Morning || Variable eighteen

The first day of Byzh arrived in the calendar, and with the new season came the new school year. Yew woke up early, when it was still dark outside. His roommate was snoring loudly in the other bed. Having nothing to do, he tried going back to sleep, but couldn’t.

When the sky started to brighten, he got out of his bed and dressed up.

Until all of his stuff would arrive by mail, he only had two sets of clothes. His first set had already been worn for three days and stunk too much to wear it anymore, so he hoped to receive the package from his parents' home no later than tomorrow. Otherwise, he would have to laundry his only clothes, or get reprimanded by the teachers.

He went to the kitchen and opened the fridge, which contained more food brought in by Linden. But Yew wasn't hungry. Instead he wanted to drink milk, so he poured some of it into a mug, then warmed it up using Linden's heating coaster.

The magical item was made of some type of black shiny material and had a red dot in the center. Whenever a mug was placed over the dot, the liquid inside would begin to warm up. The longer the mug stayed on the coaster, the hotter the liquid got. However, the mug itself never changed its temperature.

Yew took his mug off the coaster, when the sides of the milk began to bubble up about to boil. Then he went outside, and sat on the edge of the porch with his feet on the staircase.

It was a chilly summer morning, but Yew kept himself warm by sipping his milk.

He appreciated the stillness of the sleeping hamlet. With no students outside, it was eerily quiet and enticing. Since there was no wind, all the motionless trees surrounding the alleys appeared surreal, almost as if Yew was looking at a painting.

There was something special about this time of the day, when it was so bright outside, but the source of light itself was still hidden beneath the horizon.

He smiled when the birds started their morning choir. Even though he was so far away from home, there were so many similarities between this place and his village.

After he drank all his milk, he was ready to go back inside, when something caught his attention at the corner of his eye. He looked to the right side, and saw a beautiful woman standing several meters away. Her hair was white and long to the ground. She was standing barefoot on the white pebbles of the alley, wearing a long white dress, which drifted around her as if she was underwater.

She stared at Yew with a delicate smile, and he stared back at her. Without moving or saying anything they looked at each other. Yew wasn't sure how long it lasted, more than several seconds for sure, but not longer than a minute. Before he could greet her, she turned transparent and faded out like a mist.

Right after she disappeared completely, Yew suddenly heard numerous noises coming from every direction, and he realized that there were many students outdoors all over the hamlet. His mind was utterly confused, because he didn't see or hear them until just now.

"Why didn’t you wake me up?!" Linden shouted toward him from the open kitchen window.

The sun was up in the sky, above the cottages across from him.

"I told you to wake me up!" Linden was glaring at Yew, who was dumbstruck by the sudden changes around him.

"What time is it?" he uttered, wondering whether he was asleep or awake.

"Time for our first class!" Linden shouted then disappeared inside the cottage, leaving the kitchen window open.

Spruce and Aspen, stepped out of the neighboring cottage, with their backpacks on and ready for the class. They approached Yew, who was still confused about what had just happened. How did dawn suddenly switch to late morning?

"Where’s Linden?" Spruce asked.

"Getting ready," Yew answered. He looked at the sun again. He could swear on his life that just a moment ago it wasn't even on the horizon.

"If we don’t leave soon, we’ll be late." Aspen tapped the watch on his left wrist.

Yew nodded, then went inside to get his backpack, glad that he packed it the day before. Today he was already out of time. With his backpack and a jacket on, he left the cottage. Outside he waited with others for Linden, who came out much faster than any of them expected.

Linden was still angry at Yew for not waking him up. However, Yew was still in a daze, so he didn’t even listen to the sarcastic comments, which his roommate directed at him.

They headed to the classroom A of the History building, where they had their first class - History of Magic. Upon entrance they saw that each table had two nameplates placed in front of each seat. Like all the other first year students, they went searching for their own seats.

Aspen found his seat quickly, and settled in the second row by the wall. Spruce and Yew sat together in the third row behind Aspen, with Spruce by the wall and Yew by the aisle. Linden's seat was across from Yew, but in the fourth row.

After everybody was seated, the students realized that there were no girls in the classroom, although many of them looked at Linden, questioning the possibility of a girl wearing pants.

"Why are there only boys?’ some students wondered aloud.

Yew and Spruce also found it odd. In kindergartens, boys and girls were learning together, so they have never been before in a boys-only classroom. When they looked questioningly at Aspen, he shrugged, not knowing the answer.

Linden glared at some boys, who openly insinuated that he might be a girl. He was ready to get up and start a fight, when a middle-aged man entered the classroom. He had short, but very curly dark gold hair, and a very curly beard, which covered most of his face.

He closed the door to the classroom, and all the students turned around to look at him. He approached the teacher's desk and put down his documents, but he himself didn't sit down.

"Let me explain why this classroom has only boys." He had heard the students, and decided to give them an answer in order to gather everyone's attention.

"It's a long tradition, which the school of Hecate has upheld for centuries, and no one plans to change it. If you look at your schedule, you’ll realize that all of you are neighbors. We have always arranged cottages separately for boys and girls: twenty five cottages for boys, the next twenty five for girls, and so on. We alternate for all the students, or at least we try. Some years it's not so easy, but even then, we still manage, and students of opposite gender are never in the same classroom."

He spoke in a low even voice, with a tone of dignity and wisdom.

"Now that I have satisfied your curiosity, I shall introduce myself. My name is Cacao Palash Kurrajong Bark, and during this school year, I’ll be teaching you History of Magic."

He tapped the air next to the blackboard, and the names of all the students in the classroom appeared in the alphabetical order. "Since all the desks are full, I assume that you’re all present, but if you don't see your name on the blackboard, please raise your hand."

As no hand was raised, the teacher continued.

"These are your textbooks." He gestured with his left hand a complex set of movements, which caused the nameplates on the tables to transform into books. Each book had a nametag attached to the bottom of the cover page.

"And these are your notebooks." Cacao made another complex motion with his left hand, and a notebook appeared next to each textbook. "But before I give you your pens, I want you to read this," he said, and pointed at the blackboard.

The list of students disappeared, and a single handwritten sentence appeared in bright yellow letters.

"Please read this out loud," Cacao ordered while pointing at the blackboard.

The students slowly and out of sync, read the sentence on the blackboard, "the notebooks are scored. I will be careful what I write inside."

"Good, very good," Cacao said and waved his hand down, causing the sentence to disappear.

He made another complex motion with his hand, and two pens appeared for each student. "The extra pen is in case if you lose one," he explained. "Don’t lose your textbooks or notebooks. But if you do, reach out to me either in this class, or in my office."

He clapped his hands, then said, "now, open your notebooks."

The students did as told.

"For those of you, who want an extra point in my class, please write down in your notebooks, on the first line, the same sentence, which you've read a moment ago, exactly as it was written, word by word. I accept no misspellings."

Aspen and some other students began to write, while the majority, who hadn't paid attention, looked at each other in search of help.

"No talking, if you don’t remember – too bad. You lost an extra point. Better pay attention next time."

When the students finished writing, Cacao pointed at the blackboard, where a new sentence appeared: «What is magic, and where did it come from?»

Cacao spoke again to the students, "and now I want all of you to write this new sentence on the first empty line in your notebooks."

After the students wrote it down, the teacher clapped his hands twice. A red number appeared in every notebook. The students didn't have time to wonder what it meant, because Cacao explained right away.

"If you're seeing a plus one in your notebooks, this is the extra credit you earned by paying attention. If you're seeing a zero, it isn't bad at all. It means you followed my instructions. But some of you have just received a minus one. This is a point you lost, because you didn’t do as I instructed."

Yew and Spruce looked at each other’s notebooks. Each one had a red minus one next to the text in black, and both boys knew exactly what they did wrong.

The teacher told them to write the sentence on the first empty line, but Yew and Spruce thought that if they wrote it on the second line, they could still get the extra credit, if they copied the previous sentence from Aspen after the class.