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This was my first day of fifth grade. I was expecting it to be pretty exciting, I'd always been a good student, and I had a lot going for me. But, thinking about it now, I didn't stand out a whole lot. No one ever noticed how smart I was or that I could do any kind of magic (that I could tell my parents about), just enough to make them think I was 'a good kid'. I must have had friends, though, as I was never alone and I was friendly to everyone.
The first couple days of school were entirely normal, I had friends and played in the playground. After all, it was fifth grade and everyone had classmate friends. Then, the big day came. We were allowed to choose between two electives that year and today was when we would choose. One of them was Mr. Whiskers and Magic. I remember how nervous I was because I had multiple reasons to be worried. The first reason was that magic was hard, and I just wasn't a hard worker. I liked to play and have fun and do whatever I wanted, not sit in one place and work hard. The second reason was because I knew nothing about animals, and I wasn't great at handling cats. I didn't have one of my own, the cat from my house that I was closest to, was my mom's and she was a hunter. I knew how to hold a sword and how to aim an arrow but I didn't know the first things about magic or animals.
When I chose the class I was pretty disappointed. I was going to have to work again, and magic was pretty hard. I didn't even know where to start, I hadn't done any research so how was I supposed to know how to do magic? Then again, I was in a class about animals, how hard could it be to learn about animals? Then again maybe I would have to find out about magic first, because animals and magic didn't necessarily go together. Maybe it only works with dragons, a thought that made me shiver.
We did have a lot to do that day at Mr. Whiskers and Magic. At the beginning we had to walk around the whole room with Mr. Whiskers, who was a medium size tortoise with a long bushy beard, and answer a few questions about the class. He made sure everyone knew that there were going to be a lot of assignments. He told us from the very first day that we had a lot to learn, and that we couldn't mess it up for ourselves or for the other students. Then our first lesson began. He called us up into small groups and each group was given a magical artifact which we were allowed to use to learn magic. Mr. Whiskers handed out goblin tokens, crystal goblets, beach glass, twinkling glowworms and more. We didn't know he was giving them to us for a reason, he just smiled and winked at us.
Teachers named us our groups and we went to the front of the class where Mr. Whiskers was, our teacher. I was with two other boys, all from my class in my grade. Jay was the dog and he was with a nice girl, who I might've known had I been with long enough. Then there was a chubby boy with glasses who they called Sulu. He seemed nice but I didn't really get to meet him until a little later. Our teacher gave us each an assignment, we were to learn our assigned magic. Jay was to learn to be able to summon animals from the other world to help him, I was given goblin tokens, Sulu was to learn what to do with twinkling glowworms, and the girl was given beach glass and had to learn to make things out of them. I was a little concerned about mine but I didn't say anything. Then we were told that to learn our magic we had to use the artifacts, answer questions about them, and we would be able to do it. Looking back I think that was when it started getting bad, we all started learning at different paces. I'm sure it wasn't Mr. Whiskers' intention but learning to do magic was going to be harder than it sounded.
In the beginning of the week's class, I caught up with Jay. He told me about how he was learning about animals by summoning them and talking to them. I marveled at how easy it was for him and I laughed at the situation. "Aww, you're so lucky!" I said, teasing him. "Yeah, and you don't even get what I'm talking about do you? It's fine though, I've got to finish up soon because I've got a new assignment, I'll explain when we go to lunch". I was going to go later to talk to Jay because I had something to show him. I was a good magician, I could do what Jay could do, by using goblin magic, which is real magic, not like animals.
At lunch I found Jay right away, he was the most popular kid at school and the easiest to find. A group of boys seemed to be meeting him and almost at the same time, girls were ready to talk to him. I pushed in and got his attention first. "Do you want to see what I can do? I can do goblin magic". He looked a little surprised but then smiled, "Sure!". So, I opened my hand and showed him a coin. I didn't know how lucky it was or that it was special in any way. I just showed it to him and he was pretty impressed. I told him that I didn't know anything about magic, but I liked it. I tried to wave my hand above the coin and change it. Jay said that I could do it, so I did. I tried waving my hand and it worked. The coin swirled like the wand on a magic show, and then it was floating in the air. I didn't really know what to do next so I just stopped. I was scared that I would lose control of it, or that Jay would make fun of me or something. He looked at it and then waved his hand, it fell into his palm. Boy was I impressed. I showed him again and he just kept it. I was jealous because I wanted to keep it, but I didn't want to be greedy and ask for it back. I left the area after a few minutes and went to eat my sandwich.
Later on in the week, everyone was getting better at their spells and we got to show off our spells to each other. People didn't really care that we had different animals, just that we could do amazing things. Jay wasn't bragging about his rabbits like he usually did, though he seemed to be enjoying more about the magic and his animals rather than just the experience with it. I on the other hand was getting bored, we were still learning the same stuff. We were barely passing each other's assignments. When it came to showing off I was terrible. I don't know what was wrong with me, but I was so unsure of myself. Then I saw Jay. He called me over and told me that he wasn't sure what he was doing well. He was impressed by my magic, and asked me if I would teach him. I agreed, and he asked me how to summon animals. So then I summoned a chicken and showed him how to make it track him. Then, once I left, I asked if he would teach me how to summon a rabbit. He nodded and said that he would. I had a feeling that he was going to be special because I had a feeling that he was going to be the only one with rabbits.