The Magic Pawn Series: The Discovery (Volume 1)

Chapter 16: Fooling myself

Already towards the end of the week I felt I was not going to make it. It was Friday evening and I had not finished dusting in the library. I had never before gotten detention and it had always seemed so absurd to me. I felt as if I were a kid again. It did not matter to them that we were adults. Magic is not something to toy with. This was a very serious topic and rebellious students were not accepted in the campus. We had to be taught a lesson...Yeah...what a nice lesson...the cleaning class...But it seems that this was a method that was supposed to make us understand certain things.

In fact, it was worse than high school. Most of the professors were just very tough and absurd.

I had so many shelves left to clean and I could no longer stand the cloud of dust in the air. I was tired, I was hungry and my arms hurt from how much I had scrubbed the floors to get those old stains off it. Only Maggie and I were still in the library. We had spent all week in here after classes, dusting the books and sorting them by year, author and genre. I liked books very much; but only to read them. I won't step into a library any time soon after I've been done cleaning here.

As for school, I managed to do some illusions – poor ones, obviously – and to move some small objects – not more than one at a time. I also found out that sports could be practiced differently than how I knew. There was an extra something about them. I watched a basketball game between the sophomores. Each person had his own shinning colour. When the ball was passed from one to the other, you could see how the thread of light went towards the other player. This was a game of colours; if you were on the field, you had to be very attentive.

I had not heard anything about Eric since our last encounter, and Mystic had come once to visit us in the library. She was beat down and it was the first time I had seen her without makeup. The big black circles around her eyes covered most of her face. She wanted to make sure that I was alright and to offer herself to take me and the girls shopping in town at the weekend. Maggie was extremely happy with the proposal. I had no choice but to accept or I would have been seen as the black sheep. Chances were high that she was giving us extra attention because she felt guilty. None of us talked about what had happened in the forest.

The most important news Mystic gave me was that on Sunday morning I was going to meet Eric whether I wanted or not. That's the last thing I needed; to have Eric as my personal coach. He was going to teach me how to control my powers and to not let myself influenced by them. And by influenced, I meant to be controlled by them. I am sure that both he and Mystic knew that I was the author of that little show in the cafeteria when Sarah was hurt. Christine and her sister were just as aware of that but they never said anything to me about the incident. And just like that, it seems that I was going to take additional magic lessons with Eric and with Mystic. It did not matter how much I wanted to stay away from them; I did not really have a choice. No one else had to know who I was and so I needed them.

'I cannot stand this anymore', Maggie said.

She shook the dust off the cloth and then coughed. I was struggling to keep my balance on the ladder. I am not a big fan of heights.

'I don't think that the dust in here has ever been wiped', I said when I saw what was on top of one of the shelves.

I took a deep breath in and then I wiped the one-centimetre-thick dust. I started to sneeze and I had to get down from the ladder.

'I am not touching that shelf.'

'Yuck...disgusting! I hate these small legged creatures', Maggie said while she was struggling to broom off some spider webs.

'My nose is itching and my eyes are burning. Let's go! We'll come back in the morning.'

'I thought you were never going to say that. I cannot stand this one minute more', she said and threw away the broom.