Chapter 2

Emily and Mrs. Walker walked down the hall, passing windows on the right and doors on the left with class names on them, 1-A, 1-B, then on the left a staircase.

Mrs. Walker turned left and started up the staircase, Emily followed her up to the next level. Turning left again they walked down the hall a little way and came to a door with 2-C on it.

Mrs. Walker looked at Emily "Ok, this is your new classroom, Miss Starwalker."

Emily nodded her head to show that she understood, and noted that Mrs. Walker used her cover name.

"Wait here until I call you into the room. Ok?" Mrs. Walker asked. Emily nodded again and Mrs. Walker went into the room.

Emily looked at the door. Here it is, on the other side of that door was the unknown to her. Over 30 years living as an elf, and she had no idea how this was going to go. And not just any normal elf, oh no, but the daughter of the King and Queen of the Elves.

From inside the room came Mrs Walker's voice. "You can come in now, Emily."

Taking a long breath in, Emily walked in to the room.

Spotting Mrs. Walker first, Emily looked around the room. To her right was a whiteboard. To her Left there was row after row of people sitting down. Emily did not look at them yet. She looked at the rows first, there were desk and chair combos with 5 to a row. A fast look told her there were 5 rows, doing the math in her head she knew that there were 25 places to sit in this room. She could also see that with a little moving about of the rows, a sixth row could be added, making 30 places max in this room. Next, she looked to see the number of empty chairs, there were 3 empty right now, so unless there was anyone missing from school today in this class, this class had 22 members. Well, now there were 23 if she counted herself. Ahead of her was Mrs. Walker next to an office type desk. On the far side of the room from the door were windows that when you were sitting in a chair you could just see out of them.

Before she could get a good look at the people in the class, Mrs. Walker said. "Come and stand next to me so we can introduce you to the class."

Emily walked over to the desk that sat at the front of the room and off to one side. Mrs Walker was standing next to the desk. Emily stood next to Mrs. Walker and turned to face the class.

She now took her first good look at what was to be her classmates. To her surprise there was more magic to be found here than she had been hoping for. Hard to tell without touching each person just how much more there was, but just from looking she could tell it was more.

As Emily looked at the room, she could see from left to right in the first row it was boy, girl, girl, girl, girl. In the second row it was boy, girl, girl, girl, girl, again. On the third row was boy, boy, girl, girl, and the chair on the far right of the third row next to the window was empty. On the fourth row it was boy, boy, empty, empty, boy. And the fifth and last row was all boys. And all twenty-two of them were looking at her.

"Well, Emily, introduce yourself." Mrs. Walker prompted.

Taking in a breath Emily started. "Hello, I am Emily Starwalker and I am new in town..."

A snigger from the back of the room stopped Emily.

"Yes, Mr Trims, did you have something to say?" Mrs. Walker shot at a boy in the back row.

"No, Mrs. Walker." the boy replied.

But the boy next to him in the middle of the back row seemed not to be able to help himself. "Starwalker? How did you get a name like Starwalker?"

"And this is why Spells like this 'Age spell' make life so interesting." To the room, Emily said. "It was my mother's maiden name. I don't know how it came about." Emily tried to make it sound like she had been asked this lots and lots of times before.

One of the girls in the third row said. "Maybe your mother's grandparents had their name change to that in the 60's."

"That could well be, Miss Blackiron. Now then, let's all let Emily finish." Mrs. Walker said.

Emily continued. "I like horses and fantasy stories. My favourite food is macaroni and cheese with bacon." Emily stopped and looked at Mrs. Walker.

"Thank you, Emily. If you please, take a seat at the empty desk in the third row next to the window and get out your laptop, we will get started." Looking at the girl next to the empty chair Mrs. Walker said. "Jane, please help Emily until she is settled in here."

"Yes, Ma'am." came the reply from the girl called Jane.

Emily sat down on the chair at the desk. Looking at the desk, Emily could now see there was a shelf under the top of the desk to keep stuff on. Getting out her laptop she turned it on. It was at this point that Jane reached over and pulled a wire from a point on the desk that Emily had not seen.

"Mains power." Jane said. "Stops you from getting a dead battery." And she plugged the wire into the laptop.

"Thanks."

"Right. First up today is maths. So laptop's closed for now." Mrs. Walker said. There was a groan from the back of the class room.

A ringing bell called the class to its first break of the day.

"Emily and Jane, please stay in the room so I can have a private word with you." Mrs. Walker said.

After the rest of the class had left the room, leaving just Mrs. Walker, Jane and Emily in the room, Mrs. Walker locked the door.

"Right, I will save some time here. Emily, meet Jane Walker, my daughter. Jane, meet Emily." Mrs. Walker said.

"Ah!" Emily said with a smile. "I see, so that is why you asked her to help me." Emily held out her hand to Jane for the first time.

As Jane took Emily's hand both Emily's and Jane's eyes got big.

Emily could feel Jane's magic less than her Mom's levels, but still a far bit more than a human her age should have. Emily could also tell that Jane had a body ward just like her Mom did, now that she knew to keep an eye out for wards.

In a hushed voice Jane asked. "What are you?"

Emily replied with. "Someone who needs to work on their body ward, to mask their magic more when they are touched."

"No, Emily, I don't think it's quite that bad." Mrs. Walker said. "Remember, this is my daughter, so I have been teaching her about magic all her life."

Right then a bird came in the open window and landed on the teacher's desk. Both Jane and Mrs. Walker spun on the spot to look at what had made the sound.