Deer Jneen,
Yuo wud nat buleev tteh dey iv hadd! Wee rod oan a majik buss nad it whent undarwatear! it waz rily crassy! wel wee ar saf in Inglunt naw.
Iel rite mor sun!
Claudia
Wow.
I mean, really, wow.
Jessi had gotten a letter (sent by an owl, isn't that fresh?) telling her that we needed to wait on an abandoned road outside Stoneybrook to catch our ride to Hogwarts. It was kind of weird, but we went with it. This was a school, so everything should be fine, right?
The whole BSC was coming along--besides Jessi and me, of course, Kristy, Mary Anne, Dawn, Mallory, Stacey, and Abby were coming. My mom said when we were leaving that we should be thankful that Mrs. Brewer was a gold-digger, which I thought was silly. Mrs. Brewer works in an office, and there are no gold mines in Stoneybrook.
I had dressed in one of my more spectacular outfits for the occasion. I wore a dark purple sweatshirt that went down to my knees, which I had decorated with yellow and orange puff paint stars. Under that, I had a long black hoop skirt that I had made myself out of an old hula hoop. I didn't have a proper witch's hat, so instead I went to Dellamar's, the huge ice cream store in Washington Mall, and got the biggest ice cream cone they had. After I ate the ice cream, I painted the cone black and wore it on my head. To top it all off, I'd painted my face green. I thought I looked perfect to go to a school for witches and wizards.
"So what do you know about this place, Jessi?" I asked. "Do they have a good art program?"
Jessi opened her mouth to speak, but Mary Anne cut her off. "Hogwarts was founded over a thousand years ago by four powerful witches and wizards. They wanted to make a center for magical learning where young people could be educated in the ways of magic."
"What's that book you're carrying, Mary Anne?" Kristy asked. Instead of her usual armful of pamphlets and guidebooks, Mary Anne only had a single fat book sitting on top of her suitcase.
"Hogwarts, A History," Mary Anne replied. "It's very--"
Thankfully, Mary Anne was cut off by a loud bang and a cloud of smoke. Out of nowhere, a giant purple bus had appeared! I was excited--we were seeing real magic already!
A guy who had some serious need of some skin cream leaned out of the bus. "New witch from Stoneybrook, right?" he asked. I couldn't believe his accent!
"Yes, that's me," Jessi said. "And everyone else here is coming, too."
The guy gave us a suspicious look. "Awright, lotsa witches from Stoneybrook this year. Come on, welcome to the Knight Bus. I'm Stan Shunpike." He started helping us with our luggage.
"Wait a minute," I said. "I'm pretty sure England is across an ocean, right? By California? How is a bus going to get us there?"
Stan gave me a dirty look for some reason. "It's magic," he muttered. I thought that was pretty rude, but he was loading up my twelfth suitcase, which I remembered was the heavy one.
We climbed aboard the bus, which was the strangest bus I'd ever seen. It had beds instead of seats! We were the only ones on the bus, which I guess made sense. There probably aren't too many people riding a bus from Stoneybrook to England.
Stan finished loading my bags (he'd finished with everyone else's about ten minutes before) and got back in the bus. "To Diagon Alley, then?" he asked Jessi. Jessi nodded. "All right, then. Ernie!" An old man in the driver's seat who had been sleeping sat up straight. He kicked the bus into gear and we were off.
We zipped across the abandoned road while we got comfy. The beds made it feel like a big slumber party on wheels, and even Mary Anne put down her enormous book for a bit. We all talked and giggled and wondered about the boys at Hogwarts, except for Stacey, who was talking to Stan about Clearasil.
The bus hit a bump in the road, and my ice cream cone hat fell off. I reached for it just in time to see the ocean rushing towards us! I screamed in terror (unfortunately Stan was standing right beside me). But the bus swooped down into the water like some kind of submarine, and the next thing we knew, we were driving across the ocean floor.
It took us about three hours to cross the ocean, and even though it was totally dibble, I was really happy to see land again. Plus I was hungry and I'd already eaten my hat.
"Look!" Mary Anne cried. "It's London!"
Sure enough, there it was. It was a beautiful old city, and I reminded myself to draw some pictures before we left. The Knight Bus pulled up in front of a seedy-looking little bar. "The Leaky Cauldron," Stan said. He sighed deeply. "Can I help you ladies with your bags?"