"We are now arriving at Sorcerer, please gather your stuff and make sure you are wearing your uniform, thank you for your participation," said the speaker as Clair heard people running around, getting all there stuff together. She finished buttoning up her robe and pattered her stomach. When she heard the announcement, she quickly grabbed her large bag and went to join Andrew on leaving the boat.
"Hey there you are, we're about to land," he said. He was holding onto the rail of a shiny black, drag suitcase, "now that was a long trip, wasn't it," He smiled.
"Yeah," she said, nodding. She looked away as she felt herself get redder with embarrassment. She then turned to face him and laughed gently. He smirked as he raised an eyebrow.
Aquatic coloured recoil magic waves began to fall as the boat stopped with a jerk. They looked out towards the entrance of the boat: they could see people covering the railed gate, waiting to be the first to get out. Some seemed to be more eager to get off then others as they started to push through the crowd. The gate opened and the stampede of students rushed out. Clair and Andrew followed the crowded at a distance, but was forced apart as a crowed of up-tight looking girls and jock looking boys squeezed past.
"Andrew; Andrew!" She yelled as loud as she could.
"Clair... over he... here," She heard over the crowd.
She continued trying to push through the crowd. After many failed attempts, she started working the outskirts of the crowd. If she was lucky, she might be able to find a teacher to help her find Andrew, or at least tell her where she had to go. As she pushed her way out of the crowd, a person thought they'd be smart and pushed her right into someone else.
"Hey, what do you think your doing," said a deep and harsh voice above her. As she opened her eyes and looked up, she found herself being pushed into shady character. She turned to apologize, but stopped suddenly as she looked up at the person she bumped into. He was tall with pale grey skin, and dark eyes half covered by his flat, finger-long strand's of onyx black hair. His long, grey robe of yellow fastenings, which dangled off his long hands and almost covered his black shoes, billowed behind him. He crossed his arms and looked down at her with an expression that gave her the chills.
"Well..." He held the last letter slightly longer, giving a touch of fear as he raised an eyebrow. She seemed to have lost her voice as she started to stutter.
"Well, I... well... I'm really -um- sorry. Some, someone knocked me... and I ran- ran into... you. So, so I'm... I'm really, really, s-s-sorry. I was just... looking... for my fr- fr- friend..." he had, had enough and raised a slender hand. He closed his eyes and breathed in. He then opened them and responded to her harshly, "I really do not care, child. Leave my site, Miss, Miss Winday isn't it?" He smirked and walked away from the shaking child.
"Clair, Clair, there you are. I've been looking for you everywhere... what's wrong, your shaking," he restrained her, looking as though she was about to faint. She looked up at him with a pale face.
She looked at him, almost dropping her bag, "I just met Dr. Mist..."
"Attention please," a loud voice had boomed over the crowed like a megaphone. It sound like a women speaking, "Attention, please. I am Mrs. Raphael and I am the principle of Sorcerer. All primary schoolers, please go to the hall where you will be told which class you are in. All High schoolers will remain here. All primary schoolers who are new will be up the front with Miss. Mackenzie and all High school freshman or new students are to report to the front with me."
At that, Clair and Andrew headed towards the head of the crowed. When they finally pushed there way through, they could see the last of the primary school going through a big, royal red, wooden door. Clair glared up at the school: It looked a lot like a normal, maroon coloured, boarding school but much taller, like a castle. Along the sides of the school were bushes with some of them being occupied by flowers. Tinted windows appeared in every section of the school.
"Ahem..." voiced someone, snapping Clair out of her thoughts. There were several adults standing on a flight of three steps. She noticed Dr. Mist appearing at the end of the line. They all had there hands behind there backs. In the middle was a women with very curly, orange coloured hair that slightly surpassed her shoulders. Clair could barely see her features- such as her bright green, narrowed eyes, slightly wide nose and her thin, bright orange lips -from where she was. The women wore a long, red, woollen robe with white fastenings which showed a white shirt and long, dark pants underneath it. Shinny, black shoes could be seen under her robe. She continued her speech, "Good morning, like I said before, I am Mrs. Raphael and I am the principle here. At this school, we do not accept fowl behaviour or rudeness. And to those who have come to us from mortal school should note: we are not as kind as those teachers, and we will retaliate with magic. On to other matters: in your pocket is your timetable for the year." Many people started shuffling to reach there pockets and look at there timetables, just like Clair and Andrew, "Your teacher for the subject and the room number is written underneath the subjects name. In ten minutes, you will follow myself, and the rest of the teachers, into the multi-purpose room where you will be split up into your LMS class..." Clair had stopped listening as she stared at her timetable in dismay. On it, underneath the subject called MOM, was the word Dr. Mist.
"Oh, tuff luck," said Andrew, looking over her shoulder and giving a face of discuss, "than again, I've got him as well. Don't worry, you've got me to look after you." And he smiled politely. She smiled back- happy to have a friend like him -and looked down at the timetable again. The worst part about it was the fact that the very subject she began to hate was the fact that it was in the afternoon of the weekends. They sighed and dropped their heads.
"Alright, with that out of the way, we are prepared for you in the MPR. Please follow us in," at that, everyone started to shuffle into the hall. Clair and Andrew had to run with everyone tailing them in a hurry. They glared at the hall as they entered: it was humongous with a maroon, wooden floor that was at least ten metres long. The walls where a dark brown and wooden with a varnished shine. At the end of the hall was a staircase, slightly darker then the walls. As well as that, two doors- of the same colour as the stairs -stood at the end of the hall, one under the stairs and one next at the bottom of the stairs, three doors stood on the left side of the hall and two doors on the right, one at the very end of the hall and one near the entrance. Wall lights with a dim, yellow light and a patterned see-through, cover stood evenly along the walls. The teaches led the students into the double- doors on the left, closest to the entrance. When they entered the multi-purpose room, or large hall, they looked around eagerly: It was much like the hall they came in from accept that there was a large podium at the end of the huge room, and stacks and stacks of tables and chairs to the left of the room. Light from outside filtered in through the stainless glass windows to the right of the room. Each window had a different image on it. To Clair, each image was more depressing then the last.
"For those of you who are not a where of the high school timetables here, I shall explain accordingly: The first half of the day is dedicated to normal, mortal type subjects such as Math, English and mortal LMS- which means library, magic and study -this class is your form, room, home class, what ever you want to call it. The second half of the day, after the 11:20 lunch break, will be for your magic class including wand use, plant use and magic LMS. As well as those, some of you will notice that there are subjects in the row that says Sat/Sunday: Those of you who remembered being sighed up on orientation day, will remember signing up for extra curriculum subjects. Those subjects are to be on those days. Ow, and by the way, your mortal class and your afternoon, magic class, are two different classes. Also, if you were wondering how the magic classes are determined, you will see soon. I shall see at dinner, good day," excused the principle and she left.
Andrew turned to Clair and said, "our mortal classes are different, so I guess I'll see you at dinner." And he left. She didn't want to see him go, she wanted to have someone she knew with her around the school. It was scary because she knew that a lot of these people were not very happy about having a mortal at school for various reasons. She spent the rest of the day following her teacher, Dr. Auro- a tall, women who, even though looked very young, had grey-blond hair that frayed under her tall, black bowler hat with dull green eyes, orange pale skin and a rather thin, oil black robe with extremely dark, grey fastening -at the back of the line, visiting about all the rooms covered for the first year of high school. Her heart sank when they came to her MOM classroom and heard a boy sneer at his friend, "what kind of loser would take a class on the weekend?" "A mortal, that's who." And they snickered as they left the corridor. Clair could breath again as the class entered the MPR for dinner. It was much less roomy then before with the room filling with students from other classes and grades. Clair looked to see Andrew, who was nowhere to be found.
"Would you like to sit with me?" Clair was slightly blown back as the girl sitting in front of her spoke. The girl was obviously older then her. She had neat, long, chocolate brown hair separated down the centre of the head, with the right side held back by a big, pink and blue, flowery clip. She had bright, shinny blue eyes that went along well with her light skin- like a stream in the early morning with the sun reflecting of it. She wore , black-gold robes with a yellow fastening. The girl smiled with her orange-red lips and grabbed Clair gently and pulled her down to a seat next to her.
"By the way, my name is Lucky Jacks. What's your name?" she asked.
Clair didn't know what to say and replied, "I'm Clair, how do you do." Clair would of just left the conversation there if it wasn't for her new friend twirling her hand around, wanting her to continued.
"Ah, Clair Winday, right? What a nice name. Did you have any siblings here?" Lucky asked curiously.
Clair nodded and replied, "yeah, had an older brother and sister. His name's was Jordan and her name's Tabetha." Clair smiled politely.
The door to the MPR opened and a class had entered. At the end of the chattering line, Clair could see Andrew come in while talking to a shabby looking kid. When Andrew caught site of her, he waved goodbye to his friend and went over to where she was.
Before he sat down, he noticed Lucky waving at him. "Are you Clair's friend. Hi, I'm Lucky, and, what's your name?" She asked with a smile. Clair just hoped that she won't change her tune when she finds out Clair's only half witch.
"I'm Andrew, nice to meet you..." he looked over at Clair, "hello again."
Before Clair could say anything, a boy, around the same age as Lucky, sat down next to her. He was a tall boy with oily black hair, that went down to his shoulders, and dark brown eye's, red-orange coloured skin peeped through the top of his thick, black-gold robes with blue fastenings. He turned to Lucky and asked, "made some new friends already. Man you're a soft touch."
As she turned to replied, Clair noticed for the first time there that they both where wearing an earring: Lucky's earring had a large circle with a crescent moon in the centre and a star over it. The boy's earring had, what looked like, a cross: The centre part was turned into an arrow at the bottom, and the sides had something invisible- she guessed -attached to them.
"Very funny, Sireus. Wish you were laughing when you where kept back this year in magic. It was priceless, seeing the blood drain from your face and your stomach drop when they said you would be in 5BR this year," and she started to laugh. Something had accrued to Clair and she looked at her timetable: there it was, 5BR at the top of her timetable, she was going to be in the same class as Sireus. She looked up at him and soon wished she wasn't, he didn't seem very happy, lines of anger above his eyes as he looked at Lucky. She sarcastically smiled and looked away, bursting to laugh.
"Attention," boomed Dr. Raphael's voice to everyone. The room went quiet as a couple of people entered the room. She spoke, "I would like to welcome you all back to Sorcerer. I am so happy to see all of you here, on time. I will not bore you with a long speech, but I will just remind some of you that..."
Clair had zoned out half-way through the speech and was getting tired, very tired. She shut her eyes, trying to listen to the speech, but somehow fell asleep:
Within the dream, she found herself in the hall, outside the MPR. It was dark and all the lights were off. The only source of light came from the moon shinning in from a window that had not been there before: It was a clear, stainless glass window and it was located on the very far end of the hall, to the left of the stairs. She heard a rustling sound coming from the other side of the door, underneath the stair case. She opened it and entered the room. It wasn't very dark, with lots and black and grey coating the objects in the room. There was a very big window, which covered up nearly the entire wall opposite her. The light covered the room softly in silver. She stepped into the room, her heart rushing. She then heard a rustling coming from behind a box to the left of her. Clair panicked and started for the door. It was closed before she reached it and a giant rat, at least three-quarters of her height maybe even more, jumped out in front of the door. Just when it jumped her, she woke up.
Lucky was nudging her. "Are you okay Clair, do you need to go to the sick room?" she asked softly. Clair opened her eyes and shook her head, "I'm fine, I think..."
"Well, I hope you will all behave and enjoy yourselves here at Sorcerer, now, it is time for bed," finished the principle and everyone in the room started to file out.
"She must have been really tired if she slept right through dinner," said Sierus.
Andrew helped Clair up and they left the MP room with everyone else.