7: You Again
1022 Words
I opened the door to my room with nothing the thought to rest on my mind; that is, until I found my latest not-at-all awesome surprise waiting for me. Stan Sanders.
“You again,” I said when I looked down to find him perched calmly on my bed. “And what in the world do you think you’re doing here?”
He rose up and strode towards me as if he owned the room. “We are roomies now, brother,” he said, stopping an inch before my face. I knew without a doubt he was just trying to goad me into doing something stupid- you really don’t know me, Stan.
“Look, Stan,” I tried to be as friendly as possible under the circumstances. “I don’t know how it’s done in Carlton where you came from. But here in Firewalt, it’s a student per room.”
“That wasn’t what Ms. Firewalt told me.” He laid back on my bed, shoes and all.
“Look, you mind getting your shoes off my bed?” Seriously, what forest did this kid crawl out of?
“Yes, ma’am,” he taunted even as he compiled. “I’ll try not to get your linens dirty, you know the old sir may not marry you because of it.”
Okay, it’s official, I hate this kid’s guts. And I wasn’t going to let him speak to me anyhow. I walked angrily to the bed and said, “One more word like that, Stan, and I’ll teach you an unforgettable lesson in pain.”
“Why don’t you give it your best shot, halfshell?”
That’s it! I clenched my fist and swung a punch before I even knew I was going to do it; catching him right in the face and he screamed as he fell to the floor. “I don’t care whose son you are, I want you to make yourself scarce before I return.” And with that, I turned to leave before I did something I was actually going to regret.
But Stan wasn’t done yet. “Hey, Troy!” he called as I reached the door. “Everything you think you are, those little things you think you own. Well, they’re going to be mine before this year’s done.”
“Well, game on, brother,” I replied, and then I left. He wanted a dark Troy. Well, he was going to get the darkest I could be.
“You look like you just had a run-in with a slime bag,” said Victoria as we took our places at the dining table.
“I did,” I replied, “its name is Stan Sanders.”
“One day in and you already dislike him?” She looked really concerned about that fact.
“I hate him, Vic,” I corrected her. “And in my defense, he provoked it. Plus, he had the guts to call me an halfshell!” I mean, who did that to someone they barely knew?
However, it seemed that my anger was lost on Victoria as she began to laugh; I was talking about a “I just watched the greatest comedy show on earth and it’s so funny I can’t help myself” laughter here. “What’s so funny?” I asked.
“You,” she replied. “Troy, halfshell isn’t an offensive word; at least, it’s not supposed to be. It’s just a term the magic community uses to refer to someone with only one wizard parent. It’s nothing to be angry about.”
Now, I was the one who felt like a fool. Stan had probably known that I didn’t know the meaning of that and so, had used it to rile me up, which in retrospect, was kinda the same as insulting me.
Well, Stanny boy, two can play the game. If he wanted a fight on his hands, a fight he was gonna get on his hands.
Just then, a year one female wizard came to sit at our table at this point. She was a redhead, slim and was putting on a pink sweater with an I love ponies in front. “Troy, this is Angela,” Vic introduced her to me. “She’s my student this year.”
Oh yeah, the "student." Thing is, Victoria was now part of the Student Tutors Council of Firewalt; I kept forgetting to commit that to memory despite the fact that she had told me so before we left the school the previous year.
She was actually the first student to be recruited into the council- the reason why there was even a council to begin with- because she had been the one to help me master my magic when I had almost totally let go of magic last year. “I guess they want you to produce another valorwizard,” I said jokingly; although thinking about it, that might not actually be far from the truth.
“Probably,” she returned but it lacked any sense of humour. The truth was that no matter how much we wanted to pretend, the situation that led to that achievement could not be forgotten; Abigail, two murders, and a third one I still hadn't told anyone about.
“Well, to a new year, Vic,” I said and raised my glass in a toast.
“A new year,” she returned.
I didn’t need a seer to tell me that it was going to be a different school year for me. I had a half-brother who was hellbent on taking everything I had, a power that was getting out of my control, and my sanity seemed to be slipping out of my grasp with each passing night.
It was a new year, indeed.
- Writer
