The Battle for the Wand

Chapter 1

I DIDN'T WANT ALL THE TROUBLE.

Hi. I'm Cami de la Rosa. A lot has happened since the first few days of going to high school, and not just the typical oh, the mean girls are mean type of thing that most high schoolers go through.

I mean a lot as in weird.

My friend, Max, suggested that I record everything because he says venting makes him feel better, but not everyone has the time or cares about what I have to say. He's pretty smart, so I agreed.

And here we are. It might not be interesting, but this isn't a story for you. It's a story for me. But if you don't care about me and my life-threatening problems, you can go. But just so you know... This is pretty important stuff. I recommend staying.

It's a good thing I agreed. Someone needs to let the people know of the dangers.

THE ONLY WORD THAT REGISTERED in my brain was Dang.

Dang as in the September breeze in California made me really miss the warm chills of autumn in Spain.

I was walking from my apartment to my boarding school. Yesterday I slept at the apartment because they had the same kind in Spain, where the rest of my family lived, but today I had to sleep there.

Ugh. Another registered word.

It wasn't that I didn't like my high school. It was that my school didn't like me. By its standards, I was odd. I was completely average, which didn't fit in with the ridiculously numerous cliques. Not to mention how judgy the groups were! — I tried yesterday, which was my first day there, to make friends with some of the smart kids, but they exiled me when they discovered I hated blueberries.

So what? Everyone has their quirks!

This meant I wasn't allowed anywhere. But that was fine with me. I'd never been the "it" girl. Same old, same old. Don't pity me, this was like, three or four weeks ago. And don't hate on me, either, for being just like every other sad sack "sit alone at lunch" kid.

Not being able to talk to anyone kind of sucked, though. When I set foot into my writing class that day, no one acknowledged me. One of the boys looked up when they heard the door creak open — I didn't know it then, but he was Xander Ricardo — but his head immediately went down. Either he didn't want me seeing — unlikely — or he just thought I wasn't worth acknowledging.

Welcome to high school.

I didn't mind being alone at lunch, either. I wasn't eating anything — not hungry — and I plugged in my earbuds, standing near the doorway outside the cafeteria.

My song was interrupted by a girl I didn't recognize. She was pretty, though, and I'd seen her with the popular girls. Her hair was long and dark brown, pulled back into an elegant thick braid, and the strands leftover covering her forehead in sideswept bangs. Her eyes were cobalt blue and confused. I sighed. I got that look more times than I liked to admit.

I noticed that she wore a white top, periwinkle blazer, and a pink skirt — which totally made sense for her group — but she didn't wear high heels. She wore silver flats. I found that weird — wouldn't she get called out for that sort of thing?

"Are you the new kid?" asked the girl. My face was perfectly indifferent but I was still surprised. From the knowledge I had gathered from noticing things that didn't matter yesterday, I knew that cliques didn't mix out of class.

"Yeah," I said. "Why?"

"Er," she said. "I was just wondering why you were alone."

Why did she care? I knew the popular kids were self-absorbed, like a teen rom-com. Or maybe she was just pretending to be one of them. It wouldn't be the first time I'd seen one of those — I'd left simple elementary three years ago. "Backstabbings and betrayals" wasn't anything new.