Vivienne Holmes slammed the door of her house, and walks down the polished patio steps, into the cold Ireland air. Her mother appears at the stained-glass-church-lookalike window, and waved, a cheesy and oblivious grin planted on her pale face. Vivienne waves back, grinning falsely, trying not to show the disappointment on her face. She was going to school.
Ah, school. The only place where she wasn't allowed to practice magic. Vivienne had discovered magic in the middle of the summer, while walking to her local store for the milk that her father was too lazy to have gotten the previous day. She saw a gangster fight, and a man using fire, emitting from his palm and hurling across the road to an opponent.
She should've believed that it was probably her imagination playing tricks on her, or that the man was using some sort of contraption, but she didn't. Vivienne was clever, a little too clever for a 13 year old. For the next few weeks, she used some detective moves, and found out everything.
Even though that was in a sunny June and now it was a cold September, she still hadn't learnt how to USE magic properly. It was hard. She tried, how she tried. She focused her eyes on a stone as hard as she could, flicked her hand gently, but nothing would ever happen. She blamed it on not being introduced to magic from a young age.
She knew, from a little investigating the Irish magical community, that her grandfather had powers. None of her other family had knowledge on the secret section of the world that was about 95% better than the mortals, not even her parents. You could only be blessed with the power if you had it running through the blood of your family, and Vivienne was blessed. But still no power.
She trudged along the footpath, sighing. Ireland got too cold. It was bad enough that they had almost no sun over the holidays, but it was worse that it got cold this quickly. What happened to the whole ''Global Warming'' craze? Ireland was unharmed, and the people unhappy.
Vivienne used to be in a small school, a country one, for primary students. Since she was going into 1st year (high school), she had to move to one in the city, which was nearer to her. She turned the the corner, and saw the school at last.
It was a ginormous school, very ultra modern despite the pictures of grand old houses in the brochure that her mother showed her. Half of the building was just all glass wall, showing a huge spiralling staircase and classes, which Vivienne found impractical. If you live in a country like Ireland, why be looking out of the glass at the miserable rain?
She walked up the huge driveway, looking at all the students, all the girls dressed in the same uniform she was. Knee-high green socks, blue blouse. Plaid green skirts, but most girls had rolled theirs up so high, you could nearly see up them from an angle. For the boys, square-ish gray pants, a blue shirt, and a plaid green tie. No one looked proper like Vivienne, they all had rolled-up skirts, rolled-down socks, heels, or 3 buttons on the shirt/blouse undone. She felt out-of-order, but then again she didn't want to be noticed or attract attention. She was dealing with this whole magic hullabaloo, and she didn't want people to become her friend until she cracked the case.
A bell rang loudly, and all the students started picking up pace. Vivienne felt strange, looking at all of the people. Maybe one of them knew magic. Maybe this whole SCHOOL was magic. She shook her head, banishing the thought. All these teenagers looked oblivious to the world of magic, clearly. She'd been told by a dusty book in her library that magic was a violent art, and it involved a lot of contact at times. All of those bare legs and unveiled chests were hardly practical.
She looked around, and found that most of the students had leaked into the transparent front doors of the building. She ran, and the door was held for her by a blond wearing too much makeup. A plump lady walked up to her, waving her arms.
