Chapter 5- I Learn Magic From Talking Animals

The rest of the day went by quickly, and very uneventfully. Jaqueline taught me about secondary schools, so I woke up the next day with a mission. I needed to choose my secondary school before 8:00 a.m., when my primary school would start. Jaqueline also went over all of the spells I would need to know for the quiz, so I felt prepared. I'd never done exceptionally well in regular school, but this seemed different.

So I walked out of my dorm room, silly robes equipped, wand in my hand, and backpack on my back. I walked into the Life classroom first, and almost had a heart attack. A large cow in a green kimono was sitting at the teacher's desk, humming quietly. I walked up nervously, wiping my palms on my robes to get rid of the sweat building on them.

"Excuse me?" I said, and the cow looked up at me. "Um, I'm Grace, and, um, I'm new, and I, um, I need a secondary school, so I was just, uh, wondering if you could, um, tell me more about the, uh, Life school?" I felt like my face was on fire, and it most undoubtedly looked like it too. The cow took it incredible well though.

"Of course dear," the cow said, "My name is Moolinda Wu, and I am the Life Magic Professor." She went on to tell me more about the school itself and what kind of spells it focused on. I thanked the cow and backed out quickly.

The next school was Myth, and I had a sinking feeling about it. Turns out I was right, because my conversation with the bald professor went terribly. He insulted me, and made sure I was aware of how incompetent he thought I was. The next school went a little better, perhaps because there was no school. I just talked to the student next to the gap, and he offered to teach me a few spells.

My skin crawled as I entered the Fire school, and one glance at the professor and I was turning on my heels. I didn't mean to be rude, but the scorch marks on the ceiling and the flame-like appearance of the Fire Professor just made knots in my stomach. Fire was not for me, and it made sense. I was an Ice wizard, after all.

I walked past the Ice school, and suddenly grew worried. I only had two more schools left, and none of the schools seemed right for me yet. I entered the Storm classroom with a lump in my throat. There was already a student speaking with the Professor, so I stood to the side of the room.

"You think that Malistaire is behind this?" the Storm Professor croaked. It took me a minute to realize that he was, in fact, a small frog in a purple suit.

"Of course Malistaire is doing it! He's behind all of the other trouble happening in Wizard City, why not this?" the boy talking to him said excitedly. Trouble in Wizard City?

"I'm sorry Mr. Silvertalon, but I just don't think that Malistaire is causing everyone to fizzle!" I had heard of fizzling, although I had never actually seen it. It was when your spell simply didn't work, it just, well, fizzled.

"Just think about it Professor, Malistaire raised the dead to take over Wizard City, why wouldn't he rig our spells to fizzle too? I've been fizzling a lot since I've been here, and I think he might be at the root of the problem."

"Mark, have you taken into consideration your pour accuracy statistics?" the Storm Professor sighed.

"Well, no… But this is real, I'm telling you! It's a conspiracy!"

"Mark, if this is all you wanted to discuss with me, can you please let the other students have a turn?" he said, gesturing towards me. I blushed. The boy stormed past me grumpily, and I walked over to the frog.

I told him why I was here, and he assured me that he would be happy to teach me the ways of Storm, and help me release my "INNER THUNDA!" I thought that the Storm school wasn't too bad; it was an option, at least.

I next spoke with the dog in the top hat standing outside of Bartleby, the tree with the face. I was slowly adjusting to wizard life, and the weirdness that followed it. The dog told me about himself, and about the school of balance. Apparently there wasn't an actual school for balance in Ravenwood, the real school was back in Krokotopia, but he was offering to teach students here.

After speaking with the dog, I decided to sit down next to Kelvin, the Ice tree. All of the six schools had a tree that represented it, and these trees talked, so I started up quite a pleasant conversation with Kelvin. If someone had told me a few days ago that I would be talking with a tree, I would have called them a liar, but now, anything was possible.

It was 7:56 and class was about to start, so I saw Luis and Jaqueline walking towards me, whispering excitedly. "Hey, you find a secondary school yet?" said Luis.

I shook my head. "I'm kinda leaning towards Storm, but Balance seems cool."

"Well, my secondary school is Life," said Jaqueline, "It's really nice, Moolinda is so sweet."

"My secondary is Death," said Luis with an ominous tone. "So prepare to DIE!" he shouted, playfully chasing us into the Ice classroom. We all collapsed in our seats, laughing.

The lesson was actually quite interesting, and I thought I did well on the spell quiz. Afterwards, we were dismissed for lunch and we all walked to the cafeteria together. Luis set a few heaping plates of bacon in front of us again, which I scarfed down. In my rush to pick a secondary school, I had forgotten to eat breakfast. I was starving. At some point during the meal, a boy from Ice that I recognized as Connor walked by. He whispered something that sounded like "Dirty meat lovers" under his breath.

After lunch, Digby decided to show me around the Commons on a tour. The Commons was really quite beautiful. There were several cottages surrounding a beautiful meadow with a huge pond in the middle, with water so clear it looked like ice. There was one big tree, near the Headmaster's office, so Digby led me to sit down beneath it.

"So what do you think of the place so far?" he said, gazing into my eyes.

"It's amazing," I said, honestly, "Everything here is just so different from where I come."

Digby chuckled at the look of awe on my face as I glanced around the Commons. He tilted his head a little to look at me, and seemed as if he was trying to build up the courage to say something. He leaned a little closer to me, but was suddenly interrupted by a series of shouts from the other end of the Commons. We both looked up.

"Digby! Digby! Dddddddiiiiiiiiiiiiiiggggggbbbbbbbyyyyyyyyyy!" I saw that the boy shouting and running towards us was Wolf Skyhammer, Digby's brother. He stopped, panting, in front of us. "Dude. Digby. You got any crowns? I wanna buy this new pack that just came out."

Digby put his palm to his face. "Wolf, I'm not giving you any crowns."

"I'll tell Mom you broke her vase from Mooshu."

"What? Wait, you broke Mom's vase!" Digby gasped. "She's gonna kill you!"

"No, she's gonna kill you, unless you give me some crowns."

Digby sighed in defeat. "Whatever, take your stupid crowns."

"Thanks, bro," Wolf said, smiling wickedly. He seemed to notice me sitting there just then. He gave me a nod. "Digby, who's your friend?"

Digby seemed to tense up a bit. "Grace. Now can you please just leave, you got your crowns."

"Nah, I think I'll hang with you guys a bit," he said, eying me. He plopped down on the grass in between Digby and me, which was a considerably small space, so he was now pressed up against both of us. The whole situation just got incredibly more awkward. "So, what school are you in?" he asked me. He turned to face me, which left his face hardly an inch away from mine. Digby was seething.

"Um, Ice," I murmured, looking down at my hands in my lap.

"Oh, Ice is a nice school," Wolf said.

Digby's face was a bright red as he stood up. He snatched my hand and yanked me up, dragging me off towards the library. "Come on Grace, let's go somewhere else. You don't want to talk to that jerk." Wolf shouted something undecipherable as we ran through the library doors.

Digby shut the door behind us, and led me up to the shelves on the second floor. We sat down in a corner and he sighed. "Sorry about that…" he trailed. I just looked at my shoes, unsure of what to say. Thankfully, I was saved by the bell. A long chiming noise rang through the Commons, summoning the students to their secondary classes. Digby offered his hand to help me up, and I accepted. We walked back to Ravenwood in silence.

When we neared Bartleby, Digby asked, "So what's your secondary?"

"I dunno," I muttered, "I haven't actually decided yet."

"You could come do Myth, with me…" he offered. I shook my head.

"The teacher creeps me out."

He laughed at this. "I think he creeps everyone out." Digby checked his watch. "Well I gotta get going, good luck with whichever school you choose." He smiled at me.

"Thanks," I said, smiling back. He walked off, and I was left to ponder my secondary school. I eventually settled for Storm, because the final bell was chiming and the dog man kinda freaked me out.

I went to sit down, scanning the room for familiar faces. I didn't see anyone I recognized, so I sat alone in the back corner, near the door. A girl about my age slipped through the door and sat next to me just as the Storm Professor, Halston Balestrom, turned to take attendance. The girl was Death, by the looks of her. She had dark robes, dark eyes, and dark hair that fell across her face at an odd angle. She kind of freaked me out at first, but she seemed friendly enough.

When Professor Balestrom was done taking attendance, he asked for the names of the new students. The girl next to me groaned. "Myrna Ravenbane," she said.

"Grace," I said when it was my turn. Balestrom gave me a funny look.

"Just Grace?" he asked. I nodded.

I never knew my parents, so I never had a last name. Back on Earth the last names were different though, things like Smith and Johnson, not like Froggiver or Raventalon. So even if I did have a last name, it wouldn't have fit in. Although, Wolf and Digby didn't share the same last name. Maybe it wasn't a family thing here, maybe I could have my own name. I made a mental note to ask someone about it later.