Avis Blackthorn: Is Not an Evil Wizard! (7 page)

One of the Magisteers came over. I didn't
hear what she said, but escorted me by the shoulders out of the
Chamber. I stared at the ground so I didn’t have to see any more
laughing faces. I could still hear the laughing as the Chamber
doors shut.

“Are you ok?” she said. I felt so numb I
honestly didn’t know so I just nodded. She put a hand on my
shoulder as the images kept flashing. Hold on, this wasn’t a
Magisteer. I looked up and saw the most beautiful girl I’ve ever
seen. My sad watery eyes met these big, brown, saucer shaped eyes
that sparkled back at me. She had skin like golden sunshine and a
perfect, symmetrical face full of freckles. Her hair, a silky,
shiny brown, swished around behind her.

“I thought, y-you were a Magisteer…” I
stammered.

She laughed. “‘Fraid not,” we stood there in
silence, the picture of me in the bath flashed up again. “My name’s
Tina by the way. Tina P.”

“Nice to meet you Tina. I’m er… Avis… Avis
B,” she laughed, she knew what my last name was really.

“You a new year too?” she said.

“Yeap.”

“It’s tough the first few weeks isn’t
it?”

“It is when you have an evil brother who’s
determined to make you look like a fool, and it’s… so hard to make
friends.”

“Well you’ve made one,” she grinned and these
shining, bright white teeth dazzled my eyes. Honestly, she was a
walking model for Toad-Eye Toothpaste. “And, what I find used to
work for me was, if you laugh with them, make a joke out of
yourself, then they can’t laugh
at
you, they have to laugh
with
you.”

She was bloody right, you know. This angel
had to just walked into my life and saved me. As I watched her walk
off back to the Chamber, I half expected her to flap a pair of
white angel wings as she waved goodbye.

At midday, lessons official started. We had
Partington all day, except the last hour when we had Practical
Magic, which everyone was very excited about.

Partington returned ten minutes before the
rest of the class, I was already sat waiting, he said he would
remove the
photo illusion
for me, it was kind of fading by
now anyway. He waved his hands a couple of times and it completely
vanished. Thank god for that.

The rest of the class came up together
talking about all the cool new people they had met. Jess, Jake,
Grettle and Dennis and even flipping Ellen had a giggle as they saw
me. I could see Simon gearing up for his ultimate put down and as
soon as Partington went outside the room to get something he was
off—“Hey Avis, I hope you're not wearing the same pants as the ones
you were dangling out of the window on…” On cue, they all
laughed.

I remembered what Tina said and smiled. It
really hurt.

“Pants? I don’t wear pants Simon…” Ok, so it
wasn’t the best comeback in the world or whatever, and most of the
girls grimaced. But I could work on that.

“Right!” announced Partington as he launched
into the room. “Let’s learn Magic!”

He gave us each some of this Magic parchment
stuff. I was more fascinated with that than the lesson to be
honest. Robin, who was sitting to my left and Hunter on my right,
were as fascinated as me. What you had to do was write on this
sheet of parchment and when you got to the bottom, the text would
vanish. But it would appear on another sheet inside your
Main
Book
, as Partington called it. He had all our Main Books laid
out in front of him, on his desk, so he could check what we were
writing all at once. Clever huh?

The pens were simply fountain pens with ink
pots. Robin said he preferred it. Hunter however, was getting in a
right mess, he would have been better with one of those automatic
pens I’ve seen some of the Outsiders with.

Partington stood regally, fingering his
lapels and began to teach. “Magic is a difficult thing to teach
because it’s an abstract art. We can split Magic up into many
different categories, to do with everything in our physical and
non-physical worlds. Everything you look at can be affected by
Magic, if you learn how. As Wizards, you have a responsibility to
stand up for good and challenge the darkness of our worlds. We are
the ones who rebalance. I am not expecting you all to choose now
what category you want to go into and be a specialist in, but you
should keep it in mind. There are specialists working with plants,
animals, with minerals even. We have seers who can read the future,
or necromancer capable of taming the most difficult of demon. You
can be a spirit raiser, a defence specialist, a charmer, a hexer, a
dragon tamer, an elemental worker, a weather worker, a builder, a
traveller, or a master of black Magic - although I would advise
against the latter. Or you can be all of these things. There’s so
many things to do and be in Magic you can never be bored, yes it’s
hard work, but fortune in Magic favours the hard working.”

After this introduction, we wrote down all
the categories of Magic that we could think of.

“Hunter,” said Partington frowning and
looking down his nose at Hunter’s Main Book. “Do you think you can
write, perhaps, a little more neatly. Your Main Book is full of
blotches and ink spills, it’s leaking onto my desk.”

“Sorry sir, it’s just I’m not used to this
pen.”

“Well, use one of these automatic pens of
mine,” he handed Hunter this strange clear pen. “It’s a
Biro
. One of my last form, an Outsider, gave me a box full
as a present, she knew I liked them.”

Partington would, occasionally, add another
category to the board, which appeared with a wave of his hand. We
went through, one by one, putting a description of what we thought
a person who did that job would entail. It kept us busy and I liked
it. I felt quite at home here, doing work, so much so that I nearly
felt all better after this mornings incident. I looked up at
everyone else working hard, the view out of the window was pretty
cool now I’d got used to it. The clouds looked like they were
playing as they chased each other through the sky. One of the
clouds started to mould and change in front of my eyes. I blinked
and looked closer as it changed into Tina’s face.

“You ok Avis?” I jumped, watching Partington
frown at me. “You haven’t finished already have you?”

“What? No… I mean, yes, I'm fine... No, I
haven't finished”

I looked back at the cloud, but it had
vanished. Strange.

At the end of that lesson we had our first
external class. Everyone was buzzing as Partington escorted us
across the school and down many stairs to this dark, underground
corridor lit by fire brackets. A very tall man stood in the gloom
and watched his own form leave. David Starlight brought up the
rear. I kept my head low, but he still spotted me.

“Hey cry-baby-Avis…” he whispered loud enough
for all to hear. I gritted my teeth.

“Yeah,” I said as cheerily as I could muster.
“Boo hoo, that’s me…” it sounded a bit forced, but… success, no one
laughed. This was major progress. Or perhaps they were just bored
of it? I don’t know.

This Magisteer who watched his form leave
looked kind of strict. Partington nodded at him then scurried
away.

“I am Magisteer Straker, you will address me
as Sir. Enter…” He had a barky, short voice and looked really
miserable. He wore a grey corset type thing that did up all the way
up to his neck, as if his head needed suspending. His robes was as
grey as his personality.

We had all been really pumped for Practical
Magic lessons, but now that joy had just been sucked out by this
fun sponge Straker. His eyes followed us as we entered, but he
didn’t move his neck at all, and I didn’t see him blink once, like
a lizard. We trudged into this large dark room with no windows and
the cold…
brrrrr
, it was like taking a dip in a frozen lake,
soon as you walked into the room, the ice slid into your bones and
wouldn’t leave.

Magisteer Straker made us line up in
alphabetical order, which was harder than it sounds. I was first.
Then he looked at us one by one to choose who would sit next to
whom. I had to grind my teeth to stop them from chattering as he
pointed me to a seat. The room was strange, it was big and split in
two. Desks and chairs one side and a open hollow the other, with
nothing in it. The only light in the room was coming from these gas
lamps that admittedly supplied zero heat. I had Joanna on my left
and Dennis on my right. The table we were on was just one long desk
facing Magisteer Straker who stood with his hands pressed tightly
together, as if in prayer.

The joy that had been sucked out of the room,
remained sucked out. Magisteer Straker proved to be an immediately
dislikable Magisteer and person. He spent most of the first lesson
telling us about the numerous rules that we must abide, if we
didn’t, it was Magical punishment. However, the rules were so
convoluted and confusing and numerous that I, for one, lost track.
I got the impression that it boiled down to: don’t do anything,
unless Magisteer Straker tells you to. Instead of putting our hands
up to answer a question, he would just randomly point.

“Most people who start these lessons with me,
think they would be jumping straight into some practical Magic.
Well, you are gravely mistaken,” he said with great pleasure. “In
these classes we will be learning the foundation for your studies
of practical Magic… and if I don’t pass you, hec, you might never
get to do any,” he smiled, his teeth were all brown in the cracks -
he needed whatever toothpaste Tina used. He had, I noticed, long
fingernails too. I didn’t like that on a man. It looks kind of
strange, like he was a part time mole. “You boy!”

Hunter, who was staring off into space,
jumped and fell of his seat. “What was rule 37b? … Always look at
me, unless I expressly tell you not to.”

“Right Sir, sorry Sir…” said Hunter getting
back on his seat.

Straker was scanning a list of paper that he
made jump from the desk to his hand. “Ahh,” he said the most active
I’d seen him all lesson. “We have a Blackthorn.”

I swallowed and cowered a little. I couldn’t
tell if he sounded impressed or wanted to take the mick. “Which one
of you is the Blackthorn?”

All their eyes turned to me. I raised my hand
slowly. “
Me
Sir.”

“Oh,” he said as his black disappointed eyes
rested on me. “You weren’t the one snivelling in the Chamber
earlier were you?” I felt that stone drop again in my stomach.

“Erm, yeah, kind of… my brother Ross he—”

“Great boy! Great boy Ross Blackthorn, real
eye for Magic he has, just like his parents.” I was starting to get
a picture of who and what this man was, and it certainly meant
trouble for me. I kept my head down and stayed as quiet as possible
for the rest of the lesson.

That night, I stayed up. All the other boys
were asleep by half past nine. I put a few more logs on the fire
and poked it a bit, trying to get the last bit of cold out of my
bones from Straker’s room. I went over and sat on the window seat
and stared out. Hunter was snoring softly, he sort of sounded like
bear choking to death. The moon was bright tonight, and it seemed
bigger from the grounds of Hailing Hall. I felt cosy sitting there,
with the fire crackling, my pyjamas and dressing gown on and the
glow from the moonlight streaming in. And then I thought how
grateful I was, that I was here and not at home. No matter how bad
it got here at Hailing Hall at least I was not at home. I thought
about my first couple of days at school: meeting Tina was the
highlight, every time I thought about her, my stomach went all
fuzzy, it was such a strange feeling, I wondered if it was
love.

Rory once told me that when you fall in love
these demons grow inside you and tear your insides out, I believed
him for ages. Outside I was sure I could see a tall, dark shape
moving in the shade of the hedges. I slid back against the wall
hiding behind a tree. The moonlight shimmered on this thing’s back,
I say thing, because whatever it was, it gave me the shivers. It
looked like a tall man, with a long head and small horns and… long
blackened, charred hands.

It was Malakai!

The evil high lord of darkness, his form
horribly disfigured due to workings of dark Magic, was strolling
across the moonlit lawn into the school!

I jumped away from the window. I didn’t want
to scream again, but I had to tell people that Malakai was here.
“Robin… Robin!” I shook him, and he shot up. “What is it?”

“Wake the others, quietly. Malakai’s here!”
Then I realised he didn’t know who Malakai was. “The evil lord of
darkness… he’s here.” I think Robin got the urgency from the tone
of my voice.

“What does youw’ mean Malakai is ‘ere?” said
Jake rubbing his eyes.

“Over here,” I said. “Look out the
window!”

All of them, except Hunter, sleepily trudged
over to the window. “Careful,” I said. “Keep to the sides…”

“I see nothing,” said Graham.

“What are we looking at?” said Dennis. I
scoured the darkness where moments before Malakai had been. But now
I couldn’t see him anywhere.

“He was there, right there!” I whispered, it
only took a minute to wake them up, he couldn't have walked all the
way up the courtyard in under a minute. Mind you, this was Malakai.
“I saw him, bold as brass, head like a goat, hands like a…
dragon.”

Jake sighed deeply. “I think, per’aps you
were ‘avin a bad dream.”

“No I wasn’t asleep, honestly!” They all
began to groan and moan that I’d woke them as they drifted off back
to their beds.

“Even if he is here,” said Simon. “Nothing we
can do about it is there? Might as well be tucked up in bed while
he murders us. Oh and put that fire out.”

I trudged off to my bed. Sick of it. I had
definitely seen Malakai. Or had I? I was sure I had. Perhaps it was
someone doing an illusion? I lay there for ages, even the comfy bed
couldn’t send me to sleep. I lay for ages and ages and ages until
the clock above the mantelpiece showed half past three. Then, I
felt a twang in my bladder, I needed the toilet. And knowing my
bladder, I couldn't wait - but I didn’t want to go on my own. I
only just about knew the way and it would be dark. And I didn’t
have a chamber pot, not after that ghost smashed it. But imagine
the embarrassment if I wet the bed! Oh jeez, that would just cap it
all off.