I woke up a few hours later, and the thought that it had all been a dream flashed through my head. But then I banished the thought. Somehow I knew it couldn't have been a dream. This was real.
"I wonder how mom is going to take this," I wondered, picking up the letter and taking it downstairs.
"Uh…mom? You kind of need to read this," I told her when I found her. She seemed oddly calm while reading this, and I wondered if she really believed it was real. Maybe she thought that it was just a cry for attention. Maybe she thought that I…
"I have something to tell you," said my mom, interrupting my thoughts.
"What?" I asked. She was probably going to launch into some lecture about how there are better ways of getting attention then lying.
"I'm a witch. When I fell in love with your father I found out that his parents didn't want anyone "odd" as you might say in the family. So I gave up my magical origin and hoped I wouldn't have to deal with it again. But then you came along and I knew that you were different. You can change your appearance because you are an animorphamagus. I tried to avoid it, but I knew you had magic blood in you," my mother explained. I just stood there in stunned silence. At first I couldn't believe it, but then I realized that she always seemed to do things faster then other moms. She could do seven loads of laundry in one day, ad wash tons of dishes in a matter of minutes.
"So when are we going to get my stuff?" I asked.
"We'll go to London this weekend," she replied, "now go up to your room while me and your dad get ready. We're going to a party tonight." I wanted to know how she could think about normal things like parties when something so big was happening, and I wanted to know where in London you could get wizarding things in London, but I was too tired. I just trudged up the stairs, thinking about how weird the day had been.
I climbed out the window and sat on the roof. I know that sounds crazy, but I have always found that my mind is clear when I am on the roof. It's kind of like I'm above the world, and no one can hurt me. I stayed up there until the sun sank low in the sky and I was feeling sleepy.
"So I'm really a witch," I said to myself as I fell asleep.
The next morning I got up and went downstairs. The house was empty.
"Mom! Mom, where are you?" I called. My voice echoed through the empty rooms. "She must not be home from the party yet. Why would she stay all night? She wouldn't do that. She would call if she was going to. She would never leave me alone all night!" I thought. But as I looked through all the rooms, my fear grew and grew. My heart skipped a beat as I heard the familiar ring of the phone.
"Hello? This is Caretta," I said into the phone.
"Caretta? I'm afraid I have some bad news for you," Said a gruff voice that I didn't recognize. "Who is this?" I asked. "Mr. Tony. You don't know me, but I have to tell you something," he answered. "Well, given the circumstances, I am quite unfit to deliver the news that partially…" He babbled on and on.
"GET TO THE POINT!" I snapped into the phone. He seemed a little surprised at the sudden interruption, but he kept talking.
"Your parents are… um," he cleared his throat nervously," dead." The words echoed in my head like a bouncy ball would bounce off the walls and ceiling, eventually crashing into something and shattering it into a million pieces. In this case, it was my world that was getting shattered.
"What? Where? How? When?" I practically screamed into the phone.
"It was a car accident. They were taken to the hospital for treatment, and were announced dead," he said indifferently. "Who am I going to live with?" I asked, in a voice that didn't sound like me at all.
"You will be taken to a group home for orphans until a suitable home is found for you," he replied. I cringed at the word orphan. "By the way, I'm the organizer of HCP, the Homeless Children Program. I will be by to pick you up. I expect you to be packed and ready to go," he said sternly. I wanted to shout that I wasn't homeless, but I just said goodbye and went up the stairs.
"How can this be happening? I'm just a normal girl!" I thought as I packed, "Well, except for the whole witch thing." My hair, I realized, had turned black, and my mouth was in a permanent frown. I wondered if I could possibly control my powers. But how? I pictured myself with a huge nose, and before I knew what was happening, I could barely hold up my face, my nose was so big. I pictured myself back to normal, and my powers obeyed. I practiced until I remembered why I was packing. How could I have forgotten it? I heard a car horn beep outside and I picked up my bag and got in the beat up old van that was waiting for me. No one spoke for the whole ride, and the tension was killing me. My hair turned blue for a minute, which it always does when I'm nervous, but I was getting very good at controlling my powers, and my hair was back to bright red in no time.
"This is it," Mr. Tony announced as he pulled into the driveway of an ordinary looking house. He rang the doorbell and a frazzled old lady with a baby in her arms answered.
"Hello Mrs. Wapsdoodle. I have another child to place in your care," Mr. Tony said slowly, as if Mrs. Wapsdoodle was hard of hearing.
"Go find a room dear. I'm sure that you'll be very happy here," Said Mrs. Wapsdoodle kindly. There were about 10 children running around as I headed up the stairs. I looked for a room that was empty and remotely clean, and I decided on the one with a yellow bed and the name Whitney scrawled all over the ceiling. I knew that I was definitely NOT going to be happy here, like Mrs. Wapsdoodle said I would be. Then another thought crawled into my head.
"How am I going to get to London, and to Hogwarts?" I wondered to myself. I thought of running away, sneaking out, lying, telling the truth, and even not going altogether, but I still didn't have any plans when I drifted off to sleep that night, counting how many times Whitney was written on the walls.