Witches in Training (#2 in the Witches Trilogy) [rewrites ongoing]

Chapter Four: The Parker McAvoy Fan Club

VERA

I go to class the next day feeling excited. For the first time since we came here, Vinni's rebellious streak has re-emerged, and I hope it does a heck lot to unbalance the system.

"What are you grinning about?" Paige asks me as I walk into class after a particularly interesting training session with Jamie, in which she relayed everything she knew from her group training with Vinni yesterday. Our resident bad girl-dressed in a fitting white shirt, grey hoodie, black jeans and with black stud earrings to match-is typing away on her phone.I gape as I realise she's on one of the banned programs here.

"Oh my gosh," I gasp, "how did you get that?”

She gives me a smile and puts her finger on her lips. "I'm a hacker," she whispers. "I overrided their security."

"That's freaking cool." I marvel.

"Shh!" Paige hisses, but she looks pleased with herself. "It's nothing. I did it for everyone in the class. Only way to keep up with the outside world. Until I can hack Facebook through, that is." My mouth opens and I wordlessly hand her my phone. She winks. "Come find me at dinner. 46-03." She slips my phone into her pocket.

Charlotte beams at me from her desk across the room. "Paige is so nice, isn't she?"

"Oh yeah." Kieran puts in, loading a Nerf Gun the length of his forearm. "Beat me up cuz I stole one pathetic stick of gum, nice. Turn invisible and throw paint at me, nice." He pretends to sulk and Paige pouts, sticking out her bottom lip in a way that doesn't quite go with her whole appearance.

"You know you love me, Keets."

"Don't call me that!" Kieran, who's the same age as I am, twelve, lifts his gun and shoots Paige in the back. Paige, Shaun and Charlotte are thirteen, and Anne and Jon are turning fourteen. The age gap isn't large, but it makes sense seeing we're grouped according to ability.

There are ten levels with six classes each. Sixty classes times roughly six kids per class is 420 magic kids between seven to eighteen. After that, you graduate to the Training Centre, but some of the really powerful, like Vinni-who, comparing to the kids here, would be about level twenty-are just taken there immediately.

Last term, I was a level three. In fact, if I hadn't blown up that telephone at the age of nine, I'd've been a Level One class F. Which, like it sounds, is the class with the least ability (and most kids in there are seven). Witches are generally late bloomers, only properly developing our powers at twelve, compared to other magical creatures who start way earlier.

My twelfth birthday is coming, so, in anticipation, they moved me up to level five C, which is like third-best. I still don't really have anything you could pick out as my main ability-tiny snippets of telekinesis, little sparks of fire, a few invisible fingers, some talent in alchemy. Like Vinni, no one will quite know what to do with me until I develop my main power.

I just hope that I don't have to wait until I turn thirteen the way she did for it to be revealed.

"So, why are you so happy?" Charlotte asks.

Quickly and quietly, because you never know if you're being watched (and with Vinni being my sister, I'm pretty sure I'm being watched) I tell the kids listening in about Vinni's plan. Paige, as I expected, grins. Charlotte looks shocked, then excited. I find that Anne hasnt turned completely bimbo as she mimics Paige's expression. The guys look equally excited.

"Your sister is so cool." Paige says. I smile faintly. Then she continues, "I can help her." She smiles wickedly. "I can hack the system, turn surveillance away from her at certain points."