Angel (or is it Maria?)

Chapter Six

Maria stared at the book in her hands. Had she really just made it appear? Was she . . . magic?

"Well!" Mr. Williams laughed. "Miss. Maxwell has done it! And she wasn't even here for the first entire week of our discussion! I must say, I am impressed. Very impressed!" He patted her on the back. Maria beamed with pride. She blushed. "Aw, shucks," she said.

It was lunchtime. None of the classes after the first had been nearly as interesting—mostly she'd just heard about complex spell patterns, hand-waving techniques (apparently wands were a useless bother and a thing of the past), and magic in the 1600s. Maria was reminded strongly of some of the times at her old school where she would nearly fall asleep in the middle of a teacher's lecture. Then she remembered the time that she actually had.

Maria took a seat at one of the empty tables in the cafeteria. It wasn't much, and it looked just like a normal cafeteria, but it was very different. For one thing, the people there were nothing like the children at Maria's old school. Here, there were people, fairies, mer-folk, ghosts, demons, dwarves, elves, and more.

Then there was the food. Half of it was bewitched to taste and sparkled with magic. Plus, there was a buffet with only the best and most expensive foods . . . and it was all free!

And everyone around Maria whizzed about with magic at their fingertips; some floating or flying or gliding or even walking upside-down.

"Hi," a voice behind her said shyly. Maria turned around to see that girl from her first class—A-A . . . what was her name again?

"My name is Allysa . . . I don't know if you remember me . . . uh, can I sit with you for lunch?

"Uh . . . sure!" said Maria, surprised. I've never had someone to sit with before! She thought as Allysa set her plain black lunch box down onto the table and sat down.

"Hey!"

Maria turned; two girls about her age stood at the end of the table. Maria recognized them from some of her classes. One had short, spiky black hair, an angry face, and crossed arms. The other one had long brown hair that reached down to her waist, too much lipstick, and arms on her hims. They both glared and frowned with disdain and anger.

"Allysa! What are you doing with the new girl?" asked the girl with the spiky hair snottily. "Get away with her!"

"Hey, hey!" Maria cried. "I want her to sit here. Or are you just jealous? You can sit here, too." she said coyly, with a nonchalant shrug. She was surprised that those words had come out of her mouth. Where had her sudden confidence come from?

The girls' faces changed. "Oh, no, it's not that," said the girl with the long hair. "But trust us . . . you don't want to sit with her." she waved a finger at Allysa cautiously, like she was trying not to get too close to a stink bomb.

"Why, what's wrong?" Maria asked irritably.

"Oh, hon, we're just trying to help," said the girl with spiky hair. "You don't know, but . . . Allysa's a pretty bad one. She sets stuff on fire. You can't trust her!"

A puff of flame and Allysa was ablaze. She roared and leapt from her seat, slashing at the girls.

"She's a fire demon, too?" Maria cried, squirming uncomfortably in her seat.

"HO!"

Everyone whirled; even fire demon Allysa paused her attacking.

"Allysa! Again?" a small man—a very small man, about six inches tall—walked towards them with a frown on his face.

POP! Allysa was a human again, although the transformation had left rips and scorch marks in her clothing. "SorryMr.Wilkinshire," she mumbled in a tiny voice, embarrassed.

"You really must learn to control your temper! Now go change into some new clothes!"

"Yessir!" Allysa scuttled off towards the lockers. No one even noticed. This must be a sort of everyday thing, Maria guessed.

"T-Thanks, principal! That was a close one!" the girl with the spiky hair said in a grateful tone.

"My pleasure," Mr. Wilkinshire said coldly, and walked away.

Once he had gone, Maria said, "Uh . . . thanks for the help there . . . ?"

"Tara," she spiky-haired girl filled in.

"And Ariel!" said the other.

"Can we sit with you?" Tara asked.

"Yeah, sure!" said Maria with a smile.

They all took seats in a row across the bench, and the other girls dropped their lunches on the table.

"You know, you're really cool," Ariel finally said, in between carrot-munching.

"Me?!" Maria said, not daring to believe it. Her? Cool?! . . . Was this some kind of joke?

"It's true!" Tara agreed, smiling.

"ME?!" Maria said again. Man! She must've made a good first impression!

"And you're real good at magic," Tara continued.

"ME! I've only been here a day!" Maria finally said.

"Yes, but . . . that's exactly it. You've only been here a day—not even a day—and we've already seen what you can do. You have great power! What you did in the first class—that was an immensely complicated spell! We've all been practicing for weeks, and yet still, none of us can do it!"

They all finished eating in silence.

"We'd better clean up," Tara said, and with a whisk of her hand, her lunchbox and all her trash were floating in a stream of red sparkles. Maria stared.

"Yeah, lunch is almost over," Ariel added, doing the same to her lunchbox and its contents.

"Uh . . . okay," Maria said sheepishly as she picked up her own finished wrappers and her lunchbox manually.

Tara and Ariel gasped simultaneously. "Why don't you just magic your stuff instead of carrying it?" Tara spoke harshly, as though carrying something was the most disgusting idea she'd ever heard.

"Um, I don't know how," Maria hung her head.

"Don't know how?" Ariel said, her eyebrows raised. "Oh, levitation is simple! Just put your mind to it."

Maria thought for a moment, thinking of herself doing what the others were doing: holding the stuff in the air by magic, red sparkles all around. She wore a huge smile on her face.

Then her eyes went blank and her hands went out and—

"I-I did it!" Maria gasped, staring at the Stranger Things lunchbox, the apple core, and the wrapping from her chipped beef sandwich hovering in scarlet glitter before her eyes.

"Well, of course you did," Ariel said bluntly. "You put your mind to it."

Maria smiled.