Ordinary Magic (9 page)

Alexa grinned. “A couple.”

“Looks like more than a couple. Looks like more than just fire.”

Alexa shook her head. “One of these days I’m going to get used to you doing that, Becky.”

The woman looked at us and then dropped down into a crouch by Alexa’s hem. “Quick lesson,” she said, waving us kids down next to her. “The first part is obvious. This,” she said, drawing her finger along a line of thread in Alexa’s skirt, “is new. It tells us something damaged her dress and it needed to repair itself. See here,” she said, pointing at a trace of wavy magic clinging to the hem. “How it looks like heat off a griddle?”

“Could we step off the sidewalk for this?” Alexa asked.

“The next clue is the smell.” She grabbed Alexa’s hem and held it out toward us. “Go on, take a sniff.” Fred glanced at us, wary, and Frances shook her head, but Peter and I leaned in and smelled. It smelled like heat, thick and almost muggy, and beyond that, the acrid shadow of smoke. “That’s fire magic. There’s a little more to it than that, but those are the basics—”

“Becky,” Alexa said. “Could we please go inside? Before the charms in your sidewalk start eating through my nice new boots.”

Becky stood, smooth as a cat, and, grinning, swung the gate wider to wave us in. “Mrs. Murphy already checked everyone else in and she’s working on the dinner. Ms. Macartney’s taking them on a tour now. I can get O’Hara, though.”

She took us through the main entrance into the brightness of the courtyard. A middle-aged man sailed over as we entered. He had a hearty, good-natured face, and his clothes were well worn but clean, with professorly patches at the elbows. “Miss Hale!” he exclaimed, clasping Alexa’s hands in his. “What a completely expected surprise. However, we expected you to surprise us much earlier. I hope there wasn’t any trouble.”

“Fireballs,” Becky informed him.

“I thought you had the triumphant air of someone who’d just picked a fight,” Mr. O’Hara remarked. “Nothing serious, I hope?”

“Adventurers,” Alexa said. “A nasty pair. They got away, for the moment. I’d recommend upping security.”

“Because of a pair of adventurers?” Becky sounded skeptical.

“Because they were desperate enough for an ord that they
chased us down and threw fireballs,” Alexa said. “If one pair of adventurers are that desperate, it won’t be long before they, or someone else, turn their greedy little minds to this school.”

“The children are safe here,” Mr. O’Hara said, more to Mom and Dad than Alexa.

“Here, yes. Absolutely. No worries. But outside?” Alexa turned to us. “I’ll be saying good-bye now. I have to speak to His Majesty.” She hugged me tight, twice. “I’ll be back as soon as I’m finished, okay? Save me a seat at dinner.” I nodded and she kissed Mom and Dad, apologizing, “I’m sorry. It’s work; I can’t help it.”

“We understand,” Mom said, planting kisses on her cheeks. “We’ll see you soon.” The
or else
was implied.

As Alexa rushed off, Mr. O’Hara turned to Mom and Dad. “You must be Miss Hale’s parents,” he said, extending his hand. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you. Miss Hale has told us quite a lot about your family, though I’m certain she’s told you next to nothing of what she does here. Let me assure you, Alexa is our single greatest champion. You should be very proud of her.”

“We are,” Mom said. You could hear it in her voice.

He smiled down at me. “Miss Hale has told us all about you as well, Miss Abigail.”

“I hope not all,” I said, because I have got plenty of embarrassing stories.

“No need to worry, almost all of it was good.”

Mr. O’Hara greeted Fred and Frances and Peter and welcomed us to the Margaret Green School. He said he hoped we were as excited to start the school year as they were. “If you
would follow Mr. Dimitrios here”—we looked around for a Mr. Dimitrios—“he will take you to your rooms and hand out your keys. You are all on the second floor.” The courtyard was open and sunny but I couldn’t see anyone. I glanced at Fred, who shrugged. Peter still had his head in his book and Frances kept her eyes glued to the ground.

“They finally showed.” The voice was a low, warm rasp, like gravel and sand. I jumped, and Frances let out a little squeak. Peter smiled.

Suddenly there was a mountain next to us, one with horns.

Mr. Dimitrios was a minotaur. A real minotaur; the hoofs, the horns, the tail, the nose ring, even the spear, it was all there. His horns were short, just peeking out of his floppy hair, which made him look young—well, youngish. Minotaurs don’t really like people knowing things like how they age and how old they get. I had never seen a minotaur before except on those shows where they interview movie stars; huge and hulking in the background are the minotaur bodyguards. Which is probably why Mom and Dad were smiling so much as they shook Mr. Dimitrios’s hand. If this school had hired a minotaur, even a young one, they were serious about security.

It also helps if you don’t get weirded out easily. Minotaurs are a strange race. They’re magical beings—they can interact with, or manipulate, or use magic, whatever the right word is. But they choose not to lots of times, and that freaks out some folks. I guess they think it’s simpler to just punch someone in the face, the old-fashioned way.

Before we could recover from that little surprise, Becky
herded us toward the west side of the building. Mr. Dimitrios joined us, one of his strides eating up three of ours. He was big and muscular and hairy, but his fearsome beast image was ruined somewhat by his wide, lopsided smile.

Becky stopped at a door that was mostly bars and an enormous lock and hauled it open one armed.

It turns out we weren’t the only people at the school—kids were here tucked away in the dorm. There were doors open all along the first-floor hall, and we heard the buzz of conversation and music, and someone complaining loudly about having to do laundry. As we climbed up a flight of stairs to a bright-white hallway, three kids raced by us going the other direction. Becky barked at them to slow down.

“Can’t!” one of them yelled. “You don’t know what she’ll do to us if we’re late!”

The second floor was empty, with all the doors standing open. Each room was exactly the same—plain and white and rectangular. Entering one was like walking along the edge of a mirror. There were two perfectly identical halves, each with a small closet alcove and a narrow single bed. On the side opposite the door, a desk ran the length of the wall. Each half had one chair, one window, and a shared set of shelves overhead. It was nice and clean, but the furniture looked barely used, and the glossy floor had a freshly polished sheen. It had none of the scuffs and bangs that make a place feel lived in.

We only had a minute to look at our rooms before Mr. O’Hara appeared and whisked us on a tour. “We have to get this done quickly so we can get ready for the welcome-back
dinner.” He was a big man, built like an oak tree but significantly shorter—so how did he move that fast? Up and down and around and around. He answered any questions we had, but he never slowed. We saw so many spiral staircases and white hallways I started to think that’s all the school was. He rushed us by teachers’ offices, the greenhouse at the very top, and the laundry at the bottom, and I’m pretty sure we stopped by some dark cave where the minotaurs lurked. Yes, I said minotaurs, because we paused long enough to see there was another one (bigger than Mr. Dimitrios, if you can believe that), and a holding cell with actual bars and locks. The classrooms were normal looking, thank goodness.

The way Mr. O’Hara ran us around, it seemed confusing, but the school was actually laid out simply enough. It was basically a giant
U
, with the dorm on one side and classrooms on the other, and everything else scrunched in between, with the courtyard in the big empty space in the middle.

Mom and Dad left after the tour. They had to leave, I knew they had to leave, but I still wasn’t looking forward to it. When they left it would be final.

Mom cried a bit, and I was crying too. Dad tried to keep it cheerful, but his eyes were bright as he swooped me up off my feet for a hug. I knew I would see them again, hug them again, but I’d always had those things whenever I wanted, and after today I wouldn’t. I couldn’t. Even the moment in the Guild when Mr. Graidy said I was an ord hadn’t seemed this huge or achy or final.

Eventually they pulled away. They said they would call and that they’d see me … we just didn’t know exactly when. Not until Fall Fest, probably, and that was forever. Well, eight weeks.

I wasn’t allowed to watch them fly away. We had to say goodbye in the courtyard, with Mr. O’Hara standing at a respectful distance until it was time to escort them out. I stood there, waving, as they stepped back onto the street, and the gates closed with a cold, solid
clunk.
Mr. O’Hara made sure the protection spells snapped properly back into place, and then stood off to the side until I had rubbed my eyes and was ready to join the others.

There was barely time to be sad or even think after Mom and Dad left. Becky showed up the second Mr. O’Hara released us and roped me into helping out an older student who was in a rush to get his clothes put away so he could get to work. He snapped at Becky about foisting some newbie off on him instead of a kid who actually knew what she was doing, but then told me he didn’t mind stuff getting shoved in drawers as long as it got done. He was reedy, with sharp, tight features and a burn scar that reached up into his hair and left a little bald patch. When I asked him why he was in such a rush, he told me he was a “kitchen rat.”

“Cook Bella’s special staff,” he explained shortly at my confused look. “We help out in the kitchen. It’s hard work, but you eat better. Not that anyone eats bad here, but the rats get special attention. Whatever it takes to eat well while you can, you know?”

I didn’t, actually. I’d always eaten well.

Becky rapped on the door. “Time, Nate. If you’re late, Bella’s not going to ream me out over it.”

“It’s her fault,” Nate said, shoving me out of the way of the door. “Newbies always …” I didn’t catch the rest because he started running.

“Ignore him,” Becky said, taking my arm. “Come on, you’ve got to get ready. You don’t have colors yet, so wear nice clothes if you have ’em.”

“I do.”

“Good. See if you’ve got anything that’ll fit Fran while you’re at it. The poor thing’s barely got a change of underwear and a pair of socks.”

I had just finished getting dressed when the bell rang for dinner. Students poured down the stairs, dashing out across the sweet green-grass-smelling courtyard to the dining hall in the opposite wing. Frances, holding up the skirt of her borrowed dress so she didn’t trip, couldn’t stop blushing. But she didn’t look as silly as Fred, who had apparently taken Becky’s “nice clothes” comment way too seriously: he was decked out in a full-on formal suit, and looked completely uncomfortable and out of place.

The dining hall was one long rectangle, the walls the same dark-brown bricks as the outside. There was a bit of open space at the front, but the rest of the hall was filled with round wooden tables. Becky sat us toward the back, past groups of kids who snickered as Fred walked by, to a table with three other kids who looked about as confused and nervous as we did. There
was a pair of Majid sisters who must have sailed across the sea to come here and would only speak to each other, their gorgeous language rippling quietly in the background the whole night. The other student was a boy swallowed up by an enormous high-necked shirt, and so still and quiet it would have been easy to miss him if he hadn’t looked like a tent pole. The only thing that moved were his eyes; there was something about the way they darted around the room—lingering on the doors and windows—that made you want to start checking the exits too.

Standing in the open space up front was Mr. O’Hara with two other teachers I assumed were the Mrs. Murphy and Ms. Macartney that Becky mentioned earlier. I was excited to see Alexa, off to the side, in her semiformals. Becky went to join them, moving around students so quickly and smoothly it was hard to keep your eyes on her.

There were also more minotaurs, and I’m sure there were more we couldn’t see, but you know what? I decided to stop being surprised by anything at that point. They were stationed around the room, with Dimitrios—as he told us to call him—by our table and a massive one with scarred horns up by the teachers. There were four teachers in all, including Becky, which I hadn’t expected because she was an ord. As far as I knew, ords didn’t have a lot of time to go to graduate school to get their teaching certificates.

One moment the room was buzzing and the next everyone quieted down so abruptly it took us by surprise. Fred was caught in the middle of a joke, his voice squeaking to a halt. Behind us, one of the double doors opened, revealing a huge kitchen. Heat
rolled over our table in waves. There was a muffled clanging and clattering from inside, and someone hissed, “Dude, shut up, Murphy’s going to talk!”

One teacher stood at the head of the room. Mrs. Murphy, I presumed. She was slim as a willow branch, with shiny, springy, silvering copper hair cut close to her head. “Well, I see you’re all here. Again.” Her brisk, warm voice carried through the crowd. “Now, you know I don’t like to give speeches”—someone choked off a laugh—“but this is an extraordinary occasion. I could not let it go by without saying … how disappointed I am.” Everyone at my table sat up straight, shooting quick, worried glances at each other, but all around us the other kids were smiling. “Yes, another year has started, and we have
exactly
the same number of students as last year. Not
one single student
was lost.”