Opposites: The Staff of Light [Book One]

10. I Run Late for the First Class

Annabeth

“Now, run along, child,” Mistress Demetria spoke. “Enjoy your plate! All you have to do is wish for whatever food you desire, and leave the rest to the magic.”

I nod once, placed my new book into my satchel and ran off to the door. “She has a lovely name,” I thought. I did feel a little pity on myself. I wasn’t a Harry Potter fan at all. I haven’t seen the movie, or read the books. I just didn’t feel the need to read sometimes, but I knew it could have been fun to read the series. Ever since that day I discovered that series, I started to wonder who the Hades was Voldemort. Or was it Valdemort? No, it was… was it Valtimort? Oh, whatever, you get the idea.

Mistress Demetria mentioned something about a plate and I had to wish for it. On the tables, there were golden plates. I grabbed one and I thought about fiery strawberries with waffles. And in a wink, it appeared on my plate. If I hadn’t been ready, I swear I could’ve stumbled back again.

I couldn’t even imagine eating alone in a cafeteria with a long table for myself. I finished off the dish faster than I expected. And yet I experienced my first burp. It felt tickly inside my stomach, which was funny in some other aspect. I felt a little bubbly.

After that, I ran back to our cabin. On the way, I saw more cabins like ours, approximately there were about five, with kids dashing in and out of them, playing games and making noise. I finally found myself in the cabin I was supposed to go. The first floor had apparently stalls. “Weird,” I thought. “Relax, Annabeth. This isn’t Hogwarts. It’s different.”

I climbed up the ladder. The scanner didn’t need me to examine anymore. The ladder just appears now. I stepped back unto the second floor and it wasn’t so much loud as it did in other rooms. Others were just talking. I sat down on my bed and took off my braid. It didn’t matter to me now. It was then obvious that I had a single permanent highlighted streak on my hair to the length down.

My eyes set on the bed to my left. No one actually went there the entire day I’d spent at camp. It made me wonder. I didn’t know who slept on the bed beside mine. I turned back to my right side and caught sight of a girl who looked straight at me. “Hey, new girl,” she said. Her hair was black tied back in a ponytail and her pixie cut bangs on her face. She had a black tube top covered with a black vest, jeans and black combat boots. I stared into her dark blue eyes which seemed to change from dark blue to purple. “You’re that kind of silent one, aren’t you?”

I swallowed a lump in my throat. “Yeah,” I answered. “You’ve been here long?”

“If you say technically more than twenty-four hours, my answer is yes. I’ve arrived yesterday morning.” She molded a heart with wings from under her bed, the shadow. She brought it up to me. “What do you think?”

“Wow,” I mused. “That’s amazing. You’re…”

“A shadowhunter?” she guessed. “I hear that every single day.”

“No, no… I didn’t mean that. I guess you’re a Clare fan, eh?”

She looked at me like I was a weirdo. “A Clare, what?”

“A Cassandra Clare fan,” I said. “You know The Mortal Instruments’ author? She’s terribly awesome. You should read the series. It’s cool.” She didn’t answer. “Hey, I know how it feels to be judged. I feel you. I’ve been worse, though. I never made any friends before.”

The girl only smiled at me. “Raven,” she offered. “I’m Raven Cooper, thirteen.”

I took out a hand and she shook it. She (hopefully) didn’t burn. “I’m Annabeth Candum. I’m fourteen.” I looked at Alice who was playing on her phone. “She’s my twin sister.”

“It isn’t that obvious. She’s like your opposite.” I took back my hand and it blazed to life. “That’s my point. She’s like… an ice elemental. You’re… that. It’s weird. But it’s awesome. I wish I had a twin sister.”

My hand’s flame cooled off. “Trust me. It’s not as easy as you think it is. I’ve spent fourteen years of my life with her and we seldom get along. We usually end up hurting each other.”

That night, I couldn’t sleep right. After Raven and the others went out to eat, I let myself stay at the cabin. Mistress Demetria left this scarring memory in my brain. She was my key to answers. I just couldn’t stand them. It felt somewhat different. She could have been straight to where I was supposed to go.

* * *

“She doesn’t have to know it,” a woman’s voice said in my dreams. “She can handle it on her own.”

* * *

I woke up the next morning with a scroll in my hands. No one was with me at all. They all left. Maybe they went out for breakfast. I sat up and read the scroll: Class Schedule… Classes start at 8 am. I looked at a wall clock and jumped out of bed. I slid down the ladder and changed into our provided uniform: a white shirt, a vest that represented color of the power with the Camp Haven logo and jogging pants. “Gods, why did I ever oversleep?” I scolded myself. “Annabeth, you are in fact so stupid! Of all the days you could ever oversleep, was it that necessary for that to happen today?”

I paced up faster. I wore my sneakers, grabbed my knapsack and ran off to the mess hall. No one was there. “Great,” I thought as I grabbed a plate from the self-service aisle. “I need a bunch of chilies!”

Like I thought, the plate filled itself with red hot peppers and I rapidly chugged them into my mouth. Don’t worry. If I didn’t have powers, my whole digestive system would be on fire. Now that it I had fire powers in particular, it felt like eating a handful of sweet delicious jelly beans.

After a quick breakfast, I dashed to the main hall. It was like the only cemented/civilized building in the entire site. It looked like a real school. Did anyone mention this was an academy? Anyway, I slid on the floor, almost slipping on my face again, turned to a corner and I accidentally bumped heads with a guy.

I tumbled backwards. I stood to dust myself off. “I am so sorry,” the guy apologized. “Are you alright?”

His brown eyes glittered in the light. His messy hair was tousled as if he just woke up. He was dressed in a white and grey vest, and I began to wonder what power he possessed. I guessed he’d be invisibility. He reached out for his glasses that shattered somewhere else on the floor. “Yeah,” I replied by the time I remembered how to talk. “Excuse me.”