1: Here I Went Again
1005 Words
Jogging in the early hours of a day in the spring season was a bad idea but I was still doing it anyway. Well, even my counselor supported it; the jogging in the early hours of the day, not the spring part.
Okay, I didn’t want you thinking that I had an issue or something because I was seeing a counselor. It was just that I really needed advice on how to handle the effects of the crazy adventure I had last summer; and it was some adventure, believe me.
I allowed myself a trip down memory lane as I sat down on a bench in the deserted park. Thing is, sometimes, I find it hard to believe myself that I actually had had all that experience last summer. But I did; and I knew that I did.
I could still remember the day Blake Sanders, my paternal grandfather, came to the house to tell me I was a wizard. It wasn’t a fun meeting, trust me, but after some throwing and tossing, I finally agreed to attend Firewalt where I met Victoria, my “crazy” friend and girlfriend, and Abigail, my guardian; at least, I thought she was.
Abigail murdered two of my friends, Jake and Elaine, then almost killed Victoria all because she wanted me to ally with some godforsaken bad guys for a reason I couldn’t yet fathom no matter how hard I tried. I lost control to rage, killed her, and now I couldn’t have a decent night sleep without it all coming back to haunt me.
“Thought you were already rotting in the grave?” someone suddenly said behind me and I nearly jumped out of my skin; everything frightened me nowadays. I turned to see Roy, my big time bully in high school- him of all people, right?
Roy had made my life one living hell in Krestwick high. He picked on me at any chance he got; and when he didn’t, fate always had a way of giving him one. Now, we were out of school and he still wasn’t moving on from being my designated torturer- typical jerk behaviour, if you asked me.
“What do you want, Roy?” I asked, standing up to match his height.
“How about you tell me how you did what you did during the detention we took together?” he returned, quirking his eyebrows in an intimidating manner- seriously, why couldn’t this kid just let things go?
Thing is, Roy and I took detention together during the last few days of our senior year and as usual, he wanted to break my bones because I accidentally destroyed a pretty girl’s car. Unfortunately, that was during my pre-magic control days so it happened that if I got stressed, I performed magic. I was scared that he was going to kill me so I “flung” an encyclopedia at his head and he hadn’t stopped bugging me about it all these days- Seriously Roy, get a job or something!
“I told you I did nothing,” I replied, walking away. But he caught up with me and pulled me back.
Problem is, I was no match for him and he would destroy every cell in my body if I attempted to fight him. But that didn’t mean I should allow him walk all over me.
“Look, Roy, how about I propose something?” I said. “Since you’re so into humiliating me and it seems that even after graduation, you haven’t changed. I propose to clean your sneakers and you leave me alone.”
He didn’t seem to be eating any of what I said up and I kinda understood; I couldn’t quite believe what I was saying too.
“You really expect me to believe that, Sanders?” He gave me a look to match. But suddenly, he seemed to rethink it “You know what?" he said. "I agree, but only if you do it with your mouth.”
Now, that was just pushing it. But, “Okay, I’ll do it.”
Roy still didn’t look all that convinced by my proposition but he allowed me anyway. And so, I quickly knelt down and got my humiliation over with.
A smile spread over my lips as Roy walked away. Yeah, I knew that I looked like a maniac smiling like that; but I just couldn’t help it. Roy didn’t know what was about to hit him.
What happened was that while I was cleaning his sneakers, I spelled them to become tight; and when he wanted to take them off, they would become tighter. And even better, the more he struggled, the tighter they would become.
Of course, I wasn’t a bad person and I made the spell to wear off eventually; just long enough to teach that weasel a lesson about messing around with me. That Roy guy really needed to get a job.
And speaking of jobs, I actually had one; and I was already running late for it.
Job was Mr. Andrews’ antique shop- yeah! I could see the crazy connection between wizardry and antiquity too- I had to work in the antique shop because I was being homeschooled until I completed my wizard’s training and went to college proper.
“Thought you weren’t coming in today, Sanders,” said Mr. Andrews as soon as I walked in through the door; he always said that whenever I arrived, even if I was only a minute late.
“I ran into a traffic jam,” I lied, which was a really bad idea because there weren’t so many cars in the area not to talk about a jam.
Fortunately, Mr. Andrews didn’t press; guessed he was never interested in my excuse in the first place.
I quickly got down to arranging the shelves before he began to badger me with his million-dollar questions- that man was an expert in that field, believe me- when I heard the door bells ring and a female voice say, “Hello, do you happen to have vases of Asian cultural designs?
“Over here,” I said as I turned; and I almost had my heart jump out of my mouth.
Thing is, I knew the customer, a girl, from somewhere; and I could tell you categorically right now it wasn’t from the normals’ realm.
- Writer
