“But I didn’t tell Saci to pour the milk,” Marissa replied, although she was very satisfied that his deed had made all the other houses laugh at Cecilia and Celestia louder than Anaconda House had laughed at her. Only Serafina and Leila hadn't thought it was funny, and were angry that Eva Paranhos joined in laughing at the golden-blonde girls. Eva had replied that Serafina was just trying to be Celestia's friend to become popular.
“The Condas are mad that their prank got turned around on them,” said Alika. “Especially since the princesses had their fancy dresses soaked.”
“Celestia and her friends will want to get back at you,” Milo Timbira told Marissa as he stood by a wide stone bowl that sat on a pedestal in the corner. “So watch out.”
“I don’t care if they try to tease me,” Marissa told her House Leaders. “I’ll just ignore them.” She promised herself she would learn to never fall for another trick. If she could protect the boys from gangs and police, she could surely protect herself from scheming girls. And though she let nobody see it, right now Marissa was too excited to worry about Celestia. Soon she would be in a real class with a real teacher for the very first time in her life! Plus in witch school each kind of magic had its own professor and class. She had thought she would have just one teacher, then discovered she would have eight.
The Macaw first-years were gathered on the level above the Great Hall. Planters of beautiful rainforest orchids and trailing vines lined the balcony wall. Down the long hallway behind them, Marissa had seen the Woolly group and knew that Jaguar and Anaconda first-years had followed their House Leaders to other corners of the floor. She looked to Milo as something sprang from and dropped back into the bowl on the pedestal.
“These passages take you to the other floors of Witness Stone,” Milo said to the group. He pointed to a half dozen doorways along the wall opposite the balcony. Each was framed in carved stone designs that slowly moved and altered shape as Marissa watched. “There are six more on the other side of the Great Hall. It takes time to learn your way.”
“Do we get a map then?” asked Jaci Erasmi, looking to see if his class list parchment included one. “To show us how to get to classrooms?”
“No,” confirmed Milo as he reached into the stone bowl, “you get one of these.” He tossed something up into the air and Jaci caught the flailing little shape in his hands.
“It’s… a frog,” said the puzzled young boy as he cupped the small creature in his palm.
“A guide frog,” Milo stated. “Everyone come and get one.” He began handing more out until each first-year held a tiny bright green tree frog. Marissa’s crawled onto her finger and stared at her with its shiny red eyes. “Birrip,” it said to her.
"Maps are pretty useless here. Witness Stone is like Mercado Trocado."
"No it's not, Milo," Alika contradicted. "Classrooms never change location. It's the hallmaze connecting them that moves."
"The point is that the hallway to any class today is different than the hallway that led there yesterday, and will be a different one again tomorrow."
“Guide frogs are bewitched to lead you anywhere in the school,” Alika explained. “Just tell your frog which class you want to…” A high pitched scream from far across the Great Hall interrupted her words and Alika looked around. “What was that?”
“Um… it’s Rosaria Castilho,” said Marissa, who recognized the voice and knew the Anacondas must be giving out guide frogs too. “She’s probably afraid of these ‘cuz they’re crawly.”
Alika rolled her eyes, then explained that groups could all follow one frog but that each of them should always keep a guide frog in his or her robe in case they came to class alone or got lost in the hallways. Then she instructed Serafina Palmeiro to direct her frog.
“Charms,” Serafina commanded the little green creature, reading the first class from her schedule. It leaped from her palm, hopped along the floor and disappeared into the third doorway down the hall.
“Well, hurry up, everyone” Milo prompted. “It’s not going to wait for you!”
The crowd of Macaw first-years began chasing after the frog. Marissa reached the doorway first and saw it rapidly jumping away up a narrow stone stairway. A clatter of footsteps on stone followed behind her as they all sprinted to keep up with the guide frog.
“We’ll see you back here at lunch,” Alika shouted after them. “Hopefully.”
The dimly lit passage seemed more like a tunnel than a hall, with confining walls and a low ceiling. Lines of sculpted symbols ran the length of the walls and along the steps they could use the raised stone as handrails. After several zig-zagging flights of stairs the frog came to a wide chamber and sat until Marissa and all the others caught up.
“Now what?” Serafina asked. There were no doors or other passages from the room, only the stairs they had come up. The tiny frog jumped to the wall, clinging to a stone relief. Serafina cupped her hand to catch it and as her palm touched the wall a giant slab of stone folded away to reveal the classroom entrance. “That was simple,” Serafina said, pocketing her frog as they stepped inside a bright room with a floor to ceiling glass wall that faced out upon the rainforest canopy and the towering lupunas of Macaw House.
“STUPID FROG, SLOW DOWN!” came a loud yell from below, followed by the noises of another crowd of children rushing up the steps.
“Sounds like the Condas found their way, too,” commented Jaci Erasmi.
-------------------------------------------------------------
“She’s too poor to buy books,” Celestia Bella de Barros remarked from the front row of desks that she and her Anaconda girls has claimed as theirs. Rosaria Castilhos shifted uneasily in the seat Celestia had assigned her to.
“Because she can’t beg Galleons in Boca de Lixo,” Cristiano Ferreira said sarcastically as children around him chuckled.
“And she smells like…”
“That will be quite enough!” Students jumped, startled by the suddenly loud voice of the thin, soft-spoken Professor Galhos.
Charms class had started so well. Marissa had raised her wand with the other first-years as Professor Galhos quietly told them all about the responsibility of using and caring for wands properly. She had swirled it in the air then placed it on her desk as the professor instructed, and listened as they were told that a witch must always carry her wand, except when playing Quidditch. She tried to remember everything so that she could learn to be smart and learn to be magic. The professor had even praised her for being the first to ask what the hundred feathers floating over their heads were for, and rewarded Marissa by letting her choose the best one (she picked the long vivid blue one after being assured no birds were harmed collecting the feathers). Professor Galhos explained that these would be the object of their first practical charm, but she had left them in the air as a test of their curiousity. “Knowledge is the reward of those who ask questions,” the professor had told the class. As the other swaying plumes of every size and color each drifted down to a different desk, Celestia had frowned with displeasure at Marissa’s honor.
But then the one thing Marissa had hoped wouldn’t happen yet did. Professor Galhos asked them to open their Charms text to page three, and all the children except her retrieved books from the black bags they brought to class. When the professor walked down the aisles and saw her empty desktop, Marissa had to awkwardly explain that she didn’t have any books yet. It had been the perfect opportunity for the Anacondas to start teasing her, trying to make her feel ashamed.
“You’re the Muggle-born girl,” Professor Galhos noted after quieting the class. Marissa looked up at the grey-haired lady whose buns of hair were tied with curious curling twigs that matched patterns of branching twigs on her raincloud-grey robe. “Marissa, isn't it?”
“Yes,” Marissa replied. She hoped the professor would not detention her for having no book. That would only give the mean girls and boys something more to tease her for.
“I expect you to have your textbook tomorrow,” the thin as a branch professor stated firmly. “Today you may use the wall chart, which is the same as page three’s illustration.”
Marissa walked to the ‘Wand Motions’ chart and heard muted laughter of the Anacondas directed at her again. When Cristiano teased “Hocus pocus, hocus pocus” as she passed, it didn’t bother her. Maybe she had a plain wand and no book, but she had won the contest of asking the first question!
“Wands up!” Professor Galhos directed the class. “We shall begin with the swish.”
-------------------------------------------------------------
“POTIONS!” a host of young voices shouted at once, and thirty-two brightly colored frogs began leaping from their hands. Outside Charms class, all the Macaw boys had argued over whose guide frog to follow to the next classroom. Then they had persuaded the Macaw girls to participate in a brilliant compromise after Jaci Erasmi suggested “Hey, what if we use all of them?”
“Oh, how childish,” stated Celestia from her group of girls as green shapes went flying.
“Don’t follow us then!” Jaci yelled back as the Macaws rushed down the stairs after the army of leaping tree frogs. Marissa hoped they really wouldn’t, but knew their Anaconda classmates would have no choice but to come the same way.
Leading the chase, Marissa raced shoulder to shoulder with Jaci and Mario Domingues while everyone else filled the narrow stone passageway behind them. As they turned the next flight of stairs, she suddenly noticed an equally large group of older students stampeding up the steps directly towards them.
“STOP!” she yelled to Jaci and Mario, but the press of people from behind wouldn’t let them. Guide frogs started bounding over heads of the oncoming group that was not halting either. Just before the spectacular collision she was sure was about to happen, harsh scraping noises echoed around them. The hall instantly widened to make way for the first-year’s headlong rush down one side of the stairway. Marissa breathed a sigh of relief as she reached the base of the stairs while the opposing crowd rushed safely past.
The army of tree frogs led them rapidly off along another narrow hallway. A thin mist swirled across the floors to obscure their tiny guides, and the glowworm lights all along the walls faded out to leave them in darkness. Everyone came to a halt as shouts of confusion filled the corridor. Marissa was sure it wasn’t another Anaconda trick because Celestia and the others had followed into the black hallway too. Then misty shadows began filling with thick, leafy trees and tangled vines. Marissa curiously passed her hand through the foliage.
“How did we get outside?” a confused voice asked.
“We should go back,” another said in the darkness.
“But we lost all our frogs!”
“This is what happens when we let Macaws lead the way,” Celestia Bella de Barros stated sarcastically.
“But where have they led you?” asked a deep adult voice. “Into the forest?”
“No!” Marissa responded strongly to their hidden questioner, refusing to be fooled again. Though her eyes saw it, the absence of its smells and sound told her this was not truly the rainforest. “These trees aren’t real. It’s just a…” she tried to remember what Tiquinho had called it, “a illusionment. Like at the stone wall.”
“Indeed,” chuckled the deep voice as other unseen children began agreeing with her. Then the unreal rainforest faded away and Marissa realized they were already in a classroom. Something chirruped at her feet and she scooped up the tiny frog that she could now see sitting patiently atop her shoe in the disappearing mist. The swirling haze absorbed itself back into a huge cauldron set beside a dark-robed figure. Silently he motioned all of them to seats.
Unlike the single desks and chairs of Charms class, this room had tall stools grouped at long stone-topped tables. High wooden shelves lined every wall and were stocked with an endless diversity of bottles, jars, jugs and cups of all shape and size. These were filled with colorful liquids, leaves, powders, parts, and pieces of unidentifiable nature. Light shone in from narrow opaque windows along the cobwebbed ceiling.
“Welcome to Potions, my first-years,” said the sturdy, darkly tanned native. “Wands up!”
He wore plain black today instead of the horrible feathered cape of the hundred killed birds, but Marissa could see that their Potions teacher was the stern vice principal. Professor Katupya, as he instructed them to address him in class, walked about as all the children practiced once again each of the movements they had learned in Charms.
“Wands down… and away,” he ordered clearly. “You shall never use them here again.”
Alone in the last row, Marissa obediently tucked her wand in her robe, but was confused. How would she make magic then?
“In Charms, Transfiguration, and Defense, you will learn what you can do with a wand. In the art of Potions you will learn, as importantly, what a wizard can do without one.”
The mist-filled iron pot bubbled to life again. Alika had said first-years didn’t need to bring their own cauldrons yet, but this must be where Marissa would learn to cook magic.
“For six centuries after the exodus from our ancient cities,” stated Professor Katupya, “the wizarding tribes conjured only by using the rare flora and fauna of the rainforest. Just as Witness Stone rises from Amazonia, so magic rises from the very heart of nature. It begins not in us, but in all the life that surrounds us. Our rainforest is home to five hundred mammal species, five hundred reptiles, one third of the world's birds, and some thirty million types of insect.”
“Ewwww!” shuddered Rosaria nervously before being silenced by the professor’s stare. He continued his remarks as he selected a fat glass jar from one of the wooden shelves.
“Among four hundred thousand species of plants, wizards have learned of more than a thousand magical roots, leaves, flowers, and seeds. Also some very supernatural bugs.”
Rosaria screamed, knocked over her stool, and ran as the jar of crawling live beetles was set upon her table. Unfortunately she escaped directly over to another shelf of animate ingredients. Crying out once again as she noticed jars moving with crickets and spiders, Rosaria rushed over to hide behind Marissa. The trembling girl hoped she would protect her from any attacking bugs.
“There is no screaming allowed in Potions class,” Professor Katupya stated very sternly.
“It’s not her fault!” Marissa responded loudly. It was very mean to put the jar right by her when a teacher should know that some girls might be scared of bugs.
“Not?” Katupya questioned, as if considering a thought. “Do our fears control us, or do we control our fears?”
Marissa did not know if she was supposed to respond, as he seemed to address that question to the whole class. She knew what her own answer was, but also knew Rosaria was not as brave. “I don’t like this class,” Rosaria whimpered beside her.
“Are you also afraid of insects?” Katupya asked Marissa directly. She scowled as she heard muffled laughter from Anaconda boys.
“NO!” she said defiantly, very displeased that the professor had implied to the class that she was. Professor Katupya motioned his finger for her to come to the front of the class. She forced herself to approach him calmly. He stood solid and imposing, like the dread policemen she knew to run from in the city. Marissa realized she had just yelled at the vice principal, and was sure it meant she would be detentioned.
“Our first task each day is to feed our guide frogs,” he stated as he passed the large jar to Marissa. “Please give one beetle to each student.”
Marissa walked down the aisles handing out bugs. Some girls had her feed the beetle directly to their frog so they wouldn’t have to touch it. As Marissa neared her own table again, Rosaria vigorously shook her head no to indicate that she did not want one. She had probably not taken a frog, so didn’t need any frog food.
After helping all the Macaws first, Marissa reluctantly moved to the Anacondas. Some girls held their noses when she came by them. The boys were worse.
“Bet she’s scared to eat one,” teased Fer Ribeiro as he pushed the wriggling insect she had just given him up to her lips. Marissa didn’t respond.
“Yeah, I’d pay a Sickle to see that,” added Cristiano. “She’s too afraid.”
Marissa was done with being called afraid. She grabbed a small handful of the live beetles from the jar, then calmly placed them all in her mouth and began chewing. Cristiano’s mouth dropped open in shock. Now they knew she was strong!
A sharp blow landed on Marissa’s back, sending a wet mess flying from her mouth.
“Students MAY NOT ingest potion ingredients which they don’t know the properties of,” declared the professor’s voice behind her. “Many magical insects are poisonous.”
Fer and Cristiano wiped chewed up beetle pieces from their robes and faces as Marissa picked out the other little parts left on her tongue and teeth. She didn’t think these bugs could be poison if they fed them to guide frogs.
“I believe you owe the young lady a Sickle, Mr. Ferreira,” the professor told one boy.
“But…” Cristiano stopped his protest when his eyes met Katupya’s stern gaze. He took something from his robe and handed it to Marissa. She accepted with surprise one of the shiny silver wizard coins.
“Back to your seat,” Professor Katupya told her. “Now, everyone into groups of three.”
“Bye, Marissa,” Rosaria said sadly as she stood up. “I have to ask Celly who I’m with.”
“Why should you ask her?”
“Cecelia made her my social advisor. To teach me how to act like a proper Conda girl.” Marissa knew that probably meant Celestia would teach Rosaria to not be her friend.
The Anacondas separated into their groups, and the Macaws into theirs. The girls of Marissa’s bedroom formed two trios, leaving her unchosen. But she was surprised to see that Eva Paranhos was also left out, probably because she and Serafina had been mad at each other at breakfast. Anaconda also had problems dividing its members evenly.
“Maybe I’ve miscounted, Miss Bella de Barros, but I believe this is four and not three,” Professor Katupya stated to the golden-blonde leader of the girls at the first row table.
“But, sir, there’s not another Anaconda set for our extra girl,” Celestia explained sweetly, trying to convince him to allow an exception.
“One of you must go with these Macaw girls and risk the volatile mixture of houses.”
Celestia frowned, then whispered with the other girls before forfeiting Rosaria to round out the groups properly. She seemed upset as she moved from the Anaconda girls, but when she turned from Celestia’s view Rosaria burst into a happy grin and skipped over to join Marissa. “Celly sent me because Paula said I might be disruptive,” Rosaria told her. Marissa didn’t know what disruptive meant and happily welcomed her back.
“Great,” Eva grumbled to herself as she sunk to a stool beside them. “I’m stuck with the bug-eater and the bug-ophobic.”
The groups spent the lengthy class locating potion ingredients among towering shelves. Marissa found quickly that all the terrifying insects and animal parts were along one wall. She assigned those to herself and let Rosaria do all the roots, leaves and flowers stored on the safer, unscary shelves. Eva suffered through reading them directions of how to chop, crush, or squeeze each item, then measured the prepared ingredients into hollowed seeds just like the big paxiuba seeds that Professor Katupya’s simple necklace was strung with. Though Marissa carefully kept all magic bugs on the end of the table far from Rosaria, she had to protectively squash an escaped fire-breathing dragonfly before it got near her.
“You should bring your swallows to guard us,” Rosaria suggested.
“I don’t think the professor would let me.”
“You can hide one in your robe,” Rosaria proposed. “Or mine. I’m not afraid of Spero.”
“I think we’ll be okay,” Marissa smiled at her sudden bravery. “Eva, what’s next?”
“Bazillipede ooze was the last,” she replied looking at the long parchment Professor Katupya had handed out. She raised her hand. “Sir, I think we’re done.”
Marissa did not know it had been a race, but smiled when the professor complimented them for completing their list first. His approval didn’t lessen Eva’s shock from hearing next that today’s groups would be permanent lab partners for the whole semester.
“Just because I have to sit by you now doesn’t mean I like you,” Eva warned her. “So don’t try to walk by me after class and scare away my real friends, homeless girl.”
As class ended, Eva rejoined the other Macaw girls, who deplored how unjust Professor Katupya was. Serafina had only wished to spite Eva for one hour, not punish her for the whole year. Rosaria reported back to Celestia to be sprayed with consoling perfume.
“Horrible,” the golden-blonde decried. “Forced to spend hours by a smelly gutter girl!”
-------------------------------------------------------------
Marissa sat in the last row of desks and looked out the tall window. A guide frog had led them back up to the chamber outside the Charms class, but taken the first-years into a room on the opposite side. This glass wall faced the expansive plaza, and she could look out upon Jaguar House, another stone structure hidden under vast branches and vines, and even the nearer back side of the gigantic stone of the carved wizards. From the front of the room she had seen the huge capirona tree where all the owls lived, and grey clouds starting to fill the skies. Marissa had hoped to catch the professor’s eye to wave hello, but all the Anacondas rushing to claim the front desks had distracted her attention.
“Good day, everyone,” called out the newest and youngest instructor at Witness Stone. “I am Professor Merrythought, and this… is Transfiguration.” As she stated the last words, the large desk whose corner she had leaned on changed its form and lifted her up. Students gasped as she was suddenly riding sidesaddle upon a six foot high grey beast with a blunt, tucked in head and spiky thick tail. Its great armored shell was textured like a huge round stone, and it reared about knocking papers and books from its back. Rosaria fearfully retreated away from her desk beside Celestia.
“Transfiguration is some of the most complex and dangerous magic you will learn. Horseplay or lack of attention can cause…” she jumped from the creature as it brought itself down upon the empty desk Rosaria had fled and smashed it to splintered pieces, “…serious injury. And a trip to the principal’s office.”
“I’m sitting back here today,” Rosaria confirmed timidly to Marissa, having found a new seat as far from the stampeding monster as possible. At least she hadn’t screamed.
“What is that thing?” an Anaconda boy asked. “It’s not a real animal, is it?”
“It’s a Glyptodon!” declared Jaci Erasmi. “My grandfather says some live in a canyon above one of the native villages. And they fight boulders they think are other Glyps.”
“No way? Really?”
“He is correct," smiled Grace Merrythought. “Males ram each other during mating season, or ram large river stones that their poor eyesights view as rivals.”
“They’re like a million years old and Muggles think they’re extinct,” Jaci added.
"This one of course,” she stated as it reshaped back into its true form, “is really just a desk." The professor waved her wand to also reassemble the destroyed desk while astounded murmurs ran through the room of first-years. Celestia turned and motioned Rosaria to return to the Anacondas, and she cautiously obeyed her social advisor.
Marissa was very impressed. She thought if she could make one of those appear when the police tried to catch them, they would never bother Sport Club da Luz again. With frogs, broom flying, and magic food, she added it to her mind’s list of best things to learn.
“Will you show us how to make Glyptodons today?” one boy asked hopefully. Others added affirming pleas and nods of agreement.
"I promise I will show you all how to make one of those," Merrythought said as they all smiled in anticipation, "in a few years when you have learned your basics first.”
Great long sighs of disappointment rose from first-years as she smiled at their eagerness. Then she began telling them about what she would show them today and this year, and soon the whole class was involved in an animated discussion about magic. They talked about the difference between life and the illusion of life, and how no wizard could create a living, breathing Glyptodon or other real animal, or bring a dead one back alive. The professor said they would learn other ‘exceptions’ and something called ‘Gamp’s Law’. Then she asked children about what jobs they planned to have as adults. Cristiano and Fer were going to be professional Quidditch players like their fathers, and many other boys said that too. Celestia said she would marry a famous Quidditch player (an older one, not Cristiano or Fer), but also someday be president of Bella de Barros Exports. Others named strange jobs that Marissa had never heard of, like Magizoologist, Auror, and Archimancer. One girl even said she was going to become an ‘Unspeakable’.
“Marissa,” Professor Merrythought asked, “what do you want to be when you grow up?”
In the deadly slums of Sao Paulo, she had known many children who never did grow up. If she could help some survive sickness and violence, that’s what she would want to do.
“Um… a nurse,” Marissa replied. Children laughed at her answer before being hushed.
“We call that a Healer in our world,” the professor explained. “A very noble profession.” Marissa did not know what ‘noble’ meant, but saw by her look that Merrythought was pleased with her answer. She returned her smile across the long room.
As class neared its end, rain began drizzling down outside the tall windows. A motion caught her eye end Marissa looked to see a blue swallow perched in a small tree on the terrace, shaking water from its feathers. Fides and Amor hid in the leaves near Spero.
Professor Merrythought had not made them take out books, but did assign the first chapter of ‘A Beginners' Guide to Transfiguration’ to be read before tomorrow’s class. This hour had been much less rigid than Charms or Potions, and first-years happily said goodbye to the young professor as they filed out. Marissa waited until everyone had left to approach Professor Merrythought at the large polished desk that had been a Glyptodon. Something in shadows behind tall bookcases made a thrashing noise.
“Marissa, I’m so sorry,” she said to her sympathetically. “I heard what the Anaconda did. I thought they’d ended those mean Muggle-born initiation pranks years ago.”
“They can't hurt me,” Marissa replied strongly. “But… I got in trouble in Charms class.”
“Why? Are the Condas still…”
“I didn’t have a book,” she broke in, and realization came to the professor’s face.
“Oh, Marissa. That’s my fault,” she explained. “I simply forgot.” She hurriedly found a notepad and wrote something with the feather quill that witches used instead of pencils. From within her robe she took her tiny pygmy owl and handed it the message.
“Do you know where the library is?” she asked Marissa as she stepped to a glass door that opened to the outside. Tesimal flew from her hand into the sky.
“Yes,” Marissa confirmed. “It’s the building with giant trees out its roof.”
“And you have a guide frog for the hallmaze?”
“Yes,” she said, holding it in her palm. “But can't I just go that way?” she pointed out the tall glass. She could see the library from here and could walk the outside stairs.
“The inside way will keep you from the rain,” Professor Merrythought advised.
“I’m not afraid of rain,” Marissa declared. “And, um… someone’s waiting for me.” She pointed to the swallows in the tree outside. The professor smiled.
“Let’s keep you from getting soaked, then,” she said. She took the wand from her sleeve and waved it above Marissa’s robe. “Impervius,” she commanded.
“IMPERVIUS,” echoed a voice near the bookcases. It wasn’t a human voice.
“Is that… a bird?” Marissa said excitedly, and hurried around the desk to see where the sound came from. Sure enough, there in the shadows, a very large macaw sat on a tall bronze perch hidden from the commotion of the classroom. Unlike Tiquinho’s bird, this one was only one color, with deep wrinkles around its eyes and an almost featherless chest.
“Stop!” Professor Merrythought called out, and pulled Marissa away as she reached to pet the bird. “Asuoby doesn’t like people near him.”
As if to confirm this, the old bird squawked fiercely just as the professor tugged her back, and stabbed its beak forward aggressively until Marissa had retreated. Its long blue tailfeathers were the exact color as the feather she had won in Charms. A feather of a hyacinth macaw.
“He could hurt you very badly,” the professor explained. “Macaws grow very attached to their masters, especially through a hundred years. Poor Asuoby is very depressed since Professor Amaral is gone, and won’t make other friends.”
She said this as if she were very sad for the bird, then walked Marissa back to the glass door. They stepped under a covered arch outside and the swallows flew to her shoulder.
“Mr. Argiletum will have your books ready. Hurry back for lunch.”
“I will,” Marissa replied, and remembered one more thing to tell Professor Merrythought. She held up the tiny guide frog. “I named him Leandro. ‘Cuz… you know.”
The professor gave a knowing smile and Marissa could tell she remembered her promise.
“You were supposed to stay in the room,” Marissa gently scolded the swallows as she marched down the wide staircase. Her new shoes clicked sharply on the wet stones and Marissa realized they hardly hurt anymore. Tatiane had been right about ‘wear them in’. She emerged onto the plaza beneath the two giant wizards and looked high above her to see if they would move again, but they didn’t. Maybe they were only magicked to nod their heads on the first day everyone arrived. Marissa ran along the stone-paved avenue, towards the tree-covered library across the plaza. As she passed the half pyramid of Jaguar House she could see large birds roosting under stone eaves, while farther off in the downpour raindrops danced on the surface of the lily pond.
“Marissa,” called a voice behind her. Fides, Spero, and Amor glided off ahead as something larger fluttered onto her shoulder. “Marissa,” the colorful scarlet macaw squawked again, as if telling her who she was.
“Flap-Flap,” she laughed, surprised at his appearance. “You came to say hello!”
“Hello,” the bird confirmed. “Hello.”
She ran up the library steps with Tiquinho’s macaw bouncing on her shoulder, then found a sheltered ledge near the entrance to set him on since she did not think he was allowed inside. The little birds landed, shaking raindrops from their wings. Marissa found her robe had not gotten wet at all.
“I have to get my school books, Flap-Flap. You can stay here with the swallows until I come out.” He squawked his agreement and beat his feathers dry.
Past a small coatroom, she entered the immense main library where stone-tiled floors opened around the roots of the three giant kapok trees that rose like towers through the ceiling and beyond. That they grew inside a building wasn’t the most amazing part.
“Oh… my.” Her mouth remained open in awe at what she saw before her, for it seemed to Marissa as if every book in the whole world had been gathered there. Formed into the tree surfaces and circling their enormous trunks were soaring levels of shelves thirty feet high, overflowing with thousands upon thousands of books. Precariously tall ladders stood beside the trees, while below them row after row of normal bookshelves filled the rest of the room in a labyrinth of shadowed aisles. Marissa’s wide eyes took this all in with grand amazement.
“That is the look,” remarked a man who appeared quietly at her side, “of someone who loves books.” Marissa turned to see the beige-robed, monocled Mr. Argiletum with an appreciating smile on his face. She thought that maybe liking to read made up for falling out of line before.
“Are these books all yours?” she exclaimed.
He saw her confusion and chuckled at the question. “No. These books are yours.”
“Mine?” Marissa questioned again in bewildered disbelief.
“Of course you must share them with the other students,” the librarian explained, “but while you are at Witness Stone, all of these are yours to learn from.”
“I just didn’t really know,” Marissa confessed awkwardly, “how a library works.”
“Quite understandable,” he replied as he led her to a tall counter of polished mahogany. A stack of textbooks, some battered and worn but some almost brand new, lay there. Mr. Argiletum explained she would have to return them at the end of the year, and kindly found a book bag for her when she said she didn’t have one. Then he let her explore the aisles and climb a high ladder to the top of the tree shelves. When she informed him that there were ghosts reading books in one of the alcoves, the librarian even let her check out ‘Spirits of Witness Stone’, which he said would tell her about all the souls that haunted the school. Soon Marissa realized that she would miss lunch completely.
“Thank you so much,” she told Mr. Argiletum as she left hurriedly while a large group of older students arrived for Runes class. Flap-Flap flew halfway back with her and the swallows, then swooped off toward Jaguar House before she reached Witness Stone. Rivulets of water flowed down the stone wizards as Marissa took out her frog Leandro and excitedly commanded “Brooms”, the next class on her schedule.
-------------------------------------------------------------
WHOOSH! Three Chasers of the Anaconda team zoomed past in the drizzling grey sky. The first-years watched from under the covered walkway that stretched along the ancient boundary wall. Some sixty brooms lay in lines by the benches where Marissa’s class sat.
“Strength, speed, control,” exclaimed Mr. Cavaleiros “That’s how to fly a broom!” For the first half hour of Brooms class the bulky, pot bellied flying instructor had narrated the aerial demonstration of the older student athletes, often noting to the class how most of them would never be that good. Not that he expected it of girls, of course.
“Mr. Cavaleiros, when do we get to ride brooms?” asked Mario Domingues.
“What’s the hurry, son?” he said squeezing Mario’s thin arm. “You’re too scrawny to ever be a Quidditch player.”
Anaconda boys laughed as Mario turned red. “I don’t care if he’s famous,” he whispered to Jaci after Mr. Cavaleiros walked off, “he’s a jerk!”
Marissa knew she and many others wanted to learn to fly brooms to go places, but it sounded like their flying instructor thought the only real purpose of broom riding was the wizarding sport that Anaconda House always shouted about. After Stenio Cabral and the others landed and left for their own class, Mr. Cavaleiros assigned the first-years their lesson for the rest of class. Broom maintenance.
“Everyone take a can of polish and a rag,” he directed. Jaci quietly groaned beside Marissa, for obviously they would not be flying today.
“Mr. Cavaleiros,” Celestia Bella de Barros spoke politely, “I know some people need this training. But don’t you find it superfluous for those of us whose families have little ones to polish their brooms?”
“Good point, Celestia,” the instructor concurred. “Those of you with servants who maintain your transportation please raise your hands.”
Two-thirds of the Anacondas, but none of the Macaws, did so. Mr. Cavaleiros excused them from maintenance as long as they sat apart and discussed broom-related topics.
“But, Celly, I like polishing,” Rosaria meekly pleaded as their group walked by. “Papa lets me shine our showroom models.”
“Oh…go,” Celestia brushed her off, clearly exasperated by the chubby, unpretty girl’s complete lack of skill for acting superior. “But stay away from them.”
Rosaria Castilhos knew a lot about brooms. As the class polished, she sat near Marissa but not by her, and talked to herself but really so Marissa could hear. Rosaria noted all the model names of Cleansweeps, Comets, and Quetzals (the unusual brooms with vividly stained handles and many-colored straw). She could even hold her hand above a broom and make it float up to her palm.
“How do you do that?” Marissa asked, speaking while turned away to help Rosaria not get in trouble for talking to Macaws.
Rosaria shrugged. “That’s just how it works.”
Marissa tried a few times, but it never worked for her. Maybe Mr. Cavaleiros would teach her. A few benches away, Celestia was telling the snobbish Anaconda girls about her older sister’s new broom and how very expensive it was.
“Do you get her other one?” one of her friends asked. “It’s practically new.”
“Oh, please,” Celestia said dismissively. “I would never fly a hand-me-down broom. It’s embarrassing enough to use these pathetic training brooms until I get my own next year.”
“Well, a Quidditch player should keep his broom until it breaks,” said Cristiano Ferreira. “Coach Cav says a man bonds to his broom like a wand.”
“A proper girl with the right parents can buy all the brooms she wants,” Mr. Cavaleiros advised Cristiano as he passed their clique. “Hers is for show, yours is for battle!”
Marissa and Rosaria each polished three brooms before class was done, and each hoped tomorrow she would get to fly one.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Eruptions of glowing light splashed upon invisible domes that shielded enemy figures. Spattering colors sprayed across a chest or back each moment another fighter died, and panicked orders were shouted as blackness enveloped the battleground again. Each time wands flashed, Marissa looked about rapidly to tell who had fallen and who still survived. The Macaw first-years were down to their last protector and two attackers in the darkness were closing in from opposite sides to finish Tatiane off. Marissa heard rushing footsteps and blindly stretched her leg into the blackness as they passed. When the teen tripped, she kicked away the sparking wand he dropped as Tatiane dimly saw what had happened. Her paintblast charm to his head killed the foe before Tatiane dropped to the dark ground unseen and rolled away. Her final opponent shot a blast at her last position, allowing Tatiane to spatter his unprotected side with multi-colored paint.
“YES!” she cried triumphantly. “YES!”
Overhead lights finally revealed the cavernous Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. Tatiane flashed a knowing smile at Marissa before being engulfed by cheering Macaw sixth-years who had risen from their deaths to celebrate the victory. Fearsome Professor Guerra loomed above the group to congratulate them while across the room Anaconda fighters argued angrily over who should have done what and why they had lost.
“You began with a sacrifice play,” commented Professor Guerra.
“And it worked!” declared a tall Macaw boy. “For once we finally beat them!”
“Only because I fell over one of your stupid firsties stumbling around in the dark!” snarled the Anaconda boy wiping Macaw colors from his face. The fuming golden-blonde girl beside him was too angry to even speak.
“Stronger than magic alone,” remarked their professor, “is magic aided by wit and footwork.” The boy took this as a comment on his fall, but Guerra’s long gaze down the first-years line fell for a moment directly upon Marissa.
The entrance to Defense had been unlike any other. Instead of a sliding stone wall, a black abyss had spread beneath the narrow ledge a guide frog led them to. Professor Guerra had greeted them there, instructed them to follow him, then leapt into the dark pit. The separate groups, Macaw and Anaconda, gathered their courage and jumped. They plunged as if the ground were a hundred feet below, but landed as if they had stepped off a curb. Then the violent battle had broken loose. Three Macaw sixth-years had herded them off to a safe corner while four others made their first attack against the Anacondas who guided their own first-years to the other side.
Wizards fought with wands like gangs fought with knives and guns. But gangs never had pretend fights, which Marissa had quickly reasoned this was when the first teen hit shouted “Dang!” before sitting down to die. Three Macaws were lost immediately, doing something Marissa had seen small, desperate street kids do to older bullies. Instead of being beaten one by one, many little boys would attack the stronger foe together. Even if many were hurt just as badly, they finally defeated their abuser. Tatiane’s team had used the same plan, and it had shown Marissa who they thought the very strongest witch was. The one the Macaws had ganged up on when the fight began, and sacrificed three of their own to take out, had been Cecelia Bella de Barros.
“That is what you will learn in Defense Against the Dark Arts,” Professor Guerra told his new students after thanking the sixth-years for their demonstration. Then once again they practiced their wand movements before being assigned chapter one of ‘The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection’. Marissa already knew a little something about that last part .
-------------------------------------------------------------
Astronomy class was much less eventful than Defense, but no less magical. Marissa remembered Professor Galaxia as the older witch in sparkling veils who had chosen her for Macaw House. A parchment scroll, wide and long as the room, was unrolled across the ceiling. Except for labels that floated on constellations, Professor Galaxia’s star chart seemed as sparklingly real as the night sky of the enchanted Great Hall ceiling.
This was only their day class. At midnight once weekly they would study real stars and planets at the ancient observatory. The professor warned that her pet Marzles there may bat their guide frogs around, but knew not to eat the indigestible animals.
“What’s a Marzle?” Marissa whispered to Jaci Erasmi.
“Interbred margay and Kneazle,” he replied. “Like a cute mini jaguar, but keep your swallows away from them!”
Astronomy was the day’s last class. From the Great Hall, Alika and Milo led them back to Macaw House to change out of uniforms before dinner. Milo Timbira had to inform sixth-years in the common room that they couldn’t wear the ‘I Killed Cece’ shirts they’d hastily created. Tatiane agreed with Marissa that her help would remain their secret.
She had only rice for dinner and saved bread for the sparrows. The tables filled with food made Marissa think of her boys again. She wondered how little they had eaten today, and wondered more deeply why she deserved to be fed, sheltered and safe, but they didn’t. She realized it was maybe the first time today she’d thought of them, and that made her unhappy. She had promised Tomas she wouldn’t forget them, yet in all today’s flurry of classes and activity she really had.
“You like Flap-Flap House?” Potira asked. Marissa was surprised that not only she and Tiquinho, but also Sakura and quiet Anna, had come over to see her.
“It’s nice,” Marissa smiled, not telling that the girls there didn’t like her. “We have treehouse rooms and swinging bridges.”
“Woolly House too,” said Sakura. “And we have real monkey troops in trees around the lupunas!”
“Saci House has real… giraffes!” lied the one-legged boy on the balcony wall above.
Tiquinho explained that the other houses were not allowed to have live anacondas or jaguars. Then they talked about classes. The Jaguar/Woolly mock battle in Defense had become a laughing ‘Aguamenti’ waterfight, so Professor Guerra had made embarrassed sixth-years practice wand movements all hour with the first-years. Tiquinho reminded the girls they had chapters to read, and Marissa said she did too. Soon everyone left for their houses.
-------------------------------------------------------------
“Miss Bella de Barros came in today to ask permission to redecorate Anaconda House,” Principal Absencia remarked as his napkin wiped remains of dinner from his double chin.
“Redecorate?” Professor Katupya inquired warily.
“Said they’d like something more feminine,” Absencia replied. “I approved, of course. Some girlish pink curtains and lace should be harmless enough.”
“If that is all she plans.”
Grace Merrythought sat quietly beside Professor Katupya and listened to their exchange. The principal normally favored leaving daily affairs to his vice principal. Appointed in the middle of the prior school year, he seemed more bureaucrat than educator to Grace.
“Is this true what she’s told me, Ubiritan? That the Muggle-born first-year comes from a Sao Paulo slum?”
“That is where the Quill found her” Katupya acknowledged.
“I wonder if an acceptance letter was wise,” the heavy principal stated. “If I had been advised of this matter, we could have made a correction.”
“Excuse me?” the dark Indian responded. “A correction?”
“It was my understanding from some board members that the previous principal made certain adjustments at times. It would be something to consider in current conditions.”
“The current conditions of Witness Stone covenant are the same for any magic child.”
“Yes, yes. But there are changes in the Wizarding world. The entire government is in a small uproar over these reports you sent to Europe. I was caught completely unaware.”
“You saw no need to review them at the time, Arturo. Now you believe it’s important?”
“Important enough that we should have kept this wild speculation to ourselves.”
“The truth cannot be ignored much longer. And sharing information with the rest of the Wizarding world may help us discover why this is happening.”
“What’s done is done,” Absencia conceded. “But what about this Muggle-born?”
“What of her?” Katupya restated.
“With purebloods being turned away, do you think such a child belongs here?”
“Of course she belongs here,” Grace Merrythought broke in. “She’s a witch!”
The principal looked with surprise to the young woman who had impolitely interrupted.
“Please forgive her outburst, Arturo” Katupya apologized to the principal. “It was Grace who delivered the young girl’s acceptance letter and convinced her to come.”
“I told her the Wizarding world wants her to learn magic,” Merrythought said.
“Don’t the Muggles have enough problems with these street children, without us teaching one of them spells to help her rob and steal better?”
“Sir, she’s not a criminal. We must train her so she doesn’t become one. Any child that cannot control her magic will accidentally break Wizarding laws.”
“But the dirty child has lived in the streets.”
“Survived the streets,” Grace Merrythought corrected. “Thankfully someone protected her in Santa Efigenia while our government did not.”
“Protected her from what, Miss Merrythought? An unwashed face?”
“From Dementors!” she replied with subdued anger. “Preying on homeless children.”
“Dementors in Sao Paulo?” he questioned doubtfully. “A ridiculous notion, my dear.”
“Unfortunately not,” Ubiritan Katypya intoned. “Sixteen years ago in the city a Witness Stone student was taken by the Dementor’s Kiss. This time it could have been Marissa.”
The principal measured this news earnestly.
“So now you think it my responsibility to keep the waif here where she’s safe,” Absencia sighed with frustration while his heavy chair rose to his private Floo. “I suppose since we’ve already accepted her, we shall have to give her a chance…”
“That’s all she wants, sir.”
“…and hope important families do not protest,” he added before departing in flames.
Merrythought turned to Katupya. “What did Principal Absencia mean earlier, sir? Purebloods being turned away?”
“Great changes are occuring in Wizarding population, Grace. Not only in Brazil, but across all the world. And no one yet knows why.”
-------------------------------------------------------------
The other girls could read much faster than her, and had time to talk and play before bed. Marissa had difficulty with the many unfamiliar words, but couldn’t let them know that. Very late that night, with Spero still perched on lamplit pages, the weary-eyed young girl finished her assigned chapters before nodding to sleep on the wood floor beside the soft, untouched bed that her homeless friends were not there to share.