–Magic Mystery: A Fantasy Satire–
–Chapter One–
– Who even likes magic mysteries, anyways?: As seen by Miracle (The)–
by Genevieve. O
“Please,” I begged, “I’ve never been away from home for more than a week, let alone more than a month. Do I have to go to a sleep away school?”
“I’m sure I’ve made a good choice enrolling you in Magic Mystery Middle And High,” my father said, “and as I’ve said, I’m good friends with the principal, Mr. Avery, and he assures me you’ll love it there, and anyways I can’t let down such a good friend.”
I look back at the slowly landing, sleek, silver jet.
“What about the pattern?” I asked, “it’s usually black, blue, silver, black, blue, silver, but the last jet was silver, so this should be black.”
I wasn’t exactly all over the idea of flying to school in a silver jet. What bad taste everyone would think I had. A black jet would be much nicer.
My father wrinkled his nose, “I hate patterns, and anyways this isn’t my jet, it’s Mr. Avery’s. His daughter will be flying it.”
The plane door opened with a woosh and unfolded a small ramp, then a tall girl stepped out of the hatch. She had pale skin and chin-length spiky red-streaked black hair. She was wearing silver scale leggings that disappeared down her high black boots, and a silver scale shirt that went all the way up her neck and then a little more. Scratch that, it might have been a bodysuit. Over that, she wore long black leather shorts and a black leather zipped up leather jacket.
My father handed me my suitcases, “Go on now. And be brave, you’ll love it at Magic Mystery, I promise.”
I hugged my father goodbye, then walked up the ramp to the plane.
“Hi,” I said to the dark haired girl, “My name’s Miracle.”
“Malice Avery,” the girl said.
“Your name is Malice?” I asked.
“At least it isn’t Benevolence,” Malice said with a shrug, “and, anyway, your name is Miracle.”
“It could be worse, he could be named Amiracle,” called a girl’s voice from inside the plane, “and when introducing himself he’d have to say, ‘Hi, I’m Amiracle!’”
Inside the plane sat a dark-haired, dark-eyed, melancholy looking girl and it took me a moment to realize it was Eleanor Nightman.
“Eleanor!” I cried.
When we were much younger, Eleanor and I used to be best friends, but when we were around eight or nine she moved out of town and we became pen-best-pals. Knowing about how uncomfortable I was going to a sleep away school my father decided to invite three people I knew to fly with me, Eleanor, my old best friend, was one.
I didn’t technically know Malice Avery, but her father was a friend of my father’s, so he decided having her along would make me feel better. Admittedly, she did seem pretty cool, and I could definitely imagine us being friends.
The last person my father invited along was another very good friend of mine, Blaise Ashsorrow. I was best friends with him for a very long time but when we were eleven he also moved quite far away and I had to settle for being his pen-best-pal. He, apparently, was not on the flight yet, because if he was, I’m sure he would have come out and said hello. Blaise is a very polite boy.
“Hi, Miracle,” Eleanor said, smiling.
“You look gloomy,” I said sitting down on the plush booth seat across from her.
“I miss Darling,” she confessed.
Darling! Of course, I had completely forgotten about Eleanor’s fluffy white rag-a-muffin kitten, except, I guess she wasn’t really a kitten anymore.
“She’s six now,” Eleanor said, “though it’s kind of hard to believe it’s been five years since you last saw her.”
I snorted, “it’s kind of hard to believe that my father didn’t arrange a time for me to visit you since you moved away.”
“It really sucked,” Eleanor agreed.
“We have one more stop before we’re heading to Magic Mystery,” Malice said, “we’re picking up Blaise Ashsorrow, whoever that is.”
“He’s my best friend,” I said.
Eleanor raised an eyebrow, “you never told me you had a best friend other than me. And we’ve written hundreds of letters to each other.”
“Oh, um, yeah,” I said, “Blaise is very nice and polite. He’s educated and smart and isn’t a huge risk taker. He’s usually very kind and sincere but he can be sarcastic a lot, too.”
“And he can fly a jet,” I told Malice.
“He’s got poor taste and will wear or like about anything, especially poor color schemes,” I added, “when I first met him I assumed he was color blind, but when I brought it up later I discovered he wasn’t, which was sort of embarrassing.”
Malice laughed and Eleanor smiled.
“My father promised that he and I would be roommates,” I said.
“Me and Eleanor are going to be roommates,” Malice told me, “I have to go steer now, but my father, the principal, wanted you all to watch this ‘educational video’ ”
“It’s pure advertising,” she added in a whisper.
She pulled a small screen out of the ceiling and clicked on one of the video options. She then left for the cockpit.
On the screen appeared a man whose age was impossible for me to deduce. He looked middle aged, but his hair was already receding and turning white.
“Hello, parents, children, animals and whoever else may be watching this, this is your good friend Principal Avery,” he said in a deep, full voice, “You’ve probably heard of Magic Mystery Middle And High before, not to brag, but because it is the most renowned school in all the realm.”
“It is safer than most schools: yes! We promise no moving staircases!” his voice continued as on the screen appeared an image of a crumbly old castle.
“No creepy moody vampires!” he continued as the screen shifted, “none of the students are secretly werewolves, zombies, or elementalists. No. Here we believe in honesty and openness. The students don’t need to hide it if they’re werewolves, zombies, elementalists or any other magic beings. They’re all welcome here!”
“Unlike some magic schools,” the voice continued, as on the screen appeared a huge sparkly school, “there is not entry test in front of three unfriendly ancient people, and there definitely are not required magical abilities or beforehand knowledge of magic.”
“There will certainly not be subtle racism against certain species, genders, skin colors, or levels of affiliation with evil, nor will there be favoritism from any of the teachers, or me,” the voice continued, “no classes will be taught by possessed kids and you will not have to live in constant fear of someone’s godly parent showing up and splashing you with a bucket of toilet water. No, the kids can do that themselves.”
“No cruel angry fire-breathing dragons will show up and demand the right to murder specific students,” he continued, “and, most importantly, not only magic will be taught here, but also math, science, english and all the rest of the normal school curriculum.”
“And most importantly, the real most important thing this time, no evil dark lord will show up and the students will not have to stop him. Mark my words,” he finished, “Remember, everyone! Sign up for Magic Mystery Middle and High – it’s really easy because there’s no entry test one needs to pass, remember?”
The screen winked off.
“My father didn’t show me this,” I said, “this makes me much more happy to go to Magic Mystery.”
“I didn’t see this either,” Eleanor said, “I like it, too. Hopefully it’s true, though. I’m not sure how Principal Avery could prevent favoritism in teachers or prejudice in students, but I’m glad he’s confident there’s none.”
I nodded, ”Principal Avery seems like a nice person. I just hope he’s as ‘honest and open’ as he said we’ll all be.”
Eleanor nodded, “I hope so, too.”