The bus wasn't parked in front of the strip mall with the laundromat. Instead, they were in front of a Polish deli, though the neighborhood looked as shady as the one Ms. Grimm had taken Alexandra to. It might have been the same neighborhood, just a different block, but Alexandra wasn't sure.
“Now, please line up by grade,” said Mrs. Speaks as the students filed out of the bus. It was still before noon and there were people on the street, some of whom looked in their direction, and Alexandra wondered that no one seemed to think it was unusual that a schoolbus was parked in front of a deli in a neighborhood like this, or that thirty-odd children were getting off a bus that didn't look like it could seat more than a dozen at most.
Alexandra's group of sixth-graders lined up next to seven seventh-graders. There were five eighth-graders, including the bossy Ozarker boy who'd scolded Constance and Forbearance. Alexandra made a face at him. He scowled back at her.
Apparently not as many older students needed a bus ride to the Goblin Market. Besides Gwendolyn, there were thirteen other kids who ranged in age from fourteen to seventeen, and two of them were chaperones for the seventh and eighth-graders.
“Ninth-graders and above, you're on your own,” Mrs. Speaks said to them, “but remember you're representing Charmbridge Academy. Behave yourselves. Make sure you're back behind Grobnowski's by six o'clock. Everyone else, stay with your assigned chaperone. Anyone gets lost, just head for the promenade in front of Grundy's and we'll meet up with you there eventually. Don't wander off or make us come looking for you!”
And with that, they filed into the Polish deli, which was called Grobnowski's Old World Deli. There were some very old men with wizened faces wearing woolen sweaters and sock-like argyle caps on their heads seated at tables inside, playing chess with moving pieces, or talking, or reading newspapers, which Alexandra noticed had moving pictures. Some of them ignored the children while others winked, and a couple of them waved to Tabitha Speaks, who waved back.
Behind the counter was an extremely thin, sour-looking woman and a much fatter and friendlier-looking man. Everyone here was old, except for the students traipsing past the glass cases and between the tables. The deli itself seemed old, even older on the inside than it looked from the outside, with smoke-covered wooden beams and rafters, an old iron pot-bellied stove in the center of the establishment, currently unlit, and the smell of oils and aged meat permeating the place.
Alexandra saw one case had cards stuck in front of the prosciutto and ham and kielbasa and sturgeon and roast beef. The cards all listed prices in Ps and Es and Ls rather than dollars and cents, and there was a sign above the meat counter that said “Guaranteed Wizard-raised meat.” A cheese counter, however, had one half that said “Wizard cheeses” and another half that said “Muggle cheeses,” and the Muggle cheeses were cheaper. Some of the Wizard cheeses were colored blue or green or candy-striped red and white, and one wheel with a wedge cut out kept changing colors as Alexandra watched. She would have liked to look around the deli some more, but the line was moving to the back entrance, and they filed out into the Goblin Market.
As before, there were witches and wizards and some creatures that were clearly not human, and there were more of them than before, since it was daytime. Alexandra thought she saw someone leading a winged lion down the street but they disappeared around a corner. She saw Goody Pruett's down the block, so they were on the same street she and Ms. Grimm had been on before, just entering it from another direction. As the other chaperones led their respective grades off, Gwendolyn said, “Well, everyone stay together so no one gets lost! We're going to visit Hoargrim's first, because I know you're all looking forward to buying your wands!” In fact, Gwendolyn looked more thrilled than any of them, as if she were announcing that she was taking them to get a pony. She even clasped her hands together. “I remember when I was matched with my wand. I was so nervous and excited!”
“Yeah, we're excited, now can we go do it?” David muttered behind Alexandra. The other girls smiled politely, then gave each other looks and giggled as soon as Gwendolyn turned her back to lead them down the street.
Alexandra slowed down to walk alongside Constance and Forbearance. “How do you get matched with a wand?” she asked them, since they had wands already.
“Well, every wand is different,” said Constance.
“Unique,” said Forbearance.
“Wands have humors and turns, like people. You have to find one what suits you.”
“Actually, we're much eager to watch you-all buy yourn wands.”
“We was given ourn, see.”
“Ozarker wands are all hand-me-downs.”
“Passed down everly from previous generations.”
“Mine was brought over by one of our ancestors from Europe.” It was Forbearance speaking now. At least, Alexandra thought it was. Their identical appearance and habit of picking up and continuing each other's sentences made it particularly hard to keep them straight.
“Mine ain't quite that old,” said Constance. “It was cut 'n charmed over a hundred years ago, and belonged to our great-great grandmother.”
“But Constance is the first one to wish with it since Great-Great Grandma passed on.”
“That was almost thirty years ago, but it didn't kin to no one else 'til I picked it up,” Constance finished.
“But how do you know when a wand suits you?” Alexandra asked.
“Oh, you'll know.”
“I reckon they have scores of wands, and you'll get to try them all a piece.”
“And when you find the one what kins to you, why, that's the one you'll buy!”
“But we've never seen how it's done by city witches.”
Alexandra found this all both intriguing and unhelpful. She imagined walking into a store with cases full of wands on display, and picking up one after another and being expected to just know whether or not it was suitable.
Hoargrim's was small, almost unnoticeable, sitting between what looked like a toy store and a cafe. Its exterior was dark wood, unlike the brick buildings around it, and there was only a single sign in brass letters above the window: “HOARGRIM'S WANDS AND ALCHEMICAL SUPPLIES.” In the window display, Alexandra could see several wands of different lengths sitting in velvet-lined cases, along with a small silver cup sitting next to a mortar and pestle.
They entered, and the interior seemed to swallow sound. Their footsteps became more muted and everyone naturally spoke in whispers without realizing they were doing it.
The shop smelled like old wood, shoe polish, and something pickled and slightly unpleasant. Lamps inside provided more light than what filtered through the dusty window. There were barrels throughout the store; pickled bear livers, dried batwings, hens' teeth, and earwig pincers. Alexandra saw a jar full of newts' eyes sitting on the counter staring at her. Behind the counter were racks full of powders and poultices and oils and minerals. A huge, ancient owl sat on a perch above the counter, staring at the children who'd filed in.
There were stairs leading down into the basement, with a sign overhead saying “Alchemical Supplies,” and underneath that, in red letters, “Children must be accompanied by a responsible adult.”
“You shouldn't need to go down there,” Gwendolyn said, as several of them looked in the direction of the stairs. “We'll give Mr. Finsterholz a list of the standard supplies you'll need and they'll prepare packages for each of you.”
Alexandra wasn't the only one who looked disappointed, as any place requiring an adult escort was bound to have interesting stuff in it.
A small man with a beak-like nose and little tufts of jet black hair standing out as stiffly as the bristles on a wire brush around an otherwise bald head shuffled out from behind the counter. He was wearing a white shirt and dark green vest, black trousers, and a dour expression.
“New students, jah? Sixth-graders?”
“Yes, sir,” said Gwendolyn. “This is Mr. Finsterholz. He'll be matching you with your wands, so line up over here at the wands section.” She handed a list to the old man, who peered at it, squinting through a pair of reading glasses, then handed it to a younger man behind the counter who began taking bottles and jars down from a supply shelf.
The wands section was at the opposite end of the store from the stairs leading down to the alchemical supplies. It was a smaller room with no partition between it and the main floor, but unlike the rest of the store, it was carpeted. Wooden cabinets lined the walls from floor to ceiling. Finsterholz ambled over into this room, and beckoned the first one in line forward, which was Darla.
Darla took a deep breath, looking excited and nervous, exactly as Gwendolyn had described. All the other kids could feel her excitement. Finsterholz peered at her, looked her up and down, and then bent over to pull a wand out of a box in one of the cabinets closest to the floor. “Give this one a try, jah?”
Darla took the wand, which was long and had a reddish color. She held it in a tight fist, and gave it a little shake.
“Nein, nein, don't hold it like a drumstick!” Finsterholz snapped, making Darla jump. “That one's not right for you.” He snatched it out of her hand and put it back in its box, and then pulled another one out of a box that was closer to his waist level. “Here. Try this one.”
The new wand was shorter and thicker and almost black in color. Darla took it carefully and held it in a looser grip. She wiggled it tentatively.
“Nein.” Finsterholz snatched it out of her hand too. Darla looked as if her confidence were being drained rapidly. The old man didn't notice. He had her try out three more wands, with Darla becoming increasingly anxious with each one that was rejected, until she looked close to tears.
“Jah, that one is good, I think,” Finsterholz said, as Darla held a dark, tapered wand in a trembling hand. “Hawthorn with nogtail hair. Unusual combination. Not the most popular core, but very good for hexing and jinxing.”
“Or for Dark magic,” murmured Constance, behind Alexandra.
He grabbed a box and held out his hand to wrap it up, but Darla clutched it to her chest. “I'll hold onto it, if you don't mind,” she said, a little haughtily. She glanced at Gwendolyn. “I'm allowed, since we're enrolled at the academy now, right?”
“Well, yes,” Gwendolyn admitted. “But don't start waving it around or trying to cast spells with it, or it will be confiscated.” Finsterholz shrugged and gestured for Angelique to step forward.
As interesting as this entire process was, Alexandra was no more enlightened than before after watching Angelique and then Anna try out the wands that Mr. Finsterholz picked out for them, seemingly at random. Angelique received her match with the third wand, which was a thick black willow one with a dragon heartstring core. Anna found her wand with Finsterholz's first pick, which delighted both of them. Like Darla, Angelique and Anna both wanted to hold onto their wands.
David was next. He stepped forward, and Mr. Finsterholz squinted at him, as if not sure what to make of the boy. David folded his arms and looked back defiantly at the wand merchant, who was only an inch or two taller than him. Finsterholz turned around and drew a long beechwood wand from a box near a top shelf.
It was longer than any of the wands Alexandra had seen so far. David took it and held it lightly, letting it rest on the fingertips of both hands, and then snatched it with one hand and whipped it about. Finsterholz jumped. “Don't do that!” he snarled, and then said, “Well?”
“Feels good,” David murmured. He smiled, and made a little flourish with the tip.
“Ach. Some times it just takes me a little longer than others to get a feel for them. I usually don't have as much trouble as with that girl.” He jerked a thumb at Darla, who pouted and stuck her nose up in the air. Then he snatched the wand back out of David's hand. “If you're going to play with it then it stays in its box.” Over David's protests, he wrapped it in a long box and handed the box to Gwendolyn.
Now it was Alexandra's turn. She stepped forward to take David's place (he was now arguing with Gwendolyn), and faced Mr. Finsterholz.
“Muggle-born too, aren't you?” he grumbled. “I can tell.”
“Does that make a difference in what wand we get?” Alexandra demanded.
“Nein. Maybe it makes a difference in how you use it.” But he was still squinting at her. “Troublesome, you're going to be troublesome,” he muttered. Alexandra narrowed her eyes but didn't say anything.
Finsterholz was right, if by “troublesome” he meant “time-consuming,” as he placed one wand after another in Alexandra's hands. She held each one carefully while trying to feel something magical about it, but she felt no particular affinity for any of them. She tried birch, beech, ash, oak, yew, redwood, cherry, and apple, with Finsterholz muttering about unicorn and kelpie hair, and even something called a re'em. “Not scales or feathers or heartstring for you, no, definitely hair.”
Alexandra was determined not to look worried the way Darla had, but she wondered if either Finsterholz or the wands were biased against her.
Finally he pulled a wand out of a box in a dusty corner, and handed it to her. It was a light-colored wood and felt hard yet flexible in her hand. She moved it in slow circles, careful not to whip it or snap it about.
“Troublesome, like I said.”
She looked at Finsterholz. “Why?”
“Someone had to die to obtain chimaera hair, mark my words.” He made to take the wand back from her, but remembering how he'd confiscated David's, she held it away from him. “I'll hold onto mine, too,” she said defiantly.
“Ach! Fine.” He thrust the box at her. It said “Hickory (Carya illinoinensis)/Chimaera hair/10.5”” on the label.
“Everyone, put your wands away now,” Gwendolyn said. She'd given David his wand box back. Darla and Angelique reluctantly put theirs back in their boxes, and Alexandra, after one quick flourish of her new hickory stick, did the same. Inwardly, she was delighted, her excitement dampened somewhat by the knowledge that she would have to take her new wand home and then do nothing with it. But Constance and Forbearance had been right; Alexandra couldn't wait to get her hands on it again.
“Well, chimaera hair is very rare,” said Darla, as Gwendolyn herded them back into a line. “I've heard chimaera scales have also been used in wands. Of course rare materials don't necessarily make a wand more powerful.”
The clerk to whom Mr. Finsterholz had given Gwendolyn's list of supplies had prepared seven tightly-wrapped packages, which he handed to each student as they came to the counter. Alexandra took hers, which rattled a little and gave off a faintly spicy smell.
Each of the other students had handed the clerk some coins in payment. “Three lions for the alchemical supplies, fifteen for the wand,” he said to Alexandra. Gwendolyn stepped forward. “She's a scholarship student,” she said, counting out coins from a little purse. “I'll need a receipt.” She held out a small roll of parchment, and a quill sitting on the counter floated into the air and scribbled something on it.
“Time to get your schoolbooks now!” Gwendolyn said, turning to the younger kids, and she ushered them out of Hoargrim's in a single-file line.
Their next stop was Boxley's Books. This was a much larger store with posters in the front window advertising discounts on used textbooks, as well as bestsellers like “Quidditch and Quodpot Through the Ages, Revised American Edition” and “Surviving Wandless: A Journey to Empowerment for the Magically Occluded.”
Alexandra was a voracious reader, and was looking forward to browsing the section on magical creatures. She presumed wizard books would have more accurate information about creatures like redcaps and kappa. She noticed that like all the other pictures she'd seen, though, the covers of the books were animated. Authors' photographs would smile at whoever picked the book up, while the people riding brooms on the cover of “Quidditch and Quodpot Through the Ages” zipped and zoomed about.
“I'll have to hide any books I take home with me,” she said to David.
Gwendolyn let them browse the shelves a bit, and Alexandra found several books in the magizoology section that had lifelike pictures of chimaera, dragons, and other beasts. An illustration of a kappa did indeed look like the creature she had seen in Old Larkin Pond. She read the accompanying text, which told her that if a kappa were tricked into spilling the water on top of its head, it would lose all its powers.
“Hah!” she said. “I figured that out on my own!”
Then she had to find the books on her class list. Most were from the “Young Wands Teaching Series.” “Young Wands Teaching Series: Beginning Charms,” “Young Wands Teaching Series: Beginning Transfiguration,” “Young Wands Teaching Series: Basic Principles of Magic,” etc. Her arms were full by the time she'd acquired all the books on the list.
“I'm afraid your scholarship doesn't include funds for non-required books,” Gwendolyn said, pulling “Magical Beasts and Where to Find Them” and “101 Easy and Effective Hexes” off of Alexandra's stack. She scowled at the latter book. “You're too young for that,” she added.
Darla and Angelique looked a little smug as they paid for their own books with the money they'd brought. They each purchased Witchteen magazine and some books about love potions and divination, in addition to their schoolbooks.
Alexandra noticed that Constance and Forbearance had purchased used textbooks, some of which were in rather battered condition, and looked a bit worried as they totaled up the cost.
“How did you get wizard money?” Alexandra asked David.
“School said there's a wizard bank that'll exchange dollars for eagles,” David replied. “So my folks sent a check.”
Alexandra envied David his ability to simply tell his parents about the wizarding world. She, apparently, would be unable to buy anything that wasn't specifically paid for by her scholarship. Then she remembered the money her mother had given her.
“Is there a bank where I can exchange Muggle money for wizard money?” she asked Gwendolyn.
“There are Gringotts and CBNW branches down the street,” Gwendolyn replied. “We can go there if you really need to.”
“I'll trade you,” David whispered.
Alexandra was curious to see what a wizard bank looked like, but Gwendolyn didn't look eager to take everyone on a detour, and Alexandra wasn't eager to endure Darla and Angelique's condescending looks while she tried to exchange her Muggle money. So she pulled the two twenty-dollar bills out of her pocket. “OK.”
David took the bills, and handed her two gold coins with lions on them in exchange. Alexandra looked at them suspiciously. Having only dealt with normal American pocket change, it seemed like not a lot of money for forty dollars.
“They're made of gold, you know,” David said, reading her expression.
Alexandra shrugged and muttered, “'kay,” and grabbed the copy of “Magical Beasts and Where to Find Them” back from Gwendolyn. She decided not to argue with her about the book of hexes. She ran back to the front counter, where a clerk took one of her lions and gave her eight coins with birds on them in change.
“One lion is ten eagles, which is twenty pidges,” David said, as Alexandra inspected the coins in her hand.
“I'm going to ask Ms. Grimm why I never got a guide to any of this stuff,” she grumbled.
“Now we're going to go to Grundy's!” Gwendolyn said. Darla and Angelique looked excited at this. They all filed out of Boxley's Books and down the street. They were rather weighed down now, with their alchemical supplies, wand boxes, and books. Still on their lists were robes, hats, gloves, boots, school clothes, a cauldron, quills and parchment, and a familiar.
Alexandra slowed her pace a little as they marched down the street, as this was her longest look yet at the Goblin Market. She was still intrigued by the odd fashions of witches and wizards, which looked like a cross between their traditional representations in children's books, and a hodge-podge of archaic American clothing styles. The non-humans were also fascinating, but didn't seem to appreciate being stared at. One little green man gave Alexandra a sour look as he hurried across the street into an imposing building with marble columns in front. She saw that this was Gringotts, which Gwendolyn had said was a wizard bank.
They passed Mahmoud's Flying Carpets, which advertised the latest imports from Asia and promised “a soft comfortable ride with every design, infinitely more stable than a broom.” There was an animated poster in the storefront depicting an entire family enjoying a picnic while seated on a flying carpet, while decidedly uncomfortable-looking wizards riding brooms flew past them, grimacing and looking envious.
Across the street was Chicago's Broom Megastore, which had on its roof a large animated billboard on which a dazzling assortment of brooms were flying circles around some ragged, dusty-looking carpets. It looked as if Mahmoud's and the Megastore were engaged in a price war.
Alexandra noticed that there were no cars or other vehicles on the streets, and consequently, no traffic lights. She was about to conclude that wizards had no machines at all, when she saw a small clockwork figure marching down the street. Apparently these were not common as she wasn't the only person staring at it. Many wizards and witches were watching it curiously, but she noticed a couple of the small non-humans dressed in scraps of clothing were wrinkling their noses in disdain. The mechanical man pivoted on its metal foot and stepped into a greengrocer's that had sitting in bins outside both normal-looking vegetables and some angry plants that bared teeth and snapped at passers-by.
All of these sights were wondrous to Alexandra. A few days ago, despite knowing about her own magical abilities, she would have considered a scene like this to be as fantastic as a Disney movie. Yet now she was being hurried along by Gwendolyn, and she noticed that while David was having a similar reaction, Darla and Angelique were watching the two Muggle-borns and giggling at them. At least Constance and Forbearance seemed a little wide-eyed at the Goblin Market as well. Alexandra supposed the magical shops and the people in their colorful garb and the non-humans didn't seem particularly strange to them, but they had never been in a big city before. She picked up her pace, and saw that their destination was just ahead.