Gwen woke suddenly. She picked up her glasses from the night stand and put them on so she could see what time it was. Today was their first day of school and Gwen was more excited about school then every one else.
"Time to get up!" She said but only got 4 groans in response. Then there was a knock on at their door. Gwen got up to go open the door behind which Nicole was dressed ready for today's lessons.
"Hey! Is everyone up?" And again the response was 4 groans. "C'mon you guys get up and get dressed or you'll be late for breakfast. So see you 5 down stairs." She left as Caroline, Lizzy, Kara and Jimena had finally got out of bed. Once they were all dressed they went down stairs to the common room where Nicole and Sean were having one of their discussions.
"He's a royal big head!" Yelled Sean.
"He's only doing his job!" Nicole replied.
"You only say that cause you're in love with him!"
"I am not in love with him! Don't you have a few idiots to get?" Sean turned to the boys' staircase.
"They better not make me late for breakfast!" He yelled. Nicole shook her head.
"What were you and Sean arguing about this time?" Lizzy asked.
"Stanton O' Brien." Maria, Lizzy's older sister, said from the sofa. "He asked Nicole and Sean to stay behind to make sure that everyone gets to breakfast. Nicole agreed."
"You know Sean, he hates missing a meal." Nicole said as three sets of stomping feet that came down the boys' staircase.
"You little maggots get yourselves down to the dinning hall now!" Rupert and Fox came running out of the staircase followed by Sean.
"I'm your brother you can trust me being alone here!" Fox yelled back at Sean.
"That's exactly why I can't trust you alone!" Sean picked up one of his books. Fox and Rupert both made a break for the door before Sean could throw it at them, Fox and Rupert were gone. Sean stormed out the door after them, grumbling to himself.
After breakfast the Artemis first years had their first class which was broomstick flying. The class was also with Aphrodite so Sarah was going to be there. Gwen took her broomstick out of the Artemis broomstick cupboard. She was nervous she had never flown before. Her feet have never left the ground.
Someone bumped into her causing her glasses to fall off.
"Oh I'm sorry. Let me get those for you." She couldn't see who was talking to her. "Here you go." Gwen took them and put them on. The person was the American boy from the train station.
"Thank you."
"Your welcome. My name is Hunter Neilis." He told her as he got his broom from the cupboard.
"Gwen Thorn."
"Don't you share a room with Carlos's sister?"
"Yeah that's right." They started walking to the flying field.
"So, have you flown before?"
"No, this will be my first time." She said nervously. "What about you?"
"Since I was 4. My mother wishes I haven't." He told her. "She wished I'd study then go skate boarding."
"The magical world knows of skate boarding?" Gwen asked.
"No, they have no idea what roller blades are. I'm half wizard. My mom is a witch and my dad is a normal. So I take it you're full normal."
"No, my mum was a witch."
"You never flown! I mean one of your parents were from a magical family you should have at least flown once."
"She died when I was almost a year old." Hunter became speechless. "I didn't know I was a witch until a few months ago."
"I'm sorry about bringing up your mother."
"It's OK." She gave him a smile to reassure him she was all right about it. "I never knew my mother. My father never wanted to tell me anything about her."
"Why?"
"He's not very fond of my mother. I guess she told him she was a witch he doesn't like it."
"Wow! You have the life my mother would dream of writing about. You don't mind if I don't tell my mother about you. Cause if I do she will latch on to like a leech and never let go. I mean it's bad enough she writes about me."
"Is she a published author?"
"Yeah she is in both the magical world and the normal world. You've probably heard of them. 'Lunar Eclipse'."
"Oh my god I love those books. And they're about you?"
"Based on me. I mean it's embarrassing when your friends know it's you! She is so going to pay for my therapy when I'm older." Gwen giggled at him. "But she also writes books based on other people like you know our house parents Nicole and Sean Fox. Well they come form a great magical family. She's written about their family's history."
"I've read that too. But it's in the fiction section of the book store."
"In the normal world its fiction but in our world their non fiction."
"So all those books about witches and wizards are true."
"Not really. But those Harry Potter books are pretty close to our world." They finally made it out to the field. Gwen spouted her friends. They waved for her to come over.
"Oh I have to go, it was nice talking with you." Gwen said.
"Yeah you too." She walked up to Caroline, Lizzy, Kara, Jimena and Sarah.
"Where did you get to, young lady?" Lizzy asked in a serious voice with one hand on her hip and the other holding her broom. "One minute your walking with us to get our brooms and the next minute you're gone. And now we see you walking to class with some strange boy."
"I left a book in the dining hall. I went back to get it. And he's not just some strange boy. His name is Hunter Neilis."
"He looks strange to me." Kara said. "In a cute kind of way."
"Unless you find that type cute." Caroline added.
"Welcome to flying first years." Said their broomstick-flying teacher, Mr. Merl. He instructed them on the rules and on the safety precautions of flying. "Now that we're past all that, on to the lesson itself. Now I want you all to hold your brooms out like this." He said as he held out his broom. "Make sure it's not up too high. You have to be able to get on." Everyone did what he or she was told. "Now tell your broom to hover." He looked at his broom. "Hover." And he let go of his broom. Gwen told her broom to hover, she felt it get light in her grip. When she let go it stayed where she had held it. Gwen looked happily at the others to see how they were doing. Most every one got it after a couple of tries except for a few. Finally, everyone got their brooms to hover except Sarah. Her broom fell to the ground. She looked around to see if anyone saw before she picked it up. She did it again but it still fell to the ground.
"Stop it, you useless piece of wood." She said as she picked up her broom.
"This is a prime example of why you should treat your broom with respect." Caroline whispered to Gwen. Sarah heard her and shot her a glare.
"Stop embarrassing me you bundle of twigs." Then the broom stated to jerk in her hand then it shot out of her hand. "Hey get back here you twig brain!" The class watched her broom zoom around the school grounds. At one point they all lost sight of it. "Where did that bloody…" Sarah was unable to finish, her broom came out from behind her and knocking her off her feet before going back into the air. Sarah sat up. She never looked more like a banshee until that very moment. Her eyes had gone all black and her teeth became razor sharp. "You are so fire wood when I get my hands on you!" She yelled as she shook her fist at her broom. Everyone laughed at this scene.
"She is always so abusive to her broom." Caroline said shaking her head.
After flying was potion, which turned into Gwen's lest favorite class. Jasmine Doyle played favorites in the class because it was Artemis and her own old house was Ares. She would grill anyone from Artemis about potions. After class Kara said that one of the first years name Marigold was Ms. Doyle's niece. When the bell finally rang for lunch Gwen quickly packed up her things and rushed out with Caroline, Lizzy, Jimena and Kara. The last class of the day was History with Apollo house. It was not an interesting class. She tried to pay attention but it was hard with Lizzy, Caroline, Jimena and Kara were passing her notes.
Once the class let out they headed back to the house. A few fifth years had already started on their work from classes that day. The 5 first year girls sat down around the coffee table, which had the sofa and 4 armchairs around it.
"Can you believe Ms. Doyle gave us so much work our first day?" Kara said as she put her books on the coffee table.
"I know, a 4 page essay on the difference between newt eyes and toad eyes." Caroline said as she pulled out her parchment, quills and ink.
"Did anyone get the notes during History?" Asked Lizzy.
"I took notes if you want to copy them." Gwen said as she pulled out two sheets of parchment with writing all over them.
"You actually took notes?" Kara said stunned.
"Not really, I took the notes from the book. He was taking it straight from there." Then a tall boy, Nicole and Sean's age with long dirty blond hair and dark brown eyes, entered the room with an annoyed look.
"Hey Zac," Lizzy said "so where's Sean?"
"He got to close to the edge of the balcony and I just gave him a little push." He turned to Nicole who was sitting at a table by the window working on an essay for one of her classes. "How the hell did your twin get to be a house parent?"
"Hello Zachary." Nicole said without looking up from her paper.
"Hi, how in Merlin's name did your brother, Sean, become a house parent?"
"I don't know. What is he doing now?"
"He came in to our room last night going 'I'm your all-knowing and all-powerful ruler. You will all bow down to me!' I wanted to smother him with a pillow."
"You know Sean, he gets a little power hungry when he's given some kind of control." Nicole finally looked up from her paper at him. "Did you train at all this summer?" Meg with a few of her friend entered the common room.
"I trained." One of Meg's friends burst out laughing. She had long curly dark brown hair, gray eyes and olive color skin.
"If you call laying around the house training. Yeah, he trained this summer." Zac glared at her.
"Shut up Val." He said through his teeth. He looked back at Nicole. "OK maybe not as much as you wanted me to. Let's not get off topic here. A LITTLE!" He yelled. "That one day last year when you were sick and Sean took over for you. He ran our training session as if it was a boot camp. He's flippin power hungry."
"Who's power hungry?" Sean asked when he entered the common room. Zac looked at him with a crazed look.
"You're power hungry, sir."
"Zac man, what did I tell you? Call me your master." Zac stood there staring at Sean.
"You make my head hurt." He said as he walked over to one of the armchairs, by the 5 first year girls, and collapse in to it. Sean sat in the armchair next to him.
"Look at this." Everyone looked at Val. She was looking at newspaper.
"Another article about your play boy brother." Meg said as she looked at Zac.
"Unbelievably no." She looked at her brother. "There is actually something more interesting then his love life."
"What is it then?" Lizzy said.
"Artemis Thorn has a daughter."
"What?!" Everyone said at the same time.
"Wh…who is she?" Gwen stammered.
"She was the last descendant of one of the founders of the Academy." Nicole said looking up from her essay. "She died about 10 years ago after she stopped Cal." Gwen felt someone was looking at her. She looked at Val who was holding the newspaper and was looking at her the same way Nicole did that day on the train. Gwen soon realizes that the others were looking at her the same way too. She became uneasy by them looking at her.
"Are you all right, Gwen?" Jimena asked.
"Yeah I'm fine." She started putting her stuff in her bag. "I think I'm going to take a nap before dinner. Come and get me when it's time." She got up from the table and went up stairs with all eyes on her.
