"I don't like it," Tanya glared at them. Kyle, Jenny, and Goldie had found a free period together to bring Abby to speak with her. "I DON'T like it. You're all terrible at keeping secrets. We can't just tell everyone we meet about our secret magical world!"
"I still don't really get why not," Jenny said.
"Because the Uzbedis are hell bent on keeping it a secret," Tanya said, turning to Abby. "Since you're new, the small middle eastern nation of Uzbedis is the last remnant of an ancient magical empire who have threatened to unleash mystical superweapons to prevent the secret of magic from ever being revealed."
"Oh," Abby said. "Are you going to erase my memory now?"
"No," Tanya said. "That kind of magic is absolutely horrible and can have terrible side effects. Welcome to the club. But we can't keep DOING this!"
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
"C-" Abby started.
"Yes I'll do what I can to teach you magic. But I can't promise you'll be any good at it.
Kyle frowned. Hadn't he heard something about the government using memory altering magic after the big tree fight with Benny? What kind of side effects? But Jenny had already pulled the conversation along.
"But Tanya it's not just us," Jenny said. "It seems like everybody is doing a bad job keeping magic a secret. The fact that they did it at all is crazy! It's like keeping water a secret. Or dirt. Magic's as much a part of nature as air."
"That's a much longer conversation. One the Uzbedis are going to have to have eventually...but alright. You think something might be going on at your house that's supernatural in nature. Bear in mind, it might be just be old groaning pipes. It's usually pipes.
Elsewhere, in a dusty basement....
Well a lot of things, really. There were still scribbles on the wall from where Abby drew them as a child. There were toys she'd played with growing up. It was Abby's basement, like a zillion other basements across the world.
The air shimmered, and something seemed to twist, and suddenly a figure was standing there, a vague impression of a human for, shaped in crackling light. It waved a hand that looked like claws, and screamed before it disappeared.
There was silence for a few minutes, then the old pipes let out a groaning sound.