The Diary

December 27th

Went back to George’s today. Mom was kind of nervous about letting me go on my own, but eventually agreed. No trouble at all.

So here I am again. Tomorrow we start classes and stuff again. Colin and Susan were here the whole time, of course, having the whole mid-winter thing with George. They were pretty bored the whole time, so they were excited and a bit envious when I told them about my adventures getting lost in the woods.

Susan could hardly believe that I had remembered the spell for fire. They both thought that it was awesome that I had used what I had been learning for real life.

Mr. Stevens was just as impressed as Colin and Susan were when I told him about getting lost in the woods. He said it was good that I was learning to use magic in everyday life. Then he went off on a tangent, reminding us to practice what we learned in class. I started to zone out again.

Besides that, class was pretty boring. We didn’t do anything having to do with magic at all, just learned about history and stuff. Boring, boring, boring. Sometimes I think I live a very boring life.

Today we finally got back to learning about magic. Mr. Stevens showed Colin and I a few tricks on remembering spells, and then gave us a whole list of them that we had to look up and remember. Next week we’re going to have to show them to him, from memory.

The spells were all pretty basic. It didn’t take long to look them all up and start trying them out. My favorite so far is the one about flowers blooming. Part of the presentation involves bringing flowers to the classroom (teleporting them from an outside place of course) that are near dead or wilted and help them to live again. I wonder if that spell is related to the one my mother uses on her magnolia tree. Probably is.

It’s a new year now! There was nothing spectacular about New Year’s. There usually isn’t. It’s just a changing of the numbers at the end of the date. Around midnight everyone blows horns and wails and cheers. BORING!!

The best part about New Year’s is that we have off from classes. Colin and I used a little bit of the time to practice our spells. We have ten of them to remember. I have the one about the flowers memorized. It wasn’t too hard. It goes something like this.

“Flowers live flowers die flowers come back to life.”

Easy, right? The cool thing is that in a few years when we get more advanced at magic, we won’t have to recite any spells at all, we’ll just remember them and they’ll happen without having to say them alive. That’ll really be cool.

I’ve memorized nine of the ten spells that I was supposed to. There’s only one left. It’s not too hard, but it’s not the greatest spell, either. I’m not sure exactly what it’s supposed to do. Maybe that’s why I can’t get it to work. It goes like this:

“You live, you die You laugh, you cry You smile, you frown Hide them underground.”

I’m not sure what it’s supposed to do. I mean, it seems like a simple poem, just a bit of advice. I think it’s telling you to hide your emotions, but I can’t figure out why. I think I’ll have to ask Mr. Stevens about it, since I have only a few days left to use it.

I’ve finally made sense out of that last poem. I didn’t have to ask Mr. Stevens at all. It occurred to me all on my own.

I think it finally dawned on me while we were learning some history. We were learning about some boring Roman generals. They were fighting wars and killing people and all that other stuff that happens in wars. And I was thinking that if I had to be a general or anyone in battle, I would get pretty upset about all the people dying.

But generals don’t usually get upset. Maybe it’s because they’re used it, maybe because they know that what they’re fighting for is worth more than all the people dying. Then it dawned on me. They do get upset, they just don’t show it. They don’t cry over each and every soldier, but most feel bad about it. But if they were to show it, it would be seen as a weakness, not only by the enemy but also by their own troops.

That’s what the spell means. It’s supposed to give you emotional strength so that you can keep on doing what you’re doing without letting stuff bother you. When the battle is over, you can sit down and cry about all the people that died. But you can’t cry in the middle. That takes strength. Emotional strength.

That’s what that spell does. Gives you emotional strength. And I figured it out on my own.

Boy, I haven’t written in here in awhile, have I? Six whole days! Lots has been happening, I just haven’t had time to write about it. Where to start?

I guess the beginning would be a good place. I finished my spell project and did great on it, of course. Mr. Stevens was pretty impressed that I managed to figure out that last spell on my own. Colin did great on his project, too.

The day after that project we learned a new spell. Remember how before winter break Mr. Stevens told me he’d teach me how to be invisible so that I could observe people? Well we got started on that.

First we (Mr. Stevens, Colin, and I) teleported to a major city in the human realm on earth. The reason we went there is because it’s easier to be invisible to people that don’t have magic than it is to be invisible to people that do have magic. They can sense when magic is being used, so unless you were really careful or the people you were observing were very busy and not paying attention, you probably wouldn’t be able to do it. At least we wouldn’t.

He told us that he wanted us to come to this particular city at least once a day for the next month and observe some of the people without them knowing it. It was a pretty big city called New York. I’ve heard them talk about it on the radio when I’m at home with my mother. It’s the biggest city in the country. I didn’t think that I’d ever actually be in New York City. But with teleporting, I can go wherever I want.

“This is going to be part of an ongoing project,” Mr. Stevens explained. He wants us to observe people in this city for a month. Then when we’re done we’re going to tell him what we learned about humans in the city. Then we’re going to observe those that live in more rural areas and those that live in other countries.

“What those without magic do is as important as what those with magic do. What happens in the non-magic realm affects what happens in the magic realm, and vice-versa. So you’ll need to learn all about humans,” Mr. Stevens told us.

Both Colin and I are really excited about the project. We can observe whichever people we want, and we have to pick at least three people. They should be in far apart places and not know each other at all. This project will probably be a lot of fun.

Back to main page

Back to part eight

On to part ten

Tell me what you think