For the Love of Magic

Wizards Warlocks and Witches

"Good golly, girl," my dad said, "If you eat that any faster you'll just be inhaling it!"

"I'm late!" I exclaim. My dad rolls his dark blue eyes that match his work shirt. He's wearing khaki pants and loafers. My dad's black hair is on the long side but I know to be that short he had cut it this morning. I guess my hair problem would be much more annoying if I were a boy. And if it didn't just apply to my head. That would be gross.

"You're fine," he objects and tosses me my lunchbox from the fridge. I don't mess around with life and death. I refuse to eat school lunches. I'm positively certain that they're poisonous.

"Thanks," I call as I jam the small blue patterned lunchbox into my backpack which is stuffed tightly, not because I had a lot of homework but because I never bothered to take the books I'd finished reading out of it. I sling my blue backpack which matches my lunchbox over my right shoulder and run outside into the cool October air.

My house is the second one down from the corner and at the end of the street past that is the bus stop. My backpack bangs on my back painfully jabbing me with already read books as I zip around the corner and run down to the bus stop. I think it's a total waste of gas money to drive (plus I'm still working on the engine of my truck) so I have to get up earlier every morning to catch the bus. The bus pulls into my stop just as I turn the corner so I wave my hands fanatically in the air so that my bus driver, Ms. Fillinski, knows to wait. She smiles and rolls her eyes as she sees me dashing to the stop.

"Late again, Fayeleia?" she asks in a heavy Spanish accent. Ms. Fillinski has a stick figure kind of build with a dark skin tone and silky black hair in a bob cut. She is wearing dark sun glasses even though the sun isn't up and a tropical orange and yellow sundress. My best guess is that she's in her mid-fifties although I think she's very cool...if not sane.

"I'd hate to break tradition," I say with a smile as I board the bus. She shakes her head and makes the tsk tsk tsk sound. I walk all the way to the back of the bus and sit down in the third to last seat. If I had sat in the very back I'm sure someone would have freaked out about it and if I sat in the second to last the annoying people who always insist on having the very back seat would talk to me. I'm not very social as it is but in the morning...pfft. Only talk to me if you're Ms. Fillinski or throwing me my lunchbox.

I slide into the seat and pull out my iPod. My lock screen is a picture of an ostrich with a creepy stare. His name is Oscar. He's my guard ostrich. My best friend Jasmine is scared of him and since I don't like it when she goes into my iPod and whacks up my settings, I keep Oscar there to protect it for me. I type in my password (tonystarkluvr), pop in my ear buds and Kelly Clarkson's Miss Independent starts blaring in my ears. I close my eyes and lean my head against the cold window pane.

Exactly five stops and three songs later I feel someone sit down next to me. I look over and see a boy with pink hair, pasty white skin, amazingly green eyes and a smile despite the early time. Yes it says 'pink hair'. He wants to be a rebel but kind of...fails at doing it. But that's Ryan for you. I'm sorry, Panther. Pink Panther, get it? Yeah. He failed.

"Do I get to listen?" he asks, pulling out one of my ear buds and sticking it in his own ear without waiting for a reply. "Seriously? A-Punk by Vampire Weekend?"

"What? It's a good song!" I exclaim. He rolls his eyes and mutters something about me having no taste. Hey, I'm not the one who's trying to pull off the Pink Panther. Just sayin'.

We pull into school and I take out my one ear bud and before Ryan can realize what I'm doing I crank the volume all the way up. He yelps and tugs the ear bud out of his ear. He turns around and sticks his tongue out at me.