Elemental

3. MAGIC AND MADNESS

"Ready?" Fea asked her, popping her head around the ajar door. "Someone's here for you."
"Yeah, I am." Tori replied quietly, looking around the little cramped room one last time. "Bye Jane," she called to her, perched on her bed, a physics textbook open on her laps.
"Whatever." Jane called back, not bothering to look up from a diagram of a pinhole camera.

Fea shook her head and rolled her eyes. "Where's your stuff?" She carried the suitcase Tori had pointed to and wobbled out and down the stairs.
"See you next summer."
"I can hardly wait." Venom oozed out of Jane's sarcastic retort.

Tori, too excited to care, slung her backpack around her shoulder and followed Fea down the stairs. It seemed like everyone in the house who had ever avoided Tori had turned up to see her leave. They peeped at her through ajar doors and from behind walls. Madam Minch looked the happiest, her bosom swollen with joy. "Behave yourself, such offers don't come around everyday, you hear?" She barked at Tori, a tear rolling down her cheek.

"I'll try my best." Tori replied, unable to stop smiling, and waving at her and Fea, she rolled her suitcase out to a black saloon car that was waiting in the parking lot. As she approached it, a tall lean boy got out of the car. He looked older, maybe eighteen or nineteen, with short cropped dark hair. "Here, let me help."

He easily lifted her small case and put it into the car's boot. "Thanks," Tori told him.
"Anytime. You ready? Got everything?"
Tori nodded.
"Yeah? Well let's head off then." He got into the driver's seat and Tori into the passenger's.

Tori couldn't understand the insane excitement that was coursing though her veins. In fact, she was feeling quite incapable of any other emotion other than that. "How far is the school?" Tori asked, as they slowly eased into the London traffic.
"It's a few hours away," the boy replied, trying to put on sunglasses while attempting to manage the steering wheel.

"Want to get us killed, boyo?" Tori asked him, clutching her chest as they narrowly missed an oncoming truck.
He laughed. "Boyo?! The name's Joe, actually."
"Tori."
"I know," the boy replied, chuckling. "And no, to answer your question, I have no intention of having us dead. What use would two budding witches be dead?"

"Well you seem to enjoy the thrill of almost crashing us into any car bigger than ours." She commented, looking outside the window, as Joe swerved the car yet again. Tori felt like she was slowly getting used to his haphazard driving.
"I live for the adrenaline rush," he responded dryly.
"How on earth did you pass your test?" Tori regarded Joe with amazement.
He smiled. "The examiner wanted to fail me, of course, so I told him that failing would be great cos I was in love with him and couldn't wait to come back everyday just to see him." Tori roared with laughter. "He couldn't give me a pass fast enough." Joe continued, laughing as well.

Tori already liked this boy. He was exactly like her, except he was a boy. He was funny and quirky and sarcastic. She had a feeling they would get along.
"So, what's your Element?" Joe asked her.
"My…what?"
Joe looked at her in amusement. "You mean you haven't read that letter Morgan gave you?"
"Keep your eyes on the road, for heaven's sake, will you? And no, I haven't." She responded, looking both appalled at his driving and sheepish at the fact that she hadn't read Morgan's letter yet.

"Okay, okay, calm your nose hairs, girl." He braked suddenly as the car in front of them stopped at a red light. Tori had never fully appreciated the functions of a seatbelt until now. She couldn't thank the heavens enough for them, otherwise, she thought, she would have flown right out of the windshield.

"Why haven't you checked it though? Haven't you had it for a week now?"Joe asked her, drumming the steering wheel with his fingers as they waited for the light to turn green.
"Yeah, I don't know, I guess I was just scared maybe." Tori shrugged.
Joe raised an eyebrow at her. "Scared? You certainly don't strike me as that type of a girl."
"Well, not exactly scared. Maybe nervous. I just thought it was all one big too-good-to-be-true dream." Tori countered, getting a little defensive.
"Well open it now. You can't get there not having learnt anything about the place." He advised.