The Magic at the End of the World (Do You Remember, Book 5)

Thursday, January 25, 2001

It’s now the second day since the school reopened, and believe it or not, things are going good. But knowing what I know, this will not last.

Not as far as Kelsey Davies is concerned.

She, Libby Harper, Bradley Murray, Stanley Allen, and Lucy Johanssen (along with Darren McCarthy, Angelina Irwin, and Shannon Howard) are determined to ruin everything for the other students at Lochland High School; they don't seem to care about who they hurt or intimidate. The teachers and the principal are unable to deal with these cases, mainly because they don't want to hurt anyone with a disability by denying them the right to go to school.

At the same time, though, Kelsey and her group had made the dumb decision to make the Magical Secret Society their biggest enemies. Sure you can blame Adrian and Dorian Johanssen, as Lucy Johanssen is their younger sister, but I think the entire thing can be blamed on Claire Evans refusing to be Kelsey's friend and Chelsea May being outed as Anthony Roberts' daughter.

(Right now, Chelsea has not forgiven Kelsey for that. And as far as I know, Claire will NEVER forgive Kelsey for tormenting her for the last two years of her life.)

But that’s only half the story.

Of course, classes are still the same, with the same stupid classmates, same boring teachers, and the same useless lessons. Yet the principal told us that because of our end of the semester test scores, the entire Society (along with a selected few other students) will be advancing to the next grade at the end of January.

To be honest, I’m both excited and nervous at the same time because I can finally escape from being a freshman. (To be honest, I’m kind of tired of being a freshman and I want to move on to the next grade.) But I’m also nervous because Jem is definitely going to find out that I’m about to be in a higher grade than she is. I already know that mom and dad are going to be so proud of me because I’m advancing quickly, but remember that Jem hates it when I try to be better than her.

Some people are never happy unless they have someone to look down on. (I should have known that by now.)

Anyway, I'm just so surprised to know that I'm going to the tenth grade; I'm sure that with everything that happened since I first began high school, I would definitely be kicked out.

But I wasn't.

At lunch, Clay and his clique decided to throw us all a party; everyone in the school was so sure that we were going to be kicked out for everything that we had done sine the school year began. But the only person who was unhappy about the whole deal was Larissa Meyer; she hadn't forgiven me for not dating her back when we were still in Lochland Middle School. She was even angrier when I refused to take her to the homecoming dance back in October. Jem is also angry with me for the same reason, but at this point, I'm done caring about her and what she thinks.

Anyway, as the party is in full swing, I noticed Krista Bradley, Tracy Maxwell, Karah Harper, Samara Barlow, and Emma Day talking to Pamela Craig; they all stared at me and Mary. Mary glared at them and made some sort of hand signal that could be categorized as "obscene".

"Real mature, Mary," Chelsea said as she glared at Mary.

"Well, you try being them and they're the popular girls," said Mary.

"What's up, girls," I said while trying to diffuse the situation.

"It's her friends," said Mary.

"Who? Jem's friends?" I said. "Because you know that they're not really my friends. I was forced to hang out with them because Jem made me..."

"And she made you act like a girl because she hated having you as a brother," said Clay. "Because I remembered when you were almost taken away from your family when we were in the seventh grade..."

"Yes," I snarled. "I was about a second and a half from beating Jem up when that happened..."

"Well, you actually did beat her up, not that anyone else cares," said Clay. "You were so angry that you nearly tore her apart. Jem was so humiliated that she forced everyone in the school to forget the fight had ever happened."

"Yeah," I said.

"But that was so wrong," said Mary. "We all know that Jem was a liar."

"Looks like someone needs to learn a lesson about lying and humiliation," said Chelsea. "She's been the boss bitch long enough."

I smirked as I thought about Jem's inevitable ending. (Not that I wanted her to actually die, but still, I've had quite enough of Jem hating me for no reason. Actually, I cannot recall a time when we had ever truly gotten along.) Plus, the fact that Jem had teamed up with Adeline and ganged up me and Mary over the holidays has made all my internal fluids boil.

"Jed? Are you all right?" Mariah said as she stared at me. "You look kind of weird."

"It's the stress," I said. "Between the school closure, the tragedies, and finding out the truth about what had happened to Jimmy and Christina, plus this unexpected promotion, let's just say that I need a prolonged vacation, preferably in Florida next to the Golden Girls."

"Same here," said Kaprice. "I've had quite enough..."

"Of what?" said Claire. "This high school?"

"Of everything," said Kaprice. "I wanna get out of here."

"We all do," said Adrian. "But as long as there's still trouble around here, we cannot rest, not even for a second."

"Yeah," said Dorian. "Who knows who might be next to stir up trouble for us."

I nodded, knowing that I would have to confront Jem sooner or later. She's going to find out that I'm now a grade level higher than she is, and she's really going to tear me apart over that. Plus, I bet that she's not only jealous that Mary has powers while she's stuck being normal. As such, her future appeared to be quite...limited, so to speak.

Emilia said to us, "I think we should head to class; there's no need to continue this any further than we have to."

We all take the hint and leave the cafeteria just as the party was quickly dying down. (As in, many of the students were cleaning up their messes and going to class.) As I'm contemplating my final days as a Lochland High School freshman, I wonder if my being smart (and magic) was ultimately going to cost me everything that most teenagers took for granted...