A magic school story

Chapter Three:

He didn’t really have a stationary list nor any idea of what to get but he decided to pack his bag anyway. He didn’t even have the uniform yet either, but his dad said that fourth years wear black cloaks and ties. So he went with whatever black he head. A pair of chinos, a long sleeved tee and old varsity style jacket he had.

A coke, and a mountain dew went in for good measure. He was tempted to pack a bag of doritos but he wouldn’t be able to resist licking the dorito dust of his fingers and that might make for an odd first impression.Or it might lead to some amorous activities with bald men if doritos ads were to be believed.

The doritos were back in.

A book and pen too. Just in case he had to do some work or something.

“Ready?” his dad asked waiting by the attic door.

“You haven’t really told me much about this place.” Jess said, swinging his bag onto this shoulders.

To his surprise his dad gave a lazy grin.

Oh. Jess suddenly realized that his dad wasn't being vague out of stubbornness.

“You’re gonna love this place, kid. I’ll let you discover it for yourself. Come on, up here family tradition time.” His dad stood behind Jess, with his hands on Jess shoulders.

The attic door swung open.

This place wouldn’t be so bad, after all.

“Ready?” His dad asked. As the blue haze of the portal filled the door.

“Yeah. Hey what’s the family tradition?”

“Yeah, that…” his dad said. “Don’t ever turn your back on family, kid.”

And then then he shoved Jess through the door.

Jess only just managed to stop himself from swearing and falling as he landed rather clumsily on the other side of the portal. What the hell kind of tradition was it to push someone through a portal!

Eh, at least it was funny.

Jess found himself in a square room with red and gold carpeting everywhere, including the walls. Like some really bizarre parody of an indian hotel from a 90s movie. And the ceiling was high, so high in fact that he couldn’t see it because the light didn’t reach all the way up there. This must be the school office, well it should be anyway.

Amidst the blur of red and gold, there was an immensely long desk that stretched the entire length of the room. In fact, each end of the table touched the walls on either side. There wasn’t any gap to walk behind the table and yet somehow there was a bored looking secretary sitting there. An older woman, with her hair pulled tightly back against her scalp and a purple hat perched on top. In fact, her whole outfit was purple.

“Can I help you.” She said. She said. Not asked. She sounded so rehearsed she probably didn’t even notice him. She was like one of those cuckoo clocks chiming round the hour.

“Jess Goldwyn.” He said introducing himself. “I just started here.”

“Oh, yes. Mr Goldwyn. Welcome to Boxtens.” She said, without looking at him. He could hardly blame her from not looking up from her desk- “You look more like your aunt.” she added unexpectedly.

Did he? What was he scowling or something?

“They were both students here, your dad and his sister.” She said.

“Yeah, yeah. Llama matter and stuff…” he said, but then paused. “You’ve got a good memory for people.” Jess said, admiring how she remembered people who were here decades ago. Even their faces.

“I work with kids, Mr Goldwyn. Kids always stick with you.”

He nodded. Teachers all seemed to have that insanely eidetic memories didn’t they? He couldn’t remember a single kid from his fourth grade class. But a year ago he ran into his first grade teacher who asked him if he still liked cocoa pops. Teachers really would have the best job if they didn’t have to work with kids.

He had just seen her name on the plaque on her table. 'Papilon Beazley.'

“How are you finding your first day so far?” she asked.

“It’s my first minute.” Jess said. "I'm still deciding."

“You’ll have a lot coming soon.” She said, sagely. “There are some chairs in the waiting hall outside, you can feel free to wait there until Headmistress Lenden arrives.”

“Is she late?”

The secretary frowned slightly.

“Don’t be too quick to disrespect. This is the headmistress you’re speaking off. Not she. Headmistress Lended will be a bit late this morning, she’s of overseeing the school examinations this morning.”

“Oh, yeah. Of course. I didn’t mean it in a rude way. Just asking.” he assured her.

“Don’t be too casual, a bit of respect goes a long way.”

“Yeah, sure.” He agreed agreeably. “I’ll be outside, alright?”

“Alright, Mr Goldwyn.”

The outside waiting hall wasn’t as shockingly furnished, this one was rather nice actually. It had an old castle like feel too it. With stone walls and a few small potted plants at corners and banners with the school logo on it- a dragon holding a sword. So far, this school didn’t feel like a real building with all the mismatched rooms. It felt like a bunch of different lego or minecraft houses stitched together.

He drummed on his leg as he sat.

Man, he showed up right in the middle of exams. Was he expected to be writing any?

“Why in Merlin’s name are you here?”

He’d zoned out so he was taken aback by suddenly being spoken too but he recognized his cousins voice immediately. Though, he hadn’t seen her in her school uniform before. Honestly, in her casual clothes she dressed like a Victorian librarian so the school clothes were something that wouldn’t give her heatstroke at least- even with blazer flourished with what looked like war medals pinned on it. Probably school achievement pins.

“Oh, hey Gwen. What’s the hapz?” he said, with lazy finger guns.

“What the hell does that mean?”

“I don’t know.” He said immediately. “So, what’s new? How come you’re here?” he asked.

“I go to this school.” She said, snarkily.

Honestly it was bloody impressive how she threw her into whole body language to be as scathingly sarcastic as possible. Must burn a lot of calories being rolling your entire body instead of your eyes.

“Oh, yeah. Me too!”

“No, you don’t!” she scolded.

Jesus, where was Gwen when the secretary was scolding him for being rude? But then he grinned remembering her surprise at seeing him.

“You don’t know.” He said excitedly bouncing around.

“Know what, Jessie?”

“Jess isn’t short for Jessie.”

“You’re short for a Jess.” she said in a huff and sat down next to him.

He laughed, which only irritated her more. She did look more like his dad then he did. Somehow his dad and aunt Vicky both had kids who looked more like their siblings than them.

Jess had had long untidy hair like his aunt, and Gwen had neat flowing hair like his dad. Gwen and his dad had the high cheekbones and athletic builds. He was more in the medium range for everything. Except, he was taller than most of his dad’s family. Maybe he got the height from his mom’s side?

“I got told to wait here.” Gwen said.

“In trouble with a teacher?” he said, elbowing her jokingly.

“No!”

“Relax, don’t work yourself up on exam day.”

“Don’t annoy me on exam day.”

They sat in silence for a minute before she spoke again.

“What’s Merlin’s first law?” she asked suddenly.

“The magic form thing. Why?” He answered, thankful he remembered something.

“I need to prep for exams. What’s Merlins second law?”

“I don’t know it verbatim.” He lied.

“You’re supposed to know it verbatim!”

“I’m too tired to say the whole thing again.” He sighed.

“Jess, why are you here?”

“I transferred here?” he answered.

“From your house?”

“Yeah, obviously.” He joked. “Your mum was supposed to tell you. You’re supposed to show me around.”

Surprisingly she laughed.

“How did you transfer in to Boxtens? This is an elite school.”

He shrugged. Even her laugh was to mock. “Our parents went here, and there’s not a whole bunch of other schools in the country is there?”

“The rest of us had to work insanely hard to get in is all I’m saying.” She said.

“Oh,” he said, pulling his hair a bit. “Well from here on we’ll be doing the same stuff you know. So, I suppose it evens out.”

She turned to him quickly. “That’s a fair point. I’ll still come out on top you know.”

“I don’t doubt it. Hey, so what time’s your test? Are you writing exams today?”

“Nine.” She answered.

“It’s almost nine now.” He said.

“No, it’s eight now.” She said, correcting him.

He pulled back his jacket sleeve and revealed his ben 10 watch. Not the omnitrix obviously. Just a watch with ben 10 on it.

“No, it’s 08:56.”

“Aw, Jess.” She said, softening her voice. “Telling time is hard for you isn’t it? You set your watch wrong.”

“Yeah, no I didn’t.”

“Jess, I just left the dorm. The clock said eight.”

“Well, the dorm is wrong. My dad woke me up at like 8 because I was late.”

She hmphed.

She hmphed? The audacity.

“I’m not surprised your dad can’t tell time either.” She said. “Anyway the headmistress should be back soon and I’ll be off and back to my paper on time.”

“She won’t be back soon.” Jess said. “Apparently, she’ll be delayed because of something.”

“Oh,” she said, surprised. “Well, I had better go to my dorm and get ready for the exam.”

“No you should go to your exam or you’ll miss it!”

She sighed. “I’ll give you your tour at 11. That’s when I finished. And Jess. Twelve is when both hands are on the number 12.”

He shook his head as she walked away.

Let her wait then, he thought in annoyance. He didn’t owe his cousin anything. If she missed the test… Whatever. He warned her didn’t he?

He got up to follow her.

Of course she’d ignore him. He’d expected that, but he wouldn’t feel right if she missed the test. He knew he had to try harder with her, because well... You just saw didn’t you? He’d just turned a corner into a long passage way when he spotted an approaching figure. A girl in a black cloak walked up to him.

“Hey, where you coming from the office just now?” she asked.

She was a fourth year, the same as him and Gwen. The shockingly black cloak and tie contrasted so sharply with her bright blonder hair, it didn’t even seem to contrast after a while. It melted together. She glowed golden.

“Good morning…” she said, waiting for him to say-

“Jess.”

He tried to match her smile but he was too caught up trying not to stare at her. Did staring have to be so blatantly obvious? He might have to adopt a pair of sunglasses at this rate.

“Nice to meet you, Jess.” She said, offering her hand out to him. She had the softest grip, but she slipped her hand from his, her touch lingered on his skin for longer than it should have.

“Are you a student here?” she asked.

“I just started.”

“No uniform.” She said. “What year would you be in?”

“Fourth year hopefully.”

“Then you’d be wearing black robes, like mine.” She said, tugging at her collar slowly. “That would look really good on you, Jess. What’s your family name by the way?”

“Goldwyn.”

“Goldwyn? You wouldn’t happen to know Gwen Goldwyn?”

“My cousin.” He answered.

She grinned delightedly. “Really! Gwen never even mentioned she had a cousin. Your cousin is just wonderful; she really is the nicest.” She said. “I was actually coming to find her! I noticed she wasn’t in the exam room yet; we usually sit next to each other so...”

“She went back to her dorm.” Jess said, relief flooding through him. “Do you think you could find her?” he asked, hoping at least this girl would drag that nut off to her exam.

“Don’t need to ask me twice,” she said, giving him a friendly punch. “I’ll see you around Jess and welcome to Boxtens.” She said and turned back slightly to smile at him as she left.

Oh he was going to like this school.

But at least the Gwen issue was sorted, he didn’t know where the dorms were anyway. It was probably best he head back and wait- then again why not explore…

No. He might as well give dad a break. Might as well head back and wait for the principal.

He had only just sat down again in the waiting hall when the secretary appeared in the hallway.

“The headmistress will see you now.”