"The bare minimum is for each student to participate in one magic class, one magic training class, one dueling class, an auxiliary class, and a Sprial Studies class…"

-Merion Lincoln, Ravenwood Code Presentation Speech

Yippee! Yippee! My tired brain was still trying to grasp the fact that a flying pink pig was soaring around my dorm room. The rest of the package included a book: You and your Piggle: Basic Care and Training, a small box of sand for the piggle's business, a box of food labeled NaturalGrizzleheim: All Natural Piggle Food, Limitless Edition (Product of Wizard City), two dishes, a pass for a pet dorm room complete with pet room and running water and a note from Argleston. I did my best to make out his fancy cursive.

The Piggle is a myth creature. Take good care of it, Lucas and enjoy that book I gave you!

~Harold Argleston, Wizard City Library

Great. I wasn't sure if I should be excited about the piggle or not. Upon reading the book, I learned that piggles were extremely common myth creatures and that only a handful has unique powers and a handful of that handful had powers that are strong.

I had never been in a magic battle before, so I have no clue if my piggle was strong or not. In fact, I visited Argleston and he told me that he would schedule me in for creature care class with Milo Barker.

Right then, however, I needed to move into my new dorm room, a pet friendly dorm room called P-116. So I went to Simeon Starshine, the boy's dormitory manager.

Simeon was short for his age, seeing as though he was 22 and a masterful wizard, being hardly taller than me. He constantly wore a red hood over his eyes and held a large wooden staff with a ruby inserted at the top. His wardrobe was always red since he was a pyromancer.

Simeon was hired as boy's dormitory manager when he graduated a few months ago, and the maximum age for manager was 25, because you had to be able to relate to the occupants of the dormitory. Of course, there were people who were much older who went to attend classes at Ravenwood who were much older, but they were not permitted to stay at the dormitories.

He never sat behind his desk in his office, he could usually be found outside or in his dormitory. Today, he was in his office, but he was sitting in a big, red, padded chair reading a book, Great Pyromancers.

"Simeon?" I said, in the doorway of his office.

"Just a sec," Simeon didn't take his eyes off of his book, "Dusk Firewielder barely survived the attacks on his castle, later he went stir crazy and killed himself accidentally when jumping into a cold waterfall," Simeon muttered, reading from his book, "Okay, you were saying...uh…?"

"Lucas. Lucas Lotusweave. And, yes, well, I have this pass, and…" I showed him the pass.

"Ah, yes. Mr. Argleston told me that you would need a pet dorm," he said, taking the pass from my hand.

"Yep."

"Okay, seems to be in order, you can move in."

I wanted to ask for directions to my new dorm, but instead he just motioned toward the door and swept me out, eager to get back to his book and read about more famous fire magicians.

I found the Q and P section, a long hallway on the third floor of the dormitory castle. P stood for pet and you usually had to pay for them, except I had special clearance from the school librarian. I wondered if anyone else had gotten special treatment from Argleston.

The Q dormitories were huge. They were pretty much luxury homes packed into a smaller, but still huge, dorm room. I wasn't sure what Q stood for, and I never found out, but there was no special treatment for these rooms. All of the students who lived in the Q dorms were spoiled and always had a million gold coins on them at all times. These students lived here because they couldn't bear being in those dorms that come free! No, never! How dare they not spend money on luxury! Yes sir, I wound up never liking anybody in the Q dorms.

So I opened dormitory P-116 and stepped in. It was only slightly bigger than my old dormitory. It had a bathroom with running water and a toilet, so I still had to use the public shower. That is where I put the piggle's box of sand, who by the way, I named Luke (My cousin's name). I put his food and water bowl in the main living area. There were already all of the things that were in every dorm room (the desk, the bed, etc.), so I didn't have to worry about that.

As soon as I got settled in, my enchanted arm band shook, telling me that I had to get to my first class.

The enchanted arm bands idea was thought up by Ambrose who, after sick of dealing with students late to class, worked with Lincoln to make each student's schedule programmed into a stone band that would buzz when they had to go to class. I would hate to be Lincoln, enchanting all of these arm bands.

I actually thought the whole thing was creepy, but they could be taken off, they just weren't allowed to be misplaced, so most people kept them on their upper arm anyway.

I sprinted down to the first level of the tower and ran out the door. I noticed that a lot of students hadn't even left their dorm yet and some were even coming from the Commons and even farther places, and Bartelby's mouth.

So, I followed the flow of students on the path that went counter clock-wise around Bartelby. On the outside of the circle, I passed Torrence, the storm tree who always had a rain cloud over him and looked glum, then the purple storm school, then Kelvin, the ice tree who was jolly and talkative, then the light blue ice school which I entered.

All of the schools were no larger than a typical one-room schoolhouse. A raised platform in the front held a desk and a few chalkboards with chalk magically writing on its own. An opening behind the desk led into a supply closet filled with all sorts of magical looking items. The walls were cluttered with ice banners, ice shields, pictures of different ice artifacts, and ancient scrolls with old writing tacked to the wall.

A small, but plump, fairy hovered in front of the desk wearing all light blue and with full moon glasses sitting on her miniature nose.

I took the aisle seat in the front right row next to a girl with wild eyes and wild hair. She was very pail with freckles and deep brown hair. When I sat down, she quickly tried smoothed it down and after a few attempts jabbed a blood red wand into the clump that was her hair, and it came to rest, perfectly straight, going just past her shoulders.

"Hi, I'm Alexis Mist," the girl said.

"I'm Lucas Lotusweave," I replied.

"Nice to meet you. Is this your first year?" she asked.

"Yes, yours?" I responded.

"Yep."

I wanted to say more, but it started to get very cold and I felt like I froze, literally. Then I thawed and turned to the front. The teacher had done it to get our attention, a clever way of getting students to stop talking. She sat on a chair her size that rested on the top of her desk.

The chalk began to write on the board that this was the ice school and that the teacher was Miss Lydia Greyrose.

"Hello, students!" Greyrose said in the cheeriest possible voice with a smile as large as the sun, "I am your teacher, Miss Lydia Greyrose… Oh, I see my chalk has already told you! That's enough, chalk, dear!" Greyrose emitted a short, happy laugh before composing herself and focusing on the class.

"Ice. That's what we're all here for, right? Right. You all know that ice is frozen water, but don't be fooled! The truth is that water is thawed ice! Ice is the base, the original, the sturdy, solid element that can do stunning feats!"

Greyrose went on and on about ice and we learned our first spell. Making water freeze. Fun.

When my arm band buzzed I was happy to get out of ice class. Professor Greyrose told us that the rest of the year would be much more fun because it would be all training sessions for dueling with ice. I walked out into the sunlight and got swept away in the stream of students going counter-clockwise around Bartelby again. The fire school went by in a blur, as did the gaping chasm where the death school used to be. The flow slowed as I passed the myth school-a very popular school- and I entered the life school.

The life school was the same as the ice school, except everything had the life symbol on it instead of the ice one, and it was a deep forest green. Also, small end tables lined the perimeter of the room and sitting on them were golden containers with incense burning within.

I took the same seat I did in the ice school, except on the opposite side. Next to me was an older boy who had deep blue eyes and tan skin. His expression was hard, concentrating on something in his mind, perhaps.

Everybody was talking and the room was buzzing with conversation. Nothing happened after five minutes, then ten minutes, then fifteen minutes, until finally the door swung open and everyone looked to the back of the classroom. A rather plump cow standing on two legs came bursting through the door. She was a bit cross-eyed, her hair was up in a bun with two burning incense sticks stuck through it, and she wore a deep green t-shirt and sweatpants that were much too small for her.

She seemed out of breath, and she ran to the front of the classroom and pointed at the chalk which wrote: Ms. Moolinda Wu, Life Professor. A lot of people were still talking, but that didn't stop her from beginning her lesson.

I felt really bad for Wu, because she was trying to teach while the inconsiderate students, the majority of the class, were still chatting. But she always seemed like she was laughing on the inside, or thinking something like: they're missing out big time. Since I was in the front row, I could hear her.

First, she requested that we take notes on a piece of parchment. Only everyone in the first row did so, and got their quills ready. As soon as I finished dipping my quill in my inkwell, she started talking on and on about the history of life magic. I didn't catch most of it, but she started to slow down when she started to talk about our first spell, using an imp.

An imp, if you don't know, is a fun loving and mischievous little spirit with huge cat ears. Wu said that we would be using the green variety (it's is the most cooperative). When we cast the spell, we summon them from this place called Grizzleheim and they play a short tune that hurts the enemy somehow. She said she would go more in depth about it when we train. After that, she went on and on about unicorns and how they are not what they seem, and the many different uses for their horns-which do grow back.

When my arm band buzzed, I got up and walked out of the school, only to be swept away in a clockwise current around Bartelby.

When I returned to the ice school, Greyrose had us step into the supply closet and through a door within. The door took us to a huge ice floe in the middle of an icy sea.

After the last student entered, Greyrose stepped in.

She inhaled deeply through her nose and said, "Ah, isn't it lovely?"

The strange thing was I wasn't cold. I felt like I was standing next to Boris' fire again. I had no time to think, however, because Greyrose was already announcing that we had to pare up with someone and practice a new spell called ice beetle. Alexis Mist and I were partners and we stood across from each other. Greyrose told us how to cast the spell and then said, "Give it a whirl!"

Alexis casted first. She waved her wand correctly, but only bits of ice dropped out of it. She looked disappointed.

I got in position and waved my wand. I felt a surge of energy rush through my entire being and out into my hand- no- my wand. My wand had become an extension of me, attaching to my hand and harnessing energy. Then, sparks flew out of it. Fizzle. All of the energy just felt like it dropped out of my being. Strangely enough, I felt more powerful. Greyrose explained something about this in class, that when you fizzle or rest, you gain power to cast even greater spells. She tried to help us understand by referring to this power as a "pip".

So, Alexis got into position again and waved her wand. A blue mist shot from her wand to the ground and a beetle the size of a large dog sprung from the ice and charged at me with hooves like a horse. The beetle was entirely ice, so when it head-butted me, it hurt.

I got back up and sprang into action, casting an ice beetle at Alexis. The same thing happened, except my beetle blew freezing ice at Alexis which tossed her backwards a few feet. She was back up quickly.

She cast the spell again, and her beetle also blew ice at me.

Then I casted the spell and something very strange happened. The blue cloud formed the ice beetle just fine, and then it charged like normal, but then, the beetle grew two snake heads and started relentlessly attacking Alexis. She shrieked and thrashed about, the beetle creature ripping her apart. Greyrose rushed over with a panicked look on her face to Alexis and cast a spell. A blue, glowing whip extended from Greyrose's wand and made contact with the beetle, which melted at that moment.

She then turned to me, the panicked look still plastered on her face.

"Mr. Lotusweave! To the headmaster at once!" she screamed at me, pointing toward the still-open door.