Wednesday, 07/14/93

Okay, so I kinda forgot about how as I left Gertrude, the day healer, said I should be detailing stuff I remember and go through like I'm talking to someone because it's supposed to help or whatever, and she didn't just give it to me because I talked her ears off.

Where did I leave off? Oh right, being released from St. Mungos. So my family didn't freak out. Well, I'm sure they did internally because Dad signed me up for a bunch of one-on-one self-defense classes.

Calling it only "Self defense" would be taking things a little lightly. So Dad really asked his old military pals what I should take. They all suggested personalized classes by a flippin Former Green Beret instructor!

To quote him, what he teaches is "only the useful stuff from 'effective' martial arts styles." That means no bit of philosophy or any of that other fun jazz you might get from good ol' martial arts.

The bit of martial arts experience I had before this was being a red belt in taekwondo. I took alongside Mike for fun after school. But I gave it up, along with ballet, when I found out I was a witch. It felt weird to abandon Mike in something we were doing for so long, but Paulina picked it up sometime after I left, and she got her blue belt last week!

What I'm trying to say is that I haven't been doing awesome in those classes. I discover a new bruise like every other day, which is oddly low because I go six days out of the week.

My summer would've been pretty boring and downright, plain exhausting if it weren't for Mike and Paulina.

How Mike and I became friends is kinda funny to me, now that I think of it. It was lunchtime, and our kindergarten class sat across the same long table. Mike spontaneously laughed, and when a boy asked him why, he said that it was because everyone was eating a modern-day dinosaur. Kristy Nelson insisted he was lying, and when I overheard, I explained to the table how scientists believe they evolved from theropods.

We both got called into the office the next day, with my mom and Mr. Tanaka trying not to laugh at the complaints of how we turned kids partly vegetarian. It turned out that both of us had a subscription to a children's science magazine that was intended for ages eight and up. Our parents set up a bunch of playdates after this, but all we wanted to do was go to the library.

We drained every children's paleontology-related text in a matter of days in our local library, despite neither of us not knowing how to read at the time. We'd usually get one of those high school kids—desperately trying to meet community service hours—to read to us. We even started to give those poor volunteers research papers to read when the librarian said there were no more college textbooks for us to listen to.

In second grade, someone spread a rumor that we were a secret couple, so we tried holding hands to see if they were even partly true—but it weirded us out too much. We both mutually decided we were siblings that day, with me being a single child and him with two older sisters that were off in college at the time.

Mike's the only person outside my immediate family that knows about magic. He experienced it first hand before I even got my Ilvermorny letter. This is cause one day, when we were six and eating these fruit popsicles, he started calling me by my full name. The popsicle that was dripping in his froze to his tongue. It shocked both of us, and he suggested I try freezing a puddle but only crystallized it a bit. He said it would be best for my own good not to tell anyone about my superpower, or else the government might come after me and do experiments on me like in comics.

Kinda funny, really, but he also was the same person who asked me to cool his drinks when no one was looking. So telling him about my Ilvermorny letter wasn't something I even hesitated to do. But, unfortunately, I eventually lost the ability to cool things without a wand once I started learning spells.

Mike did have a visible freak out after I told him about my short stay at St. Mungos. He asked me about a kajillion questions to make sure I was doing alright. I think he was more upset about the confundus thing than I was.

Paulina is hands down the most intelligent person I've ever met. When our teacher was incompetent at his job in third grade, he grouped us with Paulina so she could teach us, long division. The thing Mike and I were struggling on for weeks made sense in a matter of minutes with her. So, as any pair of eight-year-olds would, we concluded we wanted to make her our new best friend.

Also, Mike won't tell anyone else this and didn't even tell me until I figured it out a couple of days ago, but he has this major crush on her, and I think it's pretty sweet. I'm not sure if it's requited, since Paulina is not the easiest person to read, but I think it's sweet.

We each have subjects we've been passionate about learning, so we just tutored each other about what we were learning and eventually got ahead of our classmates. Even though our interests have been all over the place, we each have the subjects we enjoy when it comes to school. Mike's pretty into the humanities. Paulina has an affinity for Math and Physics, while I enjoy learning Bio and Chem. After constantly teaching each other stuff, in the fifth grade, we became the ten students chosen from our large public school in Rockville to attend Kensington Prep on a scholarship.

We all ended up skipping the sixth grade the year I started at ilvermorny. My mom didn't want the opportunity to study at a nationally renowned school to go to waste, so she somehow convinced them that I would be "homeschooled" for three out of four possible quarter terms in the year. Still, she also wanted me to experience normal school, so you bet I was signed up for the summer term. The type of people who attend the summer term are either trying to show off on their college applications or are making up classes. It's usually the first one since Kensington is pretty cutthroat when it comes to their level of academic expectations.

Despite doing relatively well in school, I would never consider myself naturally intelligent. I usually have to work twice as hard as everyone else to understand some concepts or read the same page a couple of times to get the gist of it. So I guess it all just boiled down to luck of who I hung out with and how we encouraged each other to learn about stuff we found fascinating.

I'm honestly pretty lucky that Mike and Paulina both wanted to take the summer quarter with me because I'm not really good at making new friends or keeping them. I tend to talk a lot when I'm excited about something or ramble for no apparent reason like I am right now. Talking to people isn't my strong suit. I guess I've always just been the odd one out, but I've never really minded it; whenever I felt lonely in Ilvermorny, I would just dunk my head in a book or get lost in my thoughts. I guess that's just worked for me.

As for how my day went, we stayed after school to use the library for our presentation on Friday. Then, we went to Paulina's while she babysat her little one-year-old brother, Pedro, in the evening. We spend evenings over at her place on days when Mr. and Mrs. Ibarra can't leave the hospital that early.

After finishing homework, we'd take turns entertaining Pedro until he took a nap. Then we played Dungeons and Dragons, with Paulina as dungeon master because Mike and I always try to kill each other off whenever that's our role. Plus, Paulina's narration is like the best thing in the world, so no complaints there.

Friday, 07/16/93

I got ready in a rush this morning because I overslept a bit. This meant that I didn't have time to properly do my hair or coordinate an outfit that wasn't all black. After noticing my grandma was still asleep, I decided to have the all-so-healthy Cinnabon's for breakfast.

When I finished up, I noticed that Mike was tapping his foot impatiently beside his bike, looking down at his calculator watch with despair.

"Aw, man! Now we can't catch up with Paulina." He pouted and gave me puppy-dog eyes. "You made me sad."

"But I got you this." I held out a Cinnamon roll wrapped in parchment paper.

He accepted my peace offering. "I'm no longer sad," he said with his face lighting up.

I forgot my watch inside, so I read the time off his wrist upside down.

"If you eat quickly and we bike fast, we'd still have fifteen minutes before class with her."

He tossed the entire roll in his mouth, took out his keys to unlock the door, and zoomed into the kitchen to wash his hands and throw away the parchment, ran onto his bike—all in a matter of like fifteen seconds or less.

"Last one there is a rotten egg!"

"Hey, no fair, I wasn't ready!" I yelled after him as I was getting on my bike and securing my helmet.

I may not be the most athletic person, but I do enjoy biking to school and back. In those seven miles between home and school, there are so many little things I just adore, like archways of trees over some streets or the ornate mailboxes old-style houses still possess. Heck, I even adore the cherry blossom trees that I've only seen bloom during spring break.

It's never really bothered me, but most people don't walk, bike, take the bus, or drive to school with their parents or drive themselves in a normal car. See, Kensington prep is filled with kids of very, very influential families across the east coast. There are those that are chauffeured to school in their limousines, Rolls-Royce, or Bentleys and those that would drive sports cars to school. There are even those that casually go to school with their private helicopters. Yeah, I couldn't believe the school has a helipad either, much less people that actually fly in from the upper east side and back. Every. Single. Day.

I'm genuinely certain that the only reason they give about a couple full-ride scholarships a year to regular public school kids in Maryland is to just increase the school's diversity. Of course, the occasional nepotism is expectantly still a thing here, but other than that, students are all treated the same. Even though many of these kids have private tutors to help them, we all go through the same level of academic rigor. By rigor, I mean insane loads of coursework or the classes that you can take at the nearby college.

So I've gotten used to seeing cars that cost more than the average person's home every day when I arrive at school.

When we got to school, Paulina wasn't outside class; We looked all over for her just to find her in the library using the computers. She has been programming obsessively during her free periods, working on a game with Mike. They both are going for this high school competition in Bethesda for prize money and internship opportunities. They let me be the video game tester to catch any bugs and give feedback since I had no idea how to comprehend the code besides knowing what the symbols were for; I've only commented that I thought indigo works better than violet.

Mike went up to her to say good morning, but she hushed him because she was in the coding zone, patching this pesky bug that's been bothering them for the whole week. She pressed enter and ran the simulation. "Mikey, look I did it!" She stood up, pointing at the boxy screen with a huge smile on her face.

Mike, out of nowhere, placed a quick peck on her cheek and gave her a tight hug in which he spun her around. I don't think he realized how quickly he reacted until he pulled apart with both their cheeks flushed. He then went, "Uh— awesome job Polly," with his voice cracking. I had my fun teasing Mike over her shoulder until he glared at me to stop.

"Yeah, I couldn't have done it without you," Paulina replied, smiling.

I skipped my way to class, teasing Mike relentlessly when Paulina wasn't paying attention to us.

We had Mr. Zielinski for US History for first period, a required class we'd dread to take if he wasn't our teacher. Every Friday, if someone wrote a detailed report with good citations and an overall summary presentation, the class gets to watch a movie. So Mike and I wrote about how Columbus was nothing but a monster. Most people don't think of the so-called "hero" as someone who enslaved, maimed, and murdered thousands of peaceful Taino but remember him by the heavily embellished Washington Irving and Antione-jean Letronne books.

Zielinski found our report good enough that he assigned a test on Monday on it. He put on Dead Poets Society from where we left off last week, and I, like most, dozed off.

Apparently, I smacked away Mike's hand multiple times as he tried to wake me, so Paulina was left with no choice but to wake me up telling me I'm late for a pop quiz in physics. I started muttering random formulas, scrummaging my backpack for my book just to realize I didn't pack the night before and that we don't actually have it today.

The period after this was PE, and I despise that lesson more than any other subject, and that's a lot coming from me since I really hate how much homework I gotta do for other classes.

We had to run two miles in under twenty-five minutes, and I just barely finished under that, meaning I didn't have to run eight laps next week. But, of course, Mike and Paulina finished in like ten minutes.

They made us play lacrosse, afterward, in teams of three. Guess who's the only person on our team not wanting to try out for Junior varsity of the sport in the fall. Me! It's not like I can, but I wouldn't want to if I could. The thought of people ramming into me does not sound fun.

I might've used that weird little ability of mine to help me pick up the ball and not miss while throwing it because the faster either team one, the more time before classes we have. That being said, I just passed the ball to my friends cause I did not feel like getting shoved.

Classes afterward were pretty boring as we were just going over how to solve the homework. I'm so glad school ends around lunchtime on Fridays, like you have no idea.

We went to the mall like usual, eating lunch at the food court. Then I noticed them whispering stuff amongst themselves. Paulina got up and said she was going to the bathroom but didn't want me to come with her. I found that strange, but as she walked away, I started teasing the hell out of Mike as any good sister would. It's like a duty of mine to fill in for Mia and Michelle.

"It was like you were on autopilot." I chuckled, looking at him with his cheeks as red as a tomato. "But in all seriousness, I admire your sudden show of courage."

He scoffed. "Pshh whaddya mean by 'sudden'? I've always been courageous."

I suppressed a laugh. "Yeah, sure, but your face when you realized what you did was absolutely priceless." I imitated his panicking look.

"C'mere, you little witch." He gave me a noogie, effectively messing up my double dutch braids but not hurting one bit.

He stopped as Paulina came back holding a cupcake with a lit candle. I realized what it meant. When they finished singing happy birthday, I made the same wish I've made for years now, that I would never ever lose these two as friends. I made sure to tell them how thankful I am for them.

I split the large cupcake with them, cutting it into three equal sizes.

After we finished eating, Mike emptied his bag. Then, he passed us each a hoodie and put a variety of snacks on the table.

"Movies?" I asked a little too joyfully.

He looked me sternly in the face. "Nah, we're going around reselling candy like Girl Scouts."

I genuinely thought he was serious until Paulina stopped tittering and told me, "He's kidding."

I let out an awkward laugh.

I can never really identify sarcasm. Like I always miss the obvious tells in front of me.

"But we saw Jurassic Park for the second time last week? Are we gonna watch it again?"

Mike chose Hocus Pocus for us to watch because he wanted to know which bits of magic was real or not. We succeeded in sneaking in snacks, and I made sure that Mike sat between me and Paulina.

The movie was pretty hilarious in the way it depicted witches. I liked the closure we got at the ending too. But my favorite part was Mike asking me every couple of scenes if I could do any of the magic bits until I gave him some chips in the dark using telekinesis and informed me that was all I could do without a wand.

"Beats the ice powers you lost," he whispered.

"I know right."

Paulina kept shushing us so we wouldn't get kicked out.

Saturday, 08/14/93

I actually enjoy the county fair. I know it doesn't really help small businesses that much but some of the booths are pretty fun.

My mom, for some reason, agreed to let Mike, Paulina, and I run our own booth on the condition one of our parents would be watching. Luckily, it was on the weekend, so Mike's mom kept an eye on us from the bench over.

We ran a divination booth. I didn't use any of the fancy-schmancy xylomancy stuff I learned at Ilvermorny because it'd be too obvious.

Paulina handled the transactions, Mike kept guard beside her, and I was the fortune teller.

All I did was use tarot and oracle cards—that I figured out how to read from some Wiccan books at the library— and Turkish coffee, which my mom taught me how to read.

Most of the people that came in were mostly middle-aged, asking about their partners. I had little kids come in and ask if they would get superpowers like my Claircognizance or something, but that was about it.

I had a competitor this year, unlike the past two, with this so-called medium. So I decided to check out his booth, and it was all like, "your uncle whose name starts with a 'J' is trying to communicate with you," but I don't have any dead uncles with "J" names, and he kept suggesting popular names that start with that letter.

It became hilarious to me when he insisted that he was right. And I just got up, and he warned me, "Oh but he will die soon."

To which I replied, "I don't even have any uncles with that letter name," and walked out laughing.

Yeah, I know the twenty-something-year-old was just trying to make a quick buck, but I just wanted to see if they were legit or not.

As I got back to my little makeshift hut, which had a few scented candles, way too many fake crystals, and other stuff we thrifted, I noticed a crow on the satin-covered table.

The crow pecked at the table to show two miniature letters that grew to normal size in about a minute. One was an Ilvermorny letter that listed my transfer process, and the other was a Hogwarts acceptance letter that included a list of supplies I may need for the year.

I was kinda surprised to see a crow since it's usually a raven or robin that delivers mail, but they just transfigure the owls specifically to where you are.

Speaking of which, I kinda like MACUSA's mailing system. You buy some cheap stamps from vendors that you can find in about any normal area. Since the wizarding community is so intertwined here that they are indistinguishable at times. No, seriously, I mean it. Like I usually get my stamps and other wizard essentials from the gas station near Paulina's house or the fabric store at the mall. I only go to busier cities in the DMV, like DC, when it comes back to school shopping.

It's this sorta owl sign you gotta look out for in some places. It's very subtle, and not many No-Maj folks can even pay attention to it without a confundus charm being cast. The same thing happens when you try to gain entry to those places by waving your wand around the owl's mark, No-Majs who saw you would just be confunded.

Speaking of owls, I like how the mailing system works here. I think it's one-of-a-kind compared to other places. They kinda redesigned the whole system after Grindelwald's demise. So if you want to send a letter or package, those stamps you get from licensed vendors have to be put on your desired item to deliver, along with a name and strong intent to send it to another person.

After you've put on a stamp, you'd use a regular federal mailbox. But what happens is that the thing you just send gets teleported to the appropriate MUSPS (Magical United States Postal Service) that's about in the same building as every other USPS, and from there on, an owl picks up your letter.

Highly skilled workers are responsible for how smooth the mail is. After a random owl picks your mail up, a talented charmer uses a tracking spell to determine where they are heading and if the mail may include anything suspicious. If mail isn't deemed suspicious, they then give the location to a transfigurer who quickly picks the right bird to change it to that area they are flying over or heading to.

I appreciate the sheer elegance of how damn quick letters are sent and received compared to traditional owl service. There are wizards working day and night with countless owls. The thing is, no one can own an owl without signing a form to never send mail using them since it can disrupt their orchestrated traffic, and MACUSA has no way to flag potential dangerous mail.

Every family is given an enchanted emergency whistle to use if they need the message to get there instantly.

International mail is weird because you can teleport things back and forth between some counties while others require the special use of birds. I tried understanding it, but it was too much.

The way Paulina sent me mail was pretty complicated. Mike and I convinced her that my "ultra-strict" boarding school in Massachusetts would only let you see mail from one friend and that I chose Mike because he tends to spam sometimes. Of course, this wasn't true at all, but she went along with it despite being suspicious. So, like, Mike works as a mailman between us. I really wish that one day I could tell her about the magic and talk about school the way I do with Mike.

Also, gosh damn it, going over my notes from the last few years is incredibly hard because my handwriting is just that illegible. And damn it, that "self-defence" class that's borderline combat training is getting even harder every time I slightly progress. Jeez, dude won't like gimme a break.

Sunday, 08/22/93

I just bought the sunset edition of the New York ghost, and there are still theories posted about me in the magimedical news section. But I saw something weird about how this "autobiographical" author, Gilderoy Lockheart, was obliviated. He kept getting compared to "Obliviate girl," which, by the way, is a horrible name. It sounds like a scrapped superhero that neither Marvel nor DC comics would ever wanna use.

I remember so many people being into his books, but I couldn't really get myself into reading past the first couple pages of his book without wanting to put it down. Something about the way he narrates sounds like he's a wannabe Fabio. His books are probably only "semi-autobiographical" at best with the way he talks about himself. Like I don't buy that one person did all that with no triumphs or scars.

I didn't feel like reading the newspaper during school, which ended a few days ago, I'm just glad I got out unscathed. But, honestly, I wouldn't wish what I experienced on my archenemy, not like I have one. But still, I wouldn't if I did.

As usual, I started my day off going over to Mike's house, which is only a few blocks away. Mrs. Tanaka is honestly one of the nicest people I've ever met. She practically treats us like we're her dizygotic twins sometimes and doesn't differentiate her treatment towards us much.

My mom is the same with Mike when she isn't caught up with work. Like both, her and dad serve as translators/interpreters for the government, which requires a ton of hours, and I only really see them for a few hours in the evenings or super early in the morning if I'm lucky.

Mike's Mom drove us up to Baltimore to hang out at the Inner Harbor. There are a bunch of magic Pavilions embedded in normal buildings that I need to use a charmed map to keep track of. Thankfully, she didn't stay super close to us but rather spent time with Mr. Tanaka just nearby.

Every little building we hit up was amazing. The national aquarium holds a ton of cool species of normal sea life and magical creatures. I find the mermaids flippin scary, though. I expected them to look like King Triton's daughters in the little mermaid. I adamantly believe Jaws would've been a lot scarier if it had a mermaid instead of a shark.

There's also the science center that Mike and I would only wanna leave if you drag us out. Some exhibits are only viewable like other places if you wave your wand near the owl statue to gain access. I just gotta say that the astronomy area in the magical area is just jaw-droppingly amazing, even greater than the regular planetarium. Like you can interact with the bewitched stars. Trying to pull Mike out of looking for life on Mars was incredibly hard until I threatened to tell Paulina about his crush. It was only a bluff, but it worked.

My favorite place we went to was the one we came here for, the Barnes & Noble in the old power plant. It's got all the original support beams and architecture with books perfectly organized all around it.

The interactive map showed that the portal was on one of the bookshelves in a back corner, where people hardly gravitate towards. As I got my wand out, the books seemed to have disappeared as I couldn't hold them anymore. I grabbed Mike's arm, and we went through the books

The sight was incredible. It was a whole underground Bazaar filled with this strange mix of different American architectural styles. Still, they were all more pleasing to look at than one another. it looked to be lit by only floating lanterns all over the place. I think it was under the power station somehow but looked about the size of the entire Inner Harbor.

It reminded me of the alleyway in DC where I usually get my stuff, but this looked so much cooler.

This was the first time I've ever taken Mike to any very magical area. We got a bunch of cool stuff, but I couldn't find any store that sold any Hogwarts books. Every single vendor said that they don't carry those specific books here. Damn it.

When we realized we spent a fair amount of time there, we went back, and the only books I got from there was one titled "Magical and non-magical differences between British and American culture and language". I did that because my only knowledge of Britain comes from movies and US history. I know neither is accurate, so I got a bunch of other books about the UK too.

Mike and I found all the books he wanted to read, and boy, were they a lot. I don't buy many recreational books myself because Mike always tells me to read whichever one he enjoys, and I trust his judgment. However, sometimes I think we both read too much for our own good.

Anyways when we got back to town, we stopped by the gas station first, where I got the newspaper that I didn't read until I got home, and we asked to see if Paulina was still up at six, but she was too tired from being at a family reunion.

I just wrote a letter to Minerva McGonagall, the deputy headmistress, about how I couldn't find anything. The letters she sent were very vague, too, and my mom said the school informed her they were taking care of the transport. However, I'm not sure what that means since my mom was super defensive about me not looking at the letter. Whatever, I'm going to mail it first thing tomorrow.

And man, did I mention how much I hate "self-defense" yet?

A/N

Faceclaims:
Seychelle Gabriel as Paulina Ibarra
Ryan Potter as Mike Tanaka