The Haven High Book Series (Wattys2017)

Chapter 11

Zach lay in bed on Sunday night not able to sleep too excited and nervous for Monday morning. Too many thoughts raced through his head. Memories of the weekend spent with Lauren drifted like sailboats through his mind. 

They had spent every waking moment together at the Japanese Tea Garden at Golden Gate Park, sitting in the shade of the giant Monterey Pine, the one Hagiwara had rescued in the early 1900's, smelling the sweet smell of wisteria in the air, and watching the pixies playing in the trees.

Turns out only magical creatures can see them. They're pesky little creatures though, who like to pick at you to get a rise. Lauren assured him they just did it for fun, but he wasn't convinced. They went away in a flash happily enough though when Lauren gave them a slice of pizza that he had smuggled in.

Pixie are about the size of a hand – not his of course, or they may have made off with more than his pizza. If he had to describe them he'd say they kind of look like tinker bell, if she didn't know what a bathtub was or a hairbrush for that matter. He had to admit they were  kind of cute until they smiled. Then they were just plain creepy. 

Pixies have big serrated teeth, and they only smile when they're truly happy, but when they do, let's put it this way,  it makes you want to keep them that way. Their clothes look like they are fashioned from left over litter that the park goers had left lying around. One of the little mites even had a plastic pop cap for a hat.

Luckily the weather had cooperated and both their Saturday and Sunday visit had been pleasant ones. Usually this late in October you could expect fog and drizzle to be your constant companion in the glorious city by the bay, but this weekend had surprised a lot of people judging by the turnout at the park. 

It had been packed but Lauren used her patented anti-eavesdrop spell and they were free to talk about anything and EVERYTHING. Zach's head had filled near to bursting with the information she gave him.

He went over what types of magical creatures his classmates were, thinking he didn't want to put his foot in it again:

She'd told him at the park that Brenna's a shaman, Kelly's a Norse demigoddess, Xander's a Slavic demigod, Ryan's an Ifrit Jinni, Donnie's a Cait Sith, which just meant he can shift into a cat, Quinn, she'd explained, is a Navajo Skinwalker . . . but, she cautioned him, that he's touchy about it, so don't ask him what that means.

And finally that Rayden was a dragon shifter. 

When he'd looked shocked she had just laughed.

They'd both laughed when she said that was why they had cowered in the corner and if he could remember the day Ray got his powers; then he would have cowered too.

She went on to tell him that no one knows what CJ is. The rumor is that not even the council knows. He just showed up at school, unannounced, half way through seventh grade. 

"Nobody but halfbloods come to our school," she had explained. Then she leaned in conspiratorially to say, "The council low jacks us at birth and a magic lure is placed on us so that even if both our parents are non-magical we end up in San Fran no matter what."

Apparently CJ was not low jacked and there was no lure attached. Lauren had laughed when she told him, "He's a friggin mystery even to himself. He's always doing research to try and figure out what magical creature his is. He comes up with the craziest ideas sometimes. It effin hilarious!"

Zach had found it fascinating to find out that they don't celebrate all the same holidays that humans do, for example they observe the solstices: Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall and the pagan holidays(which are really just Magic holidays).