Chapter 1

Acacia Laureen Kent tapped her foot impatiently as the endless stream of  students passing by her showed no sign of her best friend, Claris.

          Claris had agreed to meet up with her at the Primary Wing’s stairwell. As usual, Claris had managed to land in the principal’s office for some prank she’d set up at the Elderly Wing, where the supreme students—also the oldest students in the school—from Black House, where the ‘house of goodie-two-shoes’ living quarters were.

         In Dyia’s School of Magic, there were six wings—Newborns' Wing, Childrens' Wing, Primary Wing, Secondary Wing, Adolescent Wing, Adult Wing and Elderly Wing. Each wing was a sleeping quarters for the students in their corresponding houses. The Newborns' was Red House, Childrens' Wing was Orange House, Primary Wing was Yellow house, Secondary Wing was Green House, Adolescent Wing was Blue House, Adult Wing was Purple House and Elderly Wing was Black House.

           Acacia turned away from her pondering and scanned the student-mob again. Claris had perfect ebony black hair, which should’ve been easy to pick out of the brown-haired mess.

           Apparently not.

           As if on cue, a black bob appeared out of the brown mess and shoved its way over. “Finally! I was starting to wonder if a Pteranodon flew in, grabbed you, and flew away,” Acacia exclaimed.

           Claris smirked. “Principal Ganeo’s too careful for that. Even if we could our abilities to defend ourselves—which we can—he wouldn’t let a single dinosaur come in,” Claris pointed out. “He’s afraid that if parents think that the principal of the most noble school in Dyia doesn’t take his job seriously, they would stop their kids from coming to this magical school.”

           In Dyia, the world of magical beings and animals, dinosaurs still existed. Unlike our solar system—and our planet—Dyia was magic. A place where everyone had magic abilities and used it to their needs. Other than that, their world was completely like ours. Sort of. 

            “C’mon, Annice is waiting for us,” Claris reminded her. Annice Etelvina Zan was one of their friends, but unfortunately, she was from Blue House and was always two floors above them. Which was also one of the reasons why Claris had organised a ‘drill’ after school so they could all meet up. First, (since Claris claimed she could ‘always cause trouble and be late’) Acacia would meet Claris at the Primary Wing’s stairwell five minutes after school lessons ended, then, both would take the opportunity to test Acacia’s ability to transport and teleport to Annice’s dorm room.

            Everyone in Dyia, (which is also made of two solar systems, Skysun and Moonstar, with four planets in each solar system,) had three abilities.

            There were five ability types. Prowability, for the most powerful and rare abilities. Elemenability for the elemental abilities, and Magiability for the more common and average abilities. Superability was for the abilities that showed physically or was one of the five senses—like the Listener ability that enhances hearing. And Mixability, which was the abilities that might belong in two different ability types.

            There was no knowing which type of ability you could get, which was why when Abilitologists made a sky-blue orb called ‘Typearl’, everyone got excited. It could sense the type of ability the person who touched it was going to get, just not the exact ability.

            Acacia was a Water Elemental, obviously an Elemenability. She was also a Transporter, a Magiability. Claris was a Timestopper, a Magiability with the ability to stop time. Her other ability—which she constantly bragged about—was a Voicer, a Superability. She could raise her voice at will, though sometimes she accidentally spoke a bit too loudly.

            Acacia started musing again as they walked past their Yellow House lockers. I wonder what people keep in their lockers… Things like that.

            Much too soon, they reached Claris’s dorm room and Acacia had to use her Transporter Magiability to transport them to Annice’s dorm. She grabbed Claris’s hand and jumped forward and…

            Landed in another messy dorm room. Annice, an eleven year old girl with straight ebony hair and tanned brown skin, stood leaning against an old rickety table, smiling widely.

            “Hiya, wondering where you were,” Annice teased. She shrugged off the table and pulled them into a hug. “How was your day?”

            “Miserable,” Acacia said.

            “Great!” Claris declared loudly at the same time. Annice was a year older than them and thought they were cute when they spoke at the same time. “My day was good,” she winked at Claris, “and I heard something exciting too!”

             “Exciting how?” Acacia’s curiosity piqued.

             “Didn’t you hear the rumours yet?” Annice asked, crossing over the room to the bookshelf hanging above the tattered sofa. 

             “What rumours? About our lab explosion last week again?” Claris glanced at Acacia questioningly. To be fair, Acacia had misread the step ‘one drop’ for ‘two drops’ of explosive juice, and blew up the lab table, chair and cauldron. 

             “Nah, those rumours stopped circling a long time ago,” Acacia replied, her face flushing red. “You really need to read the School’s Secrets Paper. It has all the weird info about the students and all.”

               “Then you haven’t heard it yet,” Annice said, grinning with a sort of mysterious gleam that makes you wonder what’s going to happen next. “There is a rumour that the History Department is discussing a field trip for the ten, eleven, and twelve year olds. If that’s true, we might be going to the Stone Moors, or probably some old construction site that’s abandoned!”

                Annice liked mysteries and some horror, and those two mixed together was exactly what she loved. Acacia was fine with that, but horror wasn’t really her taste. That was the reason why she cheered loudly the next day when she found a letter in her locker. 

               They weren’t going to Stone Moors or an abandoned site. They were going to Hillary Hills.