Chapter One:

‘Jess Goldwyn to the principal’s office immediately.’

“Jess, what did you do?”

“Jess, wake up”

A loud thumping next to his head and a confusing chorus of laughter woke up Jess Goldwyn.

He looked up to see several of his classmates looking at him, one was asleep as well, the rest were trying not to laugh. His friend Chowder, in the seat next to him didn’t bother hiding his laughter since even Mrs Mansel was chuckling.

“Had a good sleep, Jess?” Mrs Mansel asked, enjoying the class laughter at her joke.

“Oh no, I was awake.” Jess said, resisting the urge to stretch out his still asleep limbs.

“Oh, good you heard the announcement then.” She said, playing of his lie.

He was too busy thinking up a lie to appreciate the wit. “I was kind of focused on the lesson, didn’t hear the announcement.” He shrugged.

“Oh, good. Can you tell me anything that happened in the lesson?”

He smiled in defeat. “Won’t happen again.”

“Are you leaving school early today, Jess?” Mrs Mansel asked.

“No, I don’t think so.”

“They just called for you at the principal’s office. You’re not in trouble, are you?” she asked.

And he couldn’t help but be touched by her concern.

“No, never.”

“Okay, just go check it up and come back to class soon.”

He nodded.

“Miss Mansel,” Charity asked, putting her hand up. “Could I leave the classroom-”

“No. Only one student at a time and this class has wasted too much time already!”

“JESS,” Chowder hissed as the battle between the Charity and Mansel raged on. “Get me coke from the vending machine.”

“Get me some money,” Jess muttered back, and stretched out of his desk and out of the class.

Now why would they be calling him? Jess wondered to himself to himself at the vending machine.

He slotted in some money for Chowder’s coke and waited for the old machine to buzz and whirl. It sounded like his dollar was being shredded inside.

It would be a lot more fun if he could use elemental magic then he could zap the machine into giving him stuff like in Shazam. That movie had its flaws, but he couldn’t deny that that was the most accurate use of superpowers he’d seen.

Then again it would probably be stealing if he zapped the vending machine wouldn’t it?

The coke finally tumbled down. He grunted as he reached down for it. It would be all shaken up by the machine. He was tempted to give it another shake. Chowder still owed him for the last three.

He put in another dollar and pressed the button for a tinkie snack cake. A milk tart one.

The machine whirled and just as the tinkie was about to fall the machine stopped and the tinkie hung of the edge limply.

“You egg!” he said in disbelief. “And I could have zapped you too,” he swore thumping it.

Still the tinkie didn’t fall.

So much for mercy.

He strained into focused and quickly traced the hand sign for telekinesis and forced the tinkie tray to drop- when the tray let out a horrible clanging sound and the entire tray of tinkies fell down.

“Well…”

About two minutes later he knocked at the school receptionist’s door.

“Hey, Miss Green.” he greeted stepping into the small office.

“Hi, Jess!” she said, excitedly poking her from out her little window. The little office here was cramped and the poor Miss Green didn’t have so much a cubicle as a open plan closet. She still managed to decorate with Christmas decorations and photos of her cat.

“Hey, you didn’t happen to announce for me just now?” he asked.

“You know we did- about ten minutes ago. You’re a bit late.” She said, straightening her glasses.

“Oh, I’m so sorry! I was helping out in another class just now. Miss Mansel left her phone in the last class so she asked me to get it so I kind of missed the announcement.”

“Oh, well that’s no problem then.” She said, as if her we were foolish to apologize.

There was a brand new pack of medicine on her table. That was too bad. Her cat had been sick recently she must have had to pick up some more. Poor guy.

“Did I tell you that Whiskers got sick again?” she said, right on queue.

“That’s terrible, I thought he was getting better.” Jess said. He had been getting better… Jess had learnt a few spells to keep the cat moving, but honestly the cat had been living at least a year more than it should have been at this point and as much as he could keep the cat pain free for bit with magic, his body was fading rapidly.

“I’ll tell him Whiskers you said hello,” Miss Green said. “He always perks up when you’re around. Now go on inside, before you’re in more trouble!” she said, giving a little bit of a shiver at the thought of trouble.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“Yeah, sure.”

Wait.

He was in trouble?

He knocked at the door and went inside and-

Oh boy, was he in trouble.

The principal- Mr Frank, his math teacher- Mrs Left, and for some reason even his father was there.

There was no way he was failing. He had made sure to cheat perfectly on that last test so he definitely scored his usual solid B.

The principal looked stern now, his moustache sat quite stiffly on his lip. Mr Left was also a bit tense though most of her gaze was lingering longingly on his father, who for some reason was dressed in a black suit and jersey and even had his dark hair combed wavily out of his eyes. Was he doing a godfather marathon again? It was odd to see him out of his uniform but when he did dress he went all out.

“Mr Goldwyn. You’re a bit late.” The principal said.

“My bad.” Jess replied, realising quickly now was the time to be clever. “Sorry, I’m late.”

“That’s okay,” the principal said. “Have a seat please- um. Mr Goldwyn what do you have in your pockets?”

“Huh, uh? Just happy to see you?”

“Pardon?”

His father covered his face in defeat. Guess whatever dashing single dad role he had set up was crumbling.

He slowed emptied his pockets and lined up eight or so tinkies on the desk.

“Look, Mr Goldwyn.” Mrs Left said, producing two answer sheets from the test they had written two days ago. Guess they were silently ignoring the tinkies. He recognised one of the test sheets as his and the other as Lisa Spreekers- Oh.

Oh no.

“When I marked your scripts-” Miss left began.

Yeahhhh.

“-your answers were the same.”

YEAHHHHH.

“Okay, but if my answers are right then that’s just coincidence.” He said, immediately defending himself before he could stop himself.

“Yes, but you accidentally skipped a question.” The teacher smiled sadly. “And Miss Spreekers also accidentally skipped a question and so all her numbering was off… And so was yours. She also made a mistake on the twentieth question. A small mistake where she wrote down the wrong number, and so did you. I’m not sure how you managed to copy from the other side of the class or how you managed to copy so perfectly but it’s obvious the two of you-”

“If you’re going to call in Lisa next, then please don’t.” Jess interrupted, before the tension could build further. “Whatever I did I did alone. I did copy of her but completely without her knowledge.”

“Well, I’m sure that’s very noble of you to admit. Then could you explain exactly how you did it?”

“I- uh.”

“He seems guilty enough to me.” His father cut in, and all attention turned to him again. “What disciplinary standards follow here?”

“Well, Mr Goldwyn.” The principal answered. “You have to understand we take cheating extremely seriously. Having students pass unfairly lowers the standards of education. It’s a week’s suspension unfortunately. That means no classes, you’ll also not play in the football game this week. Believe me coach wanted to fight me on that ban though.” The principal said, breaking character to smile just a little.

“Mr Goldwyn,” the principal said speaking only to his dad this time. “Look, we’re following procedure but strictly speaking we’re not upset. Frankly, Jess is a good student, gets consistent grades, does well in sports, well liked, no problems, helps other kids. We just want to make sure this doesn’t happen again. And Jess, I think Mrs Left and I want to know why the need to cheat this time? You’re clearly fairly bright, barring some laziness.”

“I guess I just thought it would be easier. Just this one time” Jess answered.

“Didn’t turn out easier did it?”

Jess shook his head and smiled quietly.

“It never does.” The principal agreed.

“They didn’t believe you know.” Was all his father said on their way to the car.

God he was hungry, but it was too awkward to take any of his tinkies from the office. He still had the coke though, it was in his jacket pocket. He got in the car and cracked the top open only for the coke to bubble and spritz wildly on the seat. His dad hadn’t met him in the eye yet and didn’t bother to when he reached over and froze the coke solid so it wouldn’t spill any more.

“I’m sure that Lisa wouldn’t get in trouble.” Jess said quietly. “I made sure they knew she wasn’t involved.”

“Noble of you.” His father said swerving in front of another car.

“We’re going the wrong way.” Jess pointed out, trying to keep his voice as unprovoking as possible.

“No. I want to drive for a while. So we can talk.” His father said. “So you’re on a sports team too… Was this the first time you cheated?”

“No.”

“Mm… This wasn’t the first time.”

“No.” Jess answered again, a flood shame was starting to creep in and he didn’t seem too fond of it.

“How did you cheat?”

“I used a shadow duplication charm, whatever she wrote with her pen appeared on mine.” Jess explained, straining to talk quickly and quietly.

“Merlin help me, you couldn’t even cheat right. You managed to copy verbatim and still fail.” Then his dad got angrier, finally realising what Jess had done. “And you used a shadowing charm! Do you know how complex that spell is! How illegal that spell is! How did you even learn it?”

Jess didn’t answer. How he learnt the spell was a bit of an illegal story too, and he was in no mood to actually magically incriminate himself or his dad.

“Was this the first time?” his father asked.

“No.”

“When was the first time?”

“I think around the fourth grade.” Jess shrugged.

This time his father did look at him.

“The fourth grade! You’ve been cheating for the last 6 years! Have you ever passed a test on your own?”

“Well, no!” Jess said, fighting the exasperation in his voice.

“Why the hell not?”

Jess groaned. Why’d he have to explain all of this?

“Even if I studied I would have gotten the same marks or better. I didn’t cheat to pass, I cheated so I didn’t waste time studying! And I didn’t even need to any of this! I’m a wizard I’m supposed to be at a wizard’s school! I don’t need to be here!”

“You couldn’t even pass the fourth grade! And you expect to get into Boxtens? Can you do addition?”

“What?”

“Jess, can you add numbers? Can you do division? You haven’t done anything at school since you were ten! What do you even know? Are we working with the birds and bees? Do you understand there’s no stork? Can you not count? Is that why you bought eight tinkies today? You couldn’t understand those funny little symbols on the machine. Those are numbers, Jess.”

“Oh my god! I know numbers! I didn’t buy eight tinkies, I broke the machine and they fell out.”

“Did the machine break?” his dad asked dangerously quiet. “Did the machine break by itself?”

“I- I broke it.” He admitted scratching his head sheepishly.

The car was accelerating dangerously at this point.

“It was an accident.” Jess said. “Complete accident, the machine ate my money, so I tried to shake it out.”

“With your magic?”

“Yes!”

“That’s the problem, you shouldn’t be using your magic to cheat, you shouldn’t be in the sports team. You’re not human.”

“You sent me here to this school to learn about normal people. I’m just living a normal life!”

“You have unfair advantages and you’re exploiting it. That spot on the sports team you have belongs to someone else. You stole all the friends they could have made, the memories, scholarships.”

“I’m not an idiot, I wouldn’t do that. I make sure I don’t overperform. I mean I play in defence!”

“You don’t get it.” His dad said shaking his head. “You’ve never earned anything in your life.”

Jess laughed. “I just used my powers to make things easier.”

“No.” His dad pulled over. “Jess, I didn’t send you to a wizarding school.”

“I know.” Jess responded, taken aback by his dad’s sudden seriousness and lack of anger now.

“I sent you to normal schools because I wanted you to understand human society. But you never did, you made it so you don’t get what it means to be human. Mages have to end up making decisions for humans at some point, most of us spend our lives protecting them. You can’t do that if you only see it from a mages view point. I wanted you to see and know what it is to be human. Their world is very different from ours. Sickness, politics, history. It’s all different.”

“I know, I mean I did live normally, I barely know the wizard world.”

“I wanted it that way! I want you to not be part of either. Not ever. Do you think that happened here?”

Jess nodded. “Yeah. I met lots of different people, heard a lot of things- I mean I’ve been away from the wizard world since I was five. Best of both worlds.”

“Worst.” His father exclaimed. “I need you to know the worst.” His father leaned back and groaned. “Have you ever used your magic outside of tests and sports?”

“What do you mean?”

“Have you assaulted up someone you didn’t like? Stole something? Bullied a classmate? Harassed a girl?”

“Oh my fu- no! All I did was pass maths!”

“And you’ve never been tempted to?”

“Obviously I have-”

“You’re supposed to say no! You don’t answer like that!”

“You asked me!” Jess yelled. “And obviously I never did anything that horrible-”

“Is it obvious, Jess?” Dad asked in a voice so drained, it took any bit of justification Jess felt right out of him. “I didn’t think I had to ask you all of this. I had enough faith in you that I didn’t think I’d have to treat you like a criminal.”

His father started the car up again.

“Next week-” His dad began.

Thank God, Jess thought, with relief flooding through his chest. Next week no more cheating, work harder from now on, just do your best here-

“-you’re dropping out of this school. You’re going to start at Boxtens.”