moving – constantly swirling – as if it were a giant drain of some sort. The gas or liquid or whatever it was made odd shapes as it constantly swirled into oblivion; it would bubble, twist and contort in many different ways. Sometimes it even made faces! One tall and plump student with dirty blonde hair – who Rozzy recognized instantly as Berry Corbin - proceeded to stomp onto the center of the swirl pattern. The effect this had was quite amazing, as it sent ripples throughout the rest of the floor, quite like a lake after a rock has been tossed into it. The students around Berry showed their approval with "oos" and "ahs". Being the attention whore that he was, Berry jumped higher to try and get more of a response. The ripples passed under their feet faster and bigger. This produced more oos and ahs and some clapping. Again Berry wanted more attention, so he jumped higher and harder this time. The applause was even louder as the waves went crashing under the crowds' feet. With a smile full of arrogance and self, he jumped harder and harder and harder still, and on the third bounce of this barrage, something unexpected happened: the floor cracked. Immediately there was a deafening gust of wind coming from the floor, sucking everything it could down into the floor. Berry's feet were already gone as he was sucked in slowly by the force of the swirl. There were screams, Rozzy could tell as he and Niko clung together to the banister of the nearby stairs, but those screams seemed lost as a siren was now wailing loudly over the gusting winds. All of a sudden, there were streams of bright colored light flashing from everywhere towards the floor, and just as quickly as the chaos had started, it was over. All the students were huddled on the ground, still holding their ears. All the students that is, except Berry Corbin, who was buried up to his shoulders in the floor. For half a second Rozzy thought he should be made to stay there, but then he finally felt sorry for Berry, even though he did deserve it. Everyone stood up and watched with great interest as this tall, thin lady wearing forest green robes and a black witches hat points her wand at Berry's head and with a word none of them understood and a flash of light, Berry was all of a sudden standing in the middle of the floor. He was still squinting, and when he opened his eyes, he saw that his pants had been torn away, his legs were cut and bleeding and that the front of his underwear were yellow and soaked. Feeling very embarrassed, he put his hands down in front of his underwear to try to block them from view, but the damage was already done. Everyone in the entrance hall was laughing hysterically. There were three exceptions to this picture of pure joy, however. Neither the tall thin woman with the brown hair who had saved Berry from the floor, the plump young man with red hair and mustard-colored top hat who had appeared beside her nor Berry Corbin himself found it amusing whatsoever.
Berry ran off towards back wall, opened the double doors and closed them behind him. The short, plump man looked at the tall, thin woman, who nodded at him, and he made his way after Berry as she cleared her throat very loudly to begin speaking.
"Attention everyone," She said and the students immediately hushed up. "I am Margarina Castleton, Co-headmaster of the Aikenwood Academy of witchcraft and wizardry. I want to welcome you all and ask that you please NOT jump on the swirl-o-floor anymore. The ghouls underneath cannot be held responsible for any damage they do, though YOU will be if you let them out. They are imprisoned there for a reason and we thought the design would be appropriate for your amusement, however, another example of abusing this privilege will result in the removal of their holding chamber and expulsion of whomever decides to let them out. Now, if you will, Ladies up the staircase my left, and Gentlemen up the staircase behind me to the right. You will find your rooms assigned when you reach the bedding chambers. That is all, thank you."
And with that, she turned her back and proceeded to the double doors at the end of the hallway, which Berry and the plump man had walked through. As Niko and Rozzy grabbed their stuff and headed towards the steps, they noticed they were moving like an escalator. "Not to bad then?" Niko asked his pal as they stepped onto the automated steps and ascended upwards. "Nah, I don't think so," came Rozzys' reply as he hugged his best friend.
The stairs did not stop on the second floor, and when Edward Smith tried to step off, he was flung back onto the conveyor belt that turned and continued ascending to the third floor. He got to his feet, shrugged his shoulders and said "Guess we aren't staying on that floor then," and turned back around. They rode the escalating staircase all the way to the fourth floor, where they were finally let off. As they trotted down the hall, they noticed their names were written with gold in pairs on the doors. Edward Smith was paired with Berry Corbin, Chris Sowell and Ben Connell were roomed together, Robbie Letters and Jeff Franklin were paired, and in the room at the very end of the hall on the left Rozzy and Niko were rooming together.
"Well, Richard Kingsworth and Nikolas Newtree, here we are" said Niko as Rozzy swung open the door. The both of them gasped in amazement as they walked in.