Rindy the Witch 1

Chaemi Kim

Age 11

Rindy the Witch 1

My name is Rindy, and I am eleven years old. I live with my dad without my mom. I’ve never met her. Just last week, I went to a public school in Florida with a couple of friends. And then, the letter came one day, a letter about a witch school. At first, I thought it was just a joke, but as the time went, I began to think if it was real.

“Dad, do you know anything about this letter?” I asked my dad, holding the strange letter.

My dad, who was really busy with his computer work, just shook his head without even looking at it.

“It is really important! You need to see,” I said urgently.

He looked up, examined the letter, and said, “Don’t know.”

But I suddenly got a feeling that he wasn’t telling me something and keeping it a secret.

“Come on dad, you know something about it!” I said.

I kept begging him and at last, he gave up and agreed to tell me.

“OK. Here is a secret about your mother. Once, she was a great witch who helped others and used her power for good. Some people loved her and some didn’t, so the people who didn’t want her banned her from this world. But she is still somewhere where witches live.”

I was so confused. Witches? I thought they were only in fairy tales.

“You are teasing me, right?” I asked.

“No. It is really true,” my dad answered.

This wasn’t the answer I wanted to hear. I wished I had never asked such a thing to my dad.

I asked, “So . . . what are we going to do? Just ignore it like we don’t know a thing, or should I go to the witch school?”

“Well, it is up to you,” my dad said.

“Try or not, try or not . . .” I kept thinking.

Then, I heard a whisper inside me. “Just try it. It could be your last chance. Also, you might see your mom.”

After the whisper was done talking, it made my mind move. I always wanted to meet my mom.

“OK, I am going to try.”

Even though I had a week before it, I started packing. In school, I just told my friends that I was going to move away to my mom’s house. I will miss them . . . my friends, teachers, and absolutely my dad. The week had passed, and a woman who said she was from a witch town came. I said goodbye to everybody and followed the woman.

“Hello! My name is Lifindo, and you can call me Li,” Li said to me.

“My name is Rindy. Nice to meet you!” I introduced myself to her.

She led me to an old building where nobody was allowed to enter.

“Are you sure you know where you are going? Because this is a forbidden building. It collapsed in an earthquake,” I told her in case she didn’t know.

“Well, I came here so many times, and this is the only entrance to the witch world in Florida. You didn’t expect a fancy entrance! Did you?” Li replied, sounding like she couldn’t believe me at all.

I just didn’t say anything. There was nothing wrong with me! We went into an elevator, and Li pushed the top floor button. Unbelievably, it worked perfectly and went up really fast. In a second, we were there. Above the clouds was well hidden, so nobody could notice.

“Wow!!!” was all I could say.

“Come on and follow me. You don’t want to sleep outside because there are a lot of magical creatures that come out at night. Some could be dangerous,” Li said.

When we got to my new “witch” school, I was amazed by how small it was. It was surrounded by a beautiful magic lake and forest. It was kind of weird that there were lakes in the sky.

“Now, I can’t go in there, so you will have to find your way by yourself, OK?” Li asked.

“OK!” I replied confidently since it was small.

The walls were made of glittery bricks. I started looking for my room. I thought it would only take about ten minutes. But one hour had passed, and I was still in the big and gigantic hallway. I think it was magic that made the school look small. Inside was gigantic . . . Then, I saw the symbol of my room. (G-1-A; G stands for girls, 1 stands for first graders, and A stands for my room’s name). I walked up the stairs and found a living room lit by magical floating lights. There were five small halls, and I chose the third room. I was the first one to arrive in the room with six beds that were sky blue and were placed in a circle with a circular carpet, a desk, and a few chairs in the center. It was all beautiful and perfect. I chose the bed nearest to the door for no reason, but just because I felt like it. As I unpacked, another girl came.

She had yellow hair, freckles, and a big smile on her face.

“Hi! I am Clafen, and my mom is a witch. Nice to meet you. What is your name? And is your mom a witch?” Clafen asked.

“Nice to meet you too, and my name is Rindy. And yes. My mom is a witch,” I replied shyly.

I am not that much of talkative person. But I think she is.

“Oooooooooh. Nice! Also, we need to be down in the greeting room in an hour. The others will be here soon. By the way, do you want to sit with me for dinner? I don’t know anybody but you,” Clafen said.

I was happy to hear that because I didn’t have to be alone and I was relieved that I wasn’t the only person who didn’t know anybody here. Twenty minutes later, four more girls came into the room. Two seemed to know each other and kept talking, and the other two just stared at the wall. The two who were talking were twins named Kelen and Helen. They have lived in the witch world for ages and said they knew everything. The other two were still confused if this were real or dream since their mommies were not witches. They were both really shy. One was Athly, and the other was Kanto. Ding! Ding! Ding! It was time for the greeting. All six of us ran to the greeting room. There was a room full of seated students and teachers. It looked something like a church.

“Greetings, everyone from last year and newcomers! We wish it will be a wonderful year for all. For the beginning of school, I will tell you about this year,” a woman on a big stage said. “I am Ms. Andrea, your school principal. This year, we will do a broomstick flying challenge. You may or may not know about it, but still please listen carefully. First, you don’t have to participate, but if you are interested, please write your name on this paper,” she told us while holding a long paper.

“When the game starts, you are going to be against peers your own age. And when you win, you will be against the whole school. If you win all two, you will get a golden broomstick-shaped trophy. Also, you will be welcome to join the broomstick Olympic team. Thank you for your patience.” The speech ended.

The golden trophy . . . I am definitely going to try. Another teacher stood up from her seat and made her way to the front of the stage.

“Nice to meet you. I am your new rule maker of the school, Ms. Morticia. The rules have changed a bit,” Ms. Morticia said.

She said the list of the rules. I felt like it took more than an hour.

“If you don’t follow the rules, you will be sent to my office,” Ms. Morticia said and sat back down on her chair.

After that, the principal dismissed us all. Clafen and I walked to our room together.

“What a rule,” Clafen asked.

The school brought food to the room except on a special day. Clafen, the others, and I were playing a board game in our room. Kanto brought it here just in case it was really boring. POP! Food appeared in our room.

“Wow. That was amazing. I didn’t know they could do that,” Athly said, sounding really amazed. “I was really hungry, and I thought the school forgot to give us food.”

When the food came, we all realized we were starving. We ran to the food and started eating like pigs who hadn’t eaten for a long time. In just a few minutes, the dishes were shiny and clean as if they were washed a hundred times.

“That was fast,” Helen said.

“Agreed!” everyone said.

It was before nine o’clock, but suddenly, we felt sleepy. Without any words, everybody went to sleep.

I had been sleeping for about four hours when Clafen woke me up in the middle of the night and asked me, “Do you want to look around the school? I have a map!” she said, holding a large map of our school.

“How did you even get it?” I asked, trying not to say it so loud.

“Well . . . When I came here and was trying to find the room, I saw a paper in the ground and was about to trash it. But when I saw it closely, it was a map, so I thought it would help me and brought it with me,” she whispered extremely quietly.

“Let’s go since you have the map!” I said excitedly.

I was so curious about the school. I wanted to know every little detail of the school. It would help me find classes when school starts. We sneaked out of the room, not making a single sound. I didn’t even breathe so as not to be caught. Tap! Tap! Tap!

“Someone is coming!” Clafen whispered.

We hid behind a big statue. Tap! Tap! Tap! The sound was gone now. Who could it be in the middle of the night? I was so curious that I wanted to follow the sound of the feet.

Then, I heard Clafen calling me. “Rindy, we have to move now.”

Oh! We were in the middle of the hall, not my room. We stayed close to the wall for safety and went into as many rooms as we could. It was the most gigantic school I have ever known. We had such a great time that we didn’t notice the security robot. The security robot was shaped like ants. They were

small so that they could check the small spaces too. When one of the robots saw us, it went straight to Ms. Morticia. A vision came into me. I could see the robot and Ms. Morticia. The robot told all about it to her in a robot language. After listening, Morticia said, “What are those first graders thinking? Roaming around the school at night? They are going to need some lessons.” POP! I snapped back to reality.

“Ummm, Clafen? I think we need to . . .” Before I could finish, Morticia appeared out of nowhere. “Hello, girls.” she said, sounding like she didn’t really mean it.

We started running. As fast as we could. But it was no use. She used her magic to catch us. WEWERETRAPPED. Morticia dragged us to her office.

“What do you think you are doing in the middle of the night, girls!? Don’t you know the rules? It was not even ten hours ago!”

We couldn’t say a word because we were scared to make it worse.

“Now, go back to your room and NEVER ever think of doing this again.” We did as we were told, not even looking at her and keeping our head down.

“Wow. She made me feel like I never want to do that again,” we whispered as we went back to our room.

I was really tired but was not able to sleep right away. So many things happened today.

When I opened my eyes, it was morning. “I think I fell asleep.”

I checked my schedule for today. We had to go shopping for school. We had two hours left, so I decided to wake the others. I went around the room waking Clafen, Kelen, Helen, Athly, and Kanto.

“Is it time to wake up? It is just eight o’clock,” Helen said, half awake, half still asleep.

“Well, we have a busy day waiting for us,” I said.

There was only one bathroom in the room, so we took turns washing. POP! It was their breakfast. There were two big pancakes with one scoop of vanilla ice-cream and maple syrup. Mmmmm. It sure looked good. In a second, all our food was gone. (Not even a crumb left!) We changed our pajamas into our school uniform we got from school yesterday in the dressing room. (We have our own dressing room). When we were all ready to go, a woman in a black dress and black high heels with neat hair came into our room.

“Good morning, kids. I am the G-1-A homeroom teacher, Ms. Lorelei. I am here to take you to the stores. Please meet me in the main room.”

When we got to the main room, there were thirty more kids in the room. We started introducing ourselves. (G-1-A room students name list: Willa, Isla, Kylie, Annalise, Alisa, Calista, Isabelle, Jullice, Everlyn, Raleigh, Naomi,

Lucy, Skylar, Melissa, Rachel, Willa, Kournikova, Gayla, Kenora, Lauren, Dylan, Sierra, Emma, Ella, Anna, Grace, Olivia, Maya, Peobe, Cleo). I liked Lauren. She had smooth black hair, a pair of cute earrings on, and mostly, she was very kind. She told everyone that her parents were just normal beings and was excited that she was here with us. She used room two right next to mine.

“Now that we know each other, let’s all line up at the door to go outside,” Ms. Lorelei said.

As we lined up, I walked to Lauren. “Hi Lauren! Nice to meet you. I am Rindy from room three,” I said as brightly as I could.

“Oh, hi! Rindy, I was just wondering if I could go with you and your friends to the store. I still don’t have any friends to go with. Also, you have to be careful of these girls Dylan, Cleo, Jullice, Kylie, and Melissa. They are not nice. I know it because I tried to be friends with them,” Lauren said.

“I would like to have you in my group. Follow me,” I said excitedly.

When I told Clafen about the whole story, she greeted Lauren kindly.

“It is so nice to have you in our group, Lauren!” Clafen said.

We lined up, and Ms. Lorelei led us to the stores. It was just behind the school, so it didn’t take long to get there. The stores were lined up perfectly in rows, and they were colorful and crowded. We had to be careful not to get lost. We went into the bookstore called “To The Adventure.” It was made out of stones with drawings of books on the wall. Books were everywhere in the store.

“OK, we are supposed to buy The Puffy Cauldron, Amazing Beginners Magic, The Way To Fly, Simple Book One, and three books you want to read,” Clafen said.

We asked an old man on the counter about the books we were finding.

“Well, let me see. Hmm. When you go to your right, there is a school section, and you will find ‘for beginners’,” he said with a cough in the end.

We thanked him for helping and went straight to searching. The books were enormous, fat, and old. But it didn’t cost too much.

“Wow, it is really heavy,” Lauren said, trying to drag it. “I can’t even drag it!”

Then, Ms. Lorelei came out of nowhere and said, “What’s wrong girls? Too heavy for you? Let me help you with that.”

Then, swoosh! All the books were up in the air floating gracefully. Snap! She snapped her finger, and all the books disappeared at once. I couldn’t believe what I just saw. I couldn’t wait to tell my friend. Oh, wait. I am in a witch ‘s world, and everyone knows how to do it. It isn’t anything special . . .

“Are we going to learn how to do that? It is awesome!” Lauren and Clafen said at the same time.

“Of course. Making things float is one of the easiest things to do. But making things disappear . . . You will have to be patient,” Ms. Lorelei said calmly, but she was happy to hear that we were excited about it.

After that, she went out of the store to help the other kids. We left the store after Ms. Lorelei. We went to a sweet store called “A House Full Of Sweets” since we were hungry. The store was full of every kind of sweets. Like our school, the store was bigger inside than how it looked outside.

“Mmm. I love sweets!” Lauren said, dropping every kind of candy in her shopping bag.

Unlike her, I chose carefully because I had a certain amount of money to spend. There were candies changing color every second, candies that were moving, and some that were talking. Clafen’s bag was half full, mine was one-third of the way full, and Lauren had two full bags. And Lauren purchased them all. Since then, I knew that her family was very rich.

It was a pretty normal week. We just stayed inside our room, playing board games and talking. The next day would be my first school day. I am so nervous. What if my least favorite teacher taught me my favorite subject? What if all the classes are boring? Clafen kept telling me to calm down, but it didn’t really help.

“Finally, it is my first day of witch school,” I told myself the next morning. I was the second one to wake up in my room. Athly was up, staring out the window.

“Oh. Hi, Rindy! How are you?” she said, sounding really tired.

“I am good. Just kind of nervous about today. I hope I get good grades,” I said cheerfully.

When we were done changing and eating breakfast, Clafen, Kanto, Kelen, and Helen woke up.

“What time is it?” Kelen asked.

“6:30. Good time to wake up,” Helen said, checking her bubble watch.

All of us got ready in ten minutes and checked our schedule. It was all the same since we were only first graders.

“OK, we go to our main room at 7:20 to start our day. After that, we go to magic class, flying class, potion class, and astronomy,” Kanto said.

“OK. Then, let’s start heading to the main room,” I said.

We all got up and packed all the books we needed into the book bag (if you were wondering why we didn’t buy an astronomy book, it was because our school provides it to us, but it had to stay in the classroom unless we had homework). When we got to the main room, it was empty except for the crackling fire. We found some comfortable seats and sat down, waiting for

the others. Lauren and her roommates Willa, Lucy, Isla, Naomi, Alisa came. Lauren, Clafen, Willa (Lauren’s new friend), and I sat together on a long sofa. A few minutes later, all the other students poured inside. Ms. Lorelei came last. We shared our feelings about our first day of school. When some students talked about being nervous, Dylan, Cleo, Jullice, Kylie, and Melissa whispered something to each other. I knew they were not talking about kind stuff with their expressions.

When Ms. Lorelei noticed them whispering, she asked kindly to them, “Do you have any comments to share, girls? We will be happy to hear about it. I can wait.”

As if they were embarrassed, their faces turned red, and they said nothing. Just then, the bell rang to inform us that there were five minutes left until the next class began. All of us stood up, and Ms. Lorelei dismissed us. Lauren and Willa said they would catch up, so I went to magic class with Clafen. We found our way to the classroom by seeing the new map we got from a store, which was pretty helpful since all of the room was labeled, and a red dot appeared where the owner was. And thanks to Lauren, she paid more money and made them so only the owner could see them.

We went into the classroom just in time. The class started, and the starting bell rang. Only half of the class was there. We found a seat next to each other. It wasn’t a solid desk. In fact, it was a liquid desk. When I touched it, it felt like water but solid. My hand couldn’t go through it.

“Morning class. Welcome to your magic class. I am your teacher, Ms. Aquata. So, let’s start the class. Open to page 273,” Ms. Aquata said. The class was fine. We didn’t have to use magic today, but she showed us some awesome magic.

Ding. We had to hurry. The bell meant five minutes before the next class. We were flying. The class was in the big school field. Lots and lots of broomsticks were leaning against the wall. My hands itched to touch it, but I forced myself to stop. I sat on a broomstick-shaped bench and pretended it was a real broomstick with Willa. She seemed to want to fly like me. We shared some conversation but were forced to stop when the teacher Ms. Ivanans came and blew the whistle three times. All the G-1-A and G-1-B students made a big circle around her.

“Good to see you in class. I am Ms. Ivanans. I am here to teach you how to ride a broomstick. If you don’t succeed in this subject this year, you won’t be able to attend it next year or the following year.”

She told us how to safely take off and land, and how to speed up or down. She showed us some tricks like making her broomstick somersault. She said we were going to really ride it from tomorrow. I was super excited. 160

We had lunch next. We went back to our room and ate our lunch, which was a sandwich, chocolate milk, grapes, and pudding. We also went out to the school yard and rolled on the grass. It felt good to play with my friends like when I did in Florida. I couldn’t stop thinking about Florida.

“Rindy, are you listening to me?” I suddenly heard Willa. “It is almost time to go to potion class. Let’s get ready. Lauren and Clafen are already on their way.”

I slowly got up, confused if this was real or not. I was walking to the classroom with Willa. Both of our heads were down to look at the map. There was a stone in Willa’s way, and she accidentally tripped over it!

“Owwww!” Willa shouted.

Lauren came out of nowhere and ran toward Willa. “Are you OK?” she asked. Willa just moaned. “We’d better take her to Ms. Finer, the school nurse.”

Some other students helped us to lift up Willa, and we took her to the nurse office.

“Oh my. What happened, girls? Let me take a look at her,” Ms. Finer took Willa and laid her in bed. “What is her name, grade, and homeroom teacher?”

“Her name is Willa. She is in first grade, and our teacher’s name is Ms. Lorelei. We are friends of h . . .” I couldn’t hear what she was saying since the bell just started to ring.

Without saying goodbye, both of us started to run for the potion class. We weren’t going to mess up our first day of school. We were three minutes late, and the teacher, Ms. M Jen, was calling names.

“Have your seat please. And your name is . . .” Ms. M Jen said in a kind tone with a big smile on her face.

“I am Rindy, and she is my friend Lauren. We are late because our friend Willa got hurt. We took her to the nurse’s room.” I said, taking an empty seat next to Clafen.

“It is OK since it is the first day of school. I allow students to accidentally be late three times a year. But you will have to go to the principal’s office after that,” Ms. M Jen said.

In class, Ms. M Jen showed us how to make water change color. She added strange ingredients and sang a strange song which went like this.

“Water water, clear water, mix and mix with colors, change and change, pop, pop, pop, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple, rainbow~!”

As soon as the song finished, the water began to change color from red to purple in order. All the students’ eyes, including mine, opened wide.

“Now, it is time for you to try,” Ms, M Jen said.

She gave us the ingredients. I read the instructions and chopped my in161

gredients and tossed them into the boiling water. I turned around to look at Clafen working. She was almost done singing the magic song. I began to sing it too. I said pink, silver, gold, and blue instead of all the rainbow colors. And it worked really well!

“Good job! Rindy. I like the colors,” Ms. M Jen said.

“Oh. Thank you. I really like these colors,” I answered politely.

After the potion class ended, I walked to my room with Clafen. She said, “Your potion was awesome. I wish I could be as good as you are . . .”

“I liked your potion a lot, Clafen. You made it faster than me!” I answered.

As soon as we got to our room, we started our homework. There wasn’t a lot since it was the first day of school. Lauren was really good at it, so I got some help from her.

Then, Lauren said, “Do you want to go to the nurse’s office to check on Willa? I don’t want to go alone. Also, Willa will feel better with more company.”

I almost forgot about Willa!

“What kind of friend am I?”

I nodded and went off to see Willa with Lauren.

At the nurse’s office, Willa was drinking a potion that looked like water. She had a frown on her face because of the bitterness of the potion medicine. Still, she managed to smile when she saw us coming.

“I was worried I wouldn’t have any company!” Willa shouted.

“Why would we forget about you? We are your best friends!” Lauren said with an assuring smile on her face.

We talked and talked and talked together until Ms. Finer said she could go back to normal tomorrow. It was time for us to go back to our room.

Another week and another month went by. I learned how to use magic, make potions that were hard to make, and fly on a broomstick. I spent a pretty good amount of time hanging out with my best friends. Today, we finally got our grades for the first semester. Here it was.

Magic: B

Potion: A+

Flying: A+

Math: B

Languages: C

Astronomy: B

Creature: A

Special: A

I thought I got pretty good grades! But compared to Lauren . . . She had

all A+’s. Except flying. She was horrible at that subject. We were going to have a flying contest! I applied for it. I was excited and nervous at the same time, but I was ready for it. Everyone should use the same kind of broomstick for fairness.

I went to the battle field. At first it seemed to be straight, but some parts I had to turn, go up, or go down. There were some traps too!

“Attention!” A voice that belonged to Ms. Ivanans came out from the big speaker. “Everyone in the line!”

I hurried to the line. While I was running to the line, I saw Willa, Clafen, and Lauren seated on a watching chair. Ms. Ivanans said the rules of the game before the game started. “OK. On the count of three! One, two, three, go!”

Zoom! All of us started flying. Some couldn’t even start, or they got stuck, or bumped into the rail. They were out. Thirty out of fifty were left in the game. But ten of the students were really slow, so they already fell behind. The rest of the twenty students competed with each other now. Whoosh! The wind brushed my hair while I zoomed past several students. Bump! Crack! It was ten out of fifty now. But we were still only half way to the finish line. The other nine were skilled athletes. They twirled and turned gracefully in the corner. I was in fourth place. Kylie was in first place. I really needed to win. I breathed deeply and made a strong connection with my broomstick.

“I. Can. Do. This!” I said to myself.

I zoomed past the third place and the second place. It was only Kylie who I had to pass. Then, traps came from everywhere. It must be the trap area. I had to go left to right, right to left. Up from down, down from up. I needed to concentrate more. When I was trying to concentrate, Kylie turned her head around to me, smirked, and gained more speed. Whack! Several stones were flying toward me, and one of them hit my broomstick! My broomstick and I went flying toward the stone wall.

“Change direction. Change direction,” I told myself.

When I almost crashed into the rock, I finally changed my direction. More concentrated, I flew faster and got away from traps. A few moments later, I was right behind Kylie. Kylie seemed really surprised to see me right behind her. But within a second, her face changed to a sly smile. Splash! Some sticky and green liquid came out from Kylie’s finger. I had to dodge and change directions to escape from the liquid. This game was going out of hand! When I didn’t get in Kylie’s trap, she seemed to stop. When the green liquid stopped, a giant spider web was in front of me. I couldn’t stop because my speed was so high. I. Was. Stuck. Then, I came to realize that I could do the magic too. I used my magic to cut through the sticky spider

web and started flying again. Kylie was just a few feet away from the finish line. She was so excited, dreaming about winning. But she didn’t notice I was right behind her. It was my last chance to win.

“OK, one, two, three.” After the countdown, I zoomed toward the finish line as fast as I could with my eyes closed, scared to see what would happen next.

When I opened my eyes, I saw everyone cheering. The next thing I saw was Ms. Andrea came toward me with a trophy shaped like a broomstick. I couldn’t believe this. My friends came running toward me, with tears filling their eyes.

“Congratulations, Rindy. You have won the broomstick flying challenge. I will give you this trophy in honor of you,” Ms. Andrea said.

Then, she turned to Kylie, offering her a second-place medal. “Congratulations to you too, Kylie. You have won second place. I will give you this medal in honor of you.”

Kylie looked at me like I had done a terrible thing to her. She took the medal, but she didn’t seem proud of herself. Her friends came to her to help her cheer up, but it wasn’t working well. Kylie screamed at them and just ran toward her room.

After cleaning the big mess Kylie made with the liquid, I went back to my room. When I got to my room, the other five friends were in the middle of talking about their family. They stood up and congratulated me for winning one more time and asked about my parents. They told me that my parents must be really proud of me to hear this news. I had to talk about my mom.

“My mom? Well, actually I don’t really know my mom. I lived with my dad. He said she went to the witch world.”

“Oh, I am sorry,” Athly said. After that, they didn’t talk about their family.

We just went to bed. It was a long day.

In bed, I thought about my mom. I want to see her. She must be right here in the witch world. Can I go on a journey to find her? I already learned some magic. I can make it by myself. It wouldn’t be too hard to escape from school. The journey will begin tomorrow.

The End . . . (Wait for the next book . . . )