Pink elephants on parade...
So I started this story a while ago that I'm tentatively calling Elementary Magic. Here, so far, is what I have. Constructive criticism is always welcome.
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It was one of those summer rains so common to the area known in guidebooks as the Seven Cities--heavy, fast, and warm, with rumblings of thunder in the distance. People hurried past under the cover of enormous umbrellas or bright raincoats, dodging as passing cars drenched them with great sheets of sludgy water. A young woman huddled on the back row of the bus, watching for her stop. It would be the start of what she sincerely hoped would be a new life for her.
At twenty-three, Katherine Parker was fresh out of college. The moment she had walked across the stage, a double major, cum laude in Education and magna cum laude in Music, had been the proudest moment of her life. The euphoria had lasted for a week, and then she had moved back in with her parents while she searched for a job. Most schools didn't hire music teachers over the summer, and she had begun to fear she would never get the job when she had received an offer from Seven Cities Academy.
The phone message had been vague on details, leaving Katherine ample time to speculate what her duties would be. The position was for teaching music to kindergarten through twelfth grade, so doubtless this school was a private one. She wondered how often she would teach, how much she would need to teach, whether the school was on block scheduling like her high school had been or if it was daily schedule like her college had been.
Noting that her stop was approaching, Katherine signaled the driver. When the bus shuddered to a halt, she got up, slung her satchel over her shoulder, waved to the driver, and stepped out.
Seven Cities Academy was three blocks east of where the bus had dropped her off. Katherine opened her umbrella and set off, bracing herself for anything. When she actually saw the school, however, she gasped.
It was a red brick structure, sprawling across a shining green lawn. In the sunlight it would be impressive, but even in the rain, Katherine fell in love with it. Steeling herself, she crossed the grounds and rang the bell.
A tall, heavyset, middle-aged man, with black hair and round glasses, looked down at her, startled. "Can I help you, ma'am?" he asked.
Katherine recognized the voice of the man she had spoken to over the phone. "Uh...I'm Katherine Parker. I'm here about the music...?"
"Oh, of course! Come on in, get out of the rain." As she stepped in, the man held his hand out. "I'm Will Barton, I'm the headmaster here."
"It's nice to meet you, Mr. Barton," Katherine said, shaking his hand. She followed him into his office, where he invited her to sit before taking his own seat opposite the desk from her.
"Mrs. Parker--"
"Uh, Miss. I'm not married."
"Ms. Parker. I don't know how much you know about what we expect of you here..."
"Not much," Katherine admitted. "As I said on my resume', I only just graduated from college in the spring. This is...would be my first job."
"Is. If you want it, Ms. Parker, the job is yours." Mr. Barton smiled. "It's simple. All the students at the school take music at least once a week--it's not optional. We insist on our students getting a well-rounded education. What each class learns is--for the most part--up to you. Our previous teacher retired, and she's left all her notes for you, but you don't have to do things exactly as she did."
"Thank you. I don't want to cause too much trouble to students who have been here a while--at least not right away."
Mr. Barton laughed at that. Katherine permitted herself a small smile. "We do have some traditions that need to be upheld. We have a Grandparents' Day-Thanksgiving service the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, a carol service the Tuesday night before Christmas vacation, and a musical every spring. Your resume' said you had acting experience, so..."
Katherine nodded. "I took drama in high school, and I did a couple plays in college. That shouldn't be too much of a problem."
"Good." Mr. Barton steepled his fingers. "You play piano, so if you think you're up to it, you can offer piano lessons to students, but they have to pay you directly for that. And, of course, you don't have to worry about the magical aspects of either music or theatre. That doesn't get taught until the high school level, and we have two other teachers to deal with that."
"Exactly," Katherine agreed. "Wait, what?"
Mr. Barton looked at her in surprise. "Did you wnant to teach the magic?"
Katherine was bewildered. "I didn't know you taught magic. I didn't know magic was real. I mean...it's just fantasy, right?"
Mr. Barton smacked his forehead. "Oh, dear, I forgot to mention that, didn't I? You aren't a sorcerer, of course, so you didn't know we existed. This is a school of magic."
"How Harry Potter of you," Katherine commented dryly.
"Not exactly. For one thing, we're a day school, and for another thing, we start with kindergarten." Mr. Barton smiled. "And although we give scholarships to people with real need, or more rarely with real talent, magic is really just like math and spelling and painting--it's something you can be taught to do. Not all students will grow up able to perform the complex spells and brew the complex potions, but they all at least get a foundation in it. And like any other class, if they don't maintain a C average they don't graduate. We substitute potion-brewing for science classes, but there are enough similarities that students who decide to go to college can pass. Spell-casting is taught once a week until middle school, then students are allowed to drop one core class in which they have an A average, except for music."
Katherine's head was spinning. All she could think of to say was, "Um."
Mr. Barton laughed. "It's a lot to handle, I know. Come on, I'll show you where your apartment is, you can settled in, and after dinner maybe you'd like to see your classroom."
"Actually, I'd like to see the classroom now," Katherine said firmly. "I have to call my mother to send along my suitcase--I didn't expect to be given a job and an apartment just like that, so I didn't bring them. All I brought were my music books--I thought you'd want a demonstration or something."
"Not a problem."
Katherine followed Mr. Barton out of his office. The building's floors were highly polished wood, and the walls were a soothing cream color. The front stairs creaked as they climbed them, careful to step on the dusky green carpeting. Katherine leaned against the banister briefly and felt it move slightly.
She was worn out by the time they topped the fourth floor. On this floor seemed to be nothing but an office, a classroom, and a cupola. Katherine assumed the classroom was hers, but to her surprise, Mr. Barton opened the door to the cupola and ushered her in.
The room had obviously not seen any use in some time; a fine layer of dust covered everything. Mr. Barton coughed slightly. "I asked Reverend Taylor to come up and clean last week, but he's kind of old and those are a lot of stairs."
"It's fine. I'll have it cleaned up in no time." Katherine set her satchel down and scanned the room, her hands on her hips. The windows were hung with dingy curtains, dust caught in the folds. The chairs scattered throughout the room were in dire need of being painted. Thick throw rugs covered the floor. The previous music teacher's notes were scattered all over the top of the piano, a grand piano on which the lid had been left up.
"Is there anything you need?" Mr. Barton asked her.
Katherine pulled open a low cupboard set under the window and beheld cleaning rags, a bucket, and a bottle of cleaning solution. "Where's the nearest bathroom?"
"There's a sink in the office over there," Mr. Barton answered, pointing. "I'll send someone up to get you for dinner."
He left. Katherine lugged her bucket over to the office, filled it with water, added some of the cleaning solution, then got to work. She pulled the curtains off the rods, opened one of the big bay windows, and shook the bejeezus out of them, then hung them back on the rods and tied them back. She gathered the throw rugs, shook them out the window, and folded them neatly in a back corner, thinking she might let the youngest children sit on them once in a while for class. On her hands and knees, she scrubbed the floors until they shone. She washed the windows and the chalkboard, which was flaking away, then emptied out her bucket and got out a dustcloth to dust off the piano.
Katherine had great respect for her instruments; while her main gift was singing, she could play the piano well and knew the basics of flute, and she took good care of all her instruments. She couldn't imagine leaving the lid of the piano up even overnight, and here someone had probably left it the whole summer. After carefully dusting each key, she skimmed the top with her dustcloth, then organized the notes the previous teacher had left her. She hesitated, then ran her fingers lightly over the keys, just to make sure they were all in tune. It sounded good to her.
Her parents had sold their upright piano two years before, so Katherine hadn't played all summer except occasionally at church. She couldn't resist playing a few scales, then finger exercises, before sitting down to lose herself in one of her favourite pieces. "If I but come again at last to thee..."
"Hey, not bad."
Katherine jumped, the piano making a discordant jangle as she whirled around. "Jesus!" she blurted.
The person in the doorway held up her hands. "Whoa, sorry, didn't mean to scare you. I take it you're the new music teacher."
"Uh...yeah." Katherine stood and closed the lid, feeling her heart rate slowly return to normal. "Katherine Parker."
"Genie Floss, Advanced Spellcasting. Nice to meet you." The woman scanned the room. "Looks nice. What, did you repaint everything?"
"No--just cleaned it--but I'm going to paint the chairs tomorrow." Katherine frowned slightly. "Uh...did you say your name was...?"
"Huh? Oh." Genie sighed. "My name is Eugenia Mildred--could my parents have picked a worse name? I tried to get people to call me Millie for most of my childhood--nobody ever did--but one of my friends who knew I went here called me Genie instead, and it stuck."
Katherine couldn't help but giggle. "I guess I'd rather put up with people singing at me than people calling me Eugenia."
"Singing at me?" Genie repeated.
"I dream of Genie with the light brown hair," Katherine sang.
Genie laughed as well, brushing her light brown pageboy to one side. "Anyway, Bart sent me to get you, it's dinnertime. Time for your initiation to Seven Cities." As they stepped out into the hallway, Genie pointed. "By the way, the classroom over there is mine--I teach middle and high school spellcasting. We share the office. Hope you're more organized than Edna was."
Katherine smiled. "My brother used to say I was CDO."
"CDO?"
"It's like OCD, but in alphabetical order--as it should be."
Both women laughed as they headed downstairs.
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Coming up with names for students is kind of fun, and I'm doing it kind of randomly. The way I came up with names is complicated and involves 180 D-20's, approximately 200 D-4's, a "random name generator", and the list of the 1000 most common names in the United States. (Interestingly, there is only one "Smith" out of about 200 students--and that's the most common surname in the US. That, however, is what comes of random die rolls.) For the professors, I made up the names as I went. I need to rename Mr. Barton--again--as at the moment, he has a rather obvious name. W. Barton Baldwin was my headmaster in middle school...
---------------------------
It was one of those summer rains so common to the area known in guidebooks as the Seven Cities--heavy, fast, and warm, with rumblings of thunder in the distance. People hurried past under the cover of enormous umbrellas or bright raincoats, dodging as passing cars drenched them with great sheets of sludgy water. A young woman huddled on the back row of the bus, watching for her stop. It would be the start of what she sincerely hoped would be a new life for her.
At twenty-three, Katherine Parker was fresh out of college. The moment she had walked across the stage, a double major, cum laude in Education and magna cum laude in Music, had been the proudest moment of her life. The euphoria had lasted for a week, and then she had moved back in with her parents while she searched for a job. Most schools didn't hire music teachers over the summer, and she had begun to fear she would never get the job when she had received an offer from Seven Cities Academy.
The phone message had been vague on details, leaving Katherine ample time to speculate what her duties would be. The position was for teaching music to kindergarten through twelfth grade, so doubtless this school was a private one. She wondered how often she would teach, how much she would need to teach, whether the school was on block scheduling like her high school had been or if it was daily schedule like her college had been.
Noting that her stop was approaching, Katherine signaled the driver. When the bus shuddered to a halt, she got up, slung her satchel over her shoulder, waved to the driver, and stepped out.
Seven Cities Academy was three blocks east of where the bus had dropped her off. Katherine opened her umbrella and set off, bracing herself for anything. When she actually saw the school, however, she gasped.
It was a red brick structure, sprawling across a shining green lawn. In the sunlight it would be impressive, but even in the rain, Katherine fell in love with it. Steeling herself, she crossed the grounds and rang the bell.
A tall, heavyset, middle-aged man, with black hair and round glasses, looked down at her, startled. "Can I help you, ma'am?" he asked.
Katherine recognized the voice of the man she had spoken to over the phone. "Uh...I'm Katherine Parker. I'm here about the music...?"
"Oh, of course! Come on in, get out of the rain." As she stepped in, the man held his hand out. "I'm Will Barton, I'm the headmaster here."
"It's nice to meet you, Mr. Barton," Katherine said, shaking his hand. She followed him into his office, where he invited her to sit before taking his own seat opposite the desk from her.
"Mrs. Parker--"
"Uh, Miss. I'm not married."
"Ms. Parker. I don't know how much you know about what we expect of you here..."
"Not much," Katherine admitted. "As I said on my resume', I only just graduated from college in the spring. This is...would be my first job."
"Is. If you want it, Ms. Parker, the job is yours." Mr. Barton smiled. "It's simple. All the students at the school take music at least once a week--it's not optional. We insist on our students getting a well-rounded education. What each class learns is--for the most part--up to you. Our previous teacher retired, and she's left all her notes for you, but you don't have to do things exactly as she did."
"Thank you. I don't want to cause too much trouble to students who have been here a while--at least not right away."
Mr. Barton laughed at that. Katherine permitted herself a small smile. "We do have some traditions that need to be upheld. We have a Grandparents' Day-Thanksgiving service the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, a carol service the Tuesday night before Christmas vacation, and a musical every spring. Your resume' said you had acting experience, so..."
Katherine nodded. "I took drama in high school, and I did a couple plays in college. That shouldn't be too much of a problem."
"Good." Mr. Barton steepled his fingers. "You play piano, so if you think you're up to it, you can offer piano lessons to students, but they have to pay you directly for that. And, of course, you don't have to worry about the magical aspects of either music or theatre. That doesn't get taught until the high school level, and we have two other teachers to deal with that."
"Exactly," Katherine agreed. "Wait, what?"
Mr. Barton looked at her in surprise. "Did you wnant to teach the magic?"
Katherine was bewildered. "I didn't know you taught magic. I didn't know magic was real. I mean...it's just fantasy, right?"
Mr. Barton smacked his forehead. "Oh, dear, I forgot to mention that, didn't I? You aren't a sorcerer, of course, so you didn't know we existed. This is a school of magic."
"How Harry Potter of you," Katherine commented dryly.
"Not exactly. For one thing, we're a day school, and for another thing, we start with kindergarten." Mr. Barton smiled. "And although we give scholarships to people with real need, or more rarely with real talent, magic is really just like math and spelling and painting--it's something you can be taught to do. Not all students will grow up able to perform the complex spells and brew the complex potions, but they all at least get a foundation in it. And like any other class, if they don't maintain a C average they don't graduate. We substitute potion-brewing for science classes, but there are enough similarities that students who decide to go to college can pass. Spell-casting is taught once a week until middle school, then students are allowed to drop one core class in which they have an A average, except for music."
Katherine's head was spinning. All she could think of to say was, "Um."
Mr. Barton laughed. "It's a lot to handle, I know. Come on, I'll show you where your apartment is, you can settled in, and after dinner maybe you'd like to see your classroom."
"Actually, I'd like to see the classroom now," Katherine said firmly. "I have to call my mother to send along my suitcase--I didn't expect to be given a job and an apartment just like that, so I didn't bring them. All I brought were my music books--I thought you'd want a demonstration or something."
"Not a problem."
Katherine followed Mr. Barton out of his office. The building's floors were highly polished wood, and the walls were a soothing cream color. The front stairs creaked as they climbed them, careful to step on the dusky green carpeting. Katherine leaned against the banister briefly and felt it move slightly.
She was worn out by the time they topped the fourth floor. On this floor seemed to be nothing but an office, a classroom, and a cupola. Katherine assumed the classroom was hers, but to her surprise, Mr. Barton opened the door to the cupola and ushered her in.
The room had obviously not seen any use in some time; a fine layer of dust covered everything. Mr. Barton coughed slightly. "I asked Reverend Taylor to come up and clean last week, but he's kind of old and those are a lot of stairs."
"It's fine. I'll have it cleaned up in no time." Katherine set her satchel down and scanned the room, her hands on her hips. The windows were hung with dingy curtains, dust caught in the folds. The chairs scattered throughout the room were in dire need of being painted. Thick throw rugs covered the floor. The previous music teacher's notes were scattered all over the top of the piano, a grand piano on which the lid had been left up.
"Is there anything you need?" Mr. Barton asked her.
Katherine pulled open a low cupboard set under the window and beheld cleaning rags, a bucket, and a bottle of cleaning solution. "Where's the nearest bathroom?"
"There's a sink in the office over there," Mr. Barton answered, pointing. "I'll send someone up to get you for dinner."
He left. Katherine lugged her bucket over to the office, filled it with water, added some of the cleaning solution, then got to work. She pulled the curtains off the rods, opened one of the big bay windows, and shook the bejeezus out of them, then hung them back on the rods and tied them back. She gathered the throw rugs, shook them out the window, and folded them neatly in a back corner, thinking she might let the youngest children sit on them once in a while for class. On her hands and knees, she scrubbed the floors until they shone. She washed the windows and the chalkboard, which was flaking away, then emptied out her bucket and got out a dustcloth to dust off the piano.
Katherine had great respect for her instruments; while her main gift was singing, she could play the piano well and knew the basics of flute, and she took good care of all her instruments. She couldn't imagine leaving the lid of the piano up even overnight, and here someone had probably left it the whole summer. After carefully dusting each key, she skimmed the top with her dustcloth, then organized the notes the previous teacher had left her. She hesitated, then ran her fingers lightly over the keys, just to make sure they were all in tune. It sounded good to her.
Her parents had sold their upright piano two years before, so Katherine hadn't played all summer except occasionally at church. She couldn't resist playing a few scales, then finger exercises, before sitting down to lose herself in one of her favourite pieces. "If I but come again at last to thee..."
"Hey, not bad."
Katherine jumped, the piano making a discordant jangle as she whirled around. "Jesus!" she blurted.
The person in the doorway held up her hands. "Whoa, sorry, didn't mean to scare you. I take it you're the new music teacher."
"Uh...yeah." Katherine stood and closed the lid, feeling her heart rate slowly return to normal. "Katherine Parker."
"Genie Floss, Advanced Spellcasting. Nice to meet you." The woman scanned the room. "Looks nice. What, did you repaint everything?"
"No--just cleaned it--but I'm going to paint the chairs tomorrow." Katherine frowned slightly. "Uh...did you say your name was...?"
"Huh? Oh." Genie sighed. "My name is Eugenia Mildred--could my parents have picked a worse name? I tried to get people to call me Millie for most of my childhood--nobody ever did--but one of my friends who knew I went here called me Genie instead, and it stuck."
Katherine couldn't help but giggle. "I guess I'd rather put up with people singing at me than people calling me Eugenia."
"Singing at me?" Genie repeated.
"I dream of Genie with the light brown hair," Katherine sang.
Genie laughed as well, brushing her light brown pageboy to one side. "Anyway, Bart sent me to get you, it's dinnertime. Time for your initiation to Seven Cities." As they stepped out into the hallway, Genie pointed. "By the way, the classroom over there is mine--I teach middle and high school spellcasting. We share the office. Hope you're more organized than Edna was."
Katherine smiled. "My brother used to say I was CDO."
"CDO?"
"It's like OCD, but in alphabetical order--as it should be."
Both women laughed as they headed downstairs.
-------------------------------
Coming up with names for students is kind of fun, and I'm doing it kind of randomly. The way I came up with names is complicated and involves 180 D-20's, approximately 200 D-4's, a "random name generator", and the list of the 1000 most common names in the United States. (Interestingly, there is only one "Smith" out of about 200 students--and that's the most common surname in the US. That, however, is what comes of random die rolls.) For the professors, I made up the names as I went. I need to rename Mr. Barton--again--as at the moment, he has a rather obvious name. W. Barton Baldwin was my headmaster in middle school...