Chapter 3
The rain and the fog that had sprung up clouded Jed's vision as he left his home and started to walk down the street. But he didn't care. He wasn't headed to any particular place anyway. Jed kicked a stone ahead of him and proceeded to stare at the ground. What the hell was going on? First an owl flies to his house carrying a letter, and then a crazy old geezer comes into his life and tells him that he's a wizard, and then… his little fire incident. Jed shook his head. He wanted to kick something or someone. He was so confused.
Jed walked along for about 10 minutes, thinking of the crazy things that had happened to him, when all of a sudden he saw 2 bright lights in front of him, coming fast. Jed jumped out of the way of the oncoming truck and flipped the driver off. Who the hell would be driving that fast in this kind of weather? He threw a rock at the truck as it drove away, hoping it would break something expensive. Jed calmed himself down and continued to walk down the street.
Jed was only walking for a bit when he heard a creaking sound. Jed looked in front of where he was standing and saw that there was something huge up in the tree there. It looked like a gigantic… Cat? Jed moved forward cautiously as he tried to get a better look of the behemoth of a cat. Now he could see that the cat was as big as a German Shepard and had thick red fur and big green eyes. Then, right in front of his eyes, the big cat jumped from the tree and in mid-air transformed into a pretty red haired girl with big green eyes. Jed was dumbfounded as he watched the girl walk over to him and stop in front of him.
"Wha? How? Umm…" Jed stammered
"Oy, the name's Ciara. And yer name is?" She replied casually.
"Oh, ah… Jed. How do you do?"
"I'm good fer now. Just havin' a little fun at yer expense." She smiled wryly.
"Heh… Yeah…" Jed choked out
"Well. Sorry about almost runnin' yeh over earlier, that was me mum, she's horrible at drivin' all muggle transportation."
"Okay… I've heard that twice today. Muggle. What's it mean?"
"Heh. Yeh mean to tell me that yer a wizard that doesn't know what a muggle is?"
"Um… Yeah. Don't mean to sound stupid or anything."
" Muggles are common folk. Yeh know, non-magic users," She stated matter-of-factly.
"Heh. So… You from Ireland?"
"Yeh bet yer knickers I am, and proud of it. Yeh watch Quiddich?"
"No. What's that supposed to be? Sorry to sound stupid again."
"Eh. Yeh don't know anything do yeh? Come on over to my place, I'll explain things to yeh."
Jed smiled and walked with her to the front door of a brightly lit house with a large oak tree in front of it. As Ciara opened the door, the smell of freshly baked cookies assaulted his nostrils. He smiled as he saw a woman carrying a large tray of cookies over to a coffee table in the dining room of the house. Ciara's mother motioned them inside from the rain. Ciara introduced the boy to her mother, and Jed walked over to her mom and shook her hand. "Well, what's yer name lad?" Jed smiled and replied, "Jed. Jed Riley." Ciara's mom stopped abruptly. "Son of Martha and Steven Riley?" Jed nodded his head. Ciara's mother's smile suddenly drooped. "Ciara, put out the fireplace." She said quickly. Jed wondered, what the hell was going on?