Ashlan awaited Mena at the bottom of the Cloud Wall. “Hey Mena, what took you so—wow!” Ashlan’s emerald eyes glowed and she flashed her fangs in an open-mouthed smile.

“Who did your hair?”

Mena had left her hair unbraided, letting it bounce and flow to show off its new-found sheen. “A very nice shower lady.”

“Really?” Ashlan scoffed with a bold raise of her eyebrows. “They’re rather catty to me—and that’s coming from someone who’s part cat. Anyway, I’ve had Marie and Laetitia save a cloud for us— they’re not happy about it.”

“Are they ever happy?” Mena said, trying not to sound snarky but still doing so.

“They’re on their best behavior,” Ashlan responded with a confident catlike sneer as she rubbed her brown-haired fist in her hand. “Ever since I had a talk with them,”

Ashlan led Mena through the arched hallway into the dining hall, which was now illuminated by the sun. Clouds hovered full of students enjoying their morning breakfast. The Tessellations hovered lowly, a scowl on both of their faces.

“Must the Rainborn hold us up on the very first day,” Marie whined.

Laetitia frowned too, but Ashlan gave them a glare befitting of a lioness and both elves flinched, making room for the newest member of their squad.

Mena noticed the elves kept glancing at her shiny, flowy hair and she secretly took pride in it. She was glad they were jealous of a human being.

As Mena, Ashlan and the Tessellation sisters ate colorful rainboar sausage and light green stormy-side-down Liccan eggs, they listened to Gemini and the row of teachers at the head of the room.

Gemini swept his dark curls out of his eyes as he stood up. “While you all had sweet dreams last night, the teachers and I toiled laboriously over your placements this year. You’ll find we cut no corners deciding the very best areas you’ll excel in…”

Suddenly, a man in a dark cape whizzed by on a cloud. He was lean with a head full of bushy brow hair. He looked concerned, yet quite proud of himself at the same time. Gemini let out an exclamation: “Great Juggling Jesters! Professor Gaia where have you been?! You missed last night’s ceremony.”

The man bowed and spoke in a nasally, self-righteous and high-pitched voice, “A thousand pardons headmaster, but I was taking refuge!”

“Refuge?” Gemini barked. “Why?!”

The man took a moment to size up his thoughts. As he did, Mena whispered, “Who is that?”

“Who is zat? How can you not know?” Laetitia sighed, her cheeks surprisingly flushed against her cold elven pallor. “’He is the only human we adore.”

“He’s the Doomsteacher,” Marie added, a hint of drool on her mouth. “He makes the impending apocalypse on humanity sound so romantic.”

“Especially,” Laetitia added, “When it’s not happening to you.”

At last, Professor Gaia spoke with great passion and drama thrusting his hands up in the air. “Last night, I witnessed the smallest hand on the Dais of Eternity budge! Hark our imminent bedlam awaits…so I retreated to my basement bunker.”

Mena swallowed hard. Gemini had said that it never moved, at least until tonight it seemed. Gemini laughed in dismissal. “Now Peter, my old friend. Methinks you’ve been into the absinthe again. You know what they said say about the boy who cried dais!”

“But…but,” Gaia sputtered.

“Countless generations of Doomsteachers claim to have seen that hand move, but it’s just a trick of the light coming down from the heavens.”

Gaia looked like he was full of trepidation and disbelief at what Gemini said, but the Clown Prince of Dreams extended a courteous hand. “Come, you missed a magnificent feast. Don’t miss the look of joy on these ankle biters when they receive their class placements for the year.”

“Perhaps,” Gaia said, shaking his head. “I jumped to conclusions. Forgive me, headmaster.

“All is forgiven, Peter,” Gemini said with a wink. “Now let the placement commence.”

Behind the clouds where the teachers sat, thousands of paper moons, suns, globes, and Mena could swear she saw a rainbow—soared through the room.

“I can’t wait to see if I have classes with you, Ashlan,” Mena said, but she was met with a frown from her friend.

“I remembered,” Ashlan said with a forlorn look. “You’re a first year. This is Laetitia, Marie and I’s second year. There are four years in Nightdream.”

“Oh nuts,” Mena grimaced, her hands to her cheeks. “I didn’t think of that.”

“Sorry,” Ashlan said, but she tried to smile hopefully. “At least we’re still roommates right?”

Mena’s heart sank. “Now she’d be entering her magic classes without a friendly (or unfriendly in the Tessellations’ case) face to accompany her.

As the papers flew in every direction like a flock of homing pigeons, Mena sulked. Why did it matter where she was placed now? At last, two moons, a sun and a rainbow hovered over their cloud and the four girls caught them. Mena gazed at Ashlan and the Tessellations. They all seemed way more interested than Mena currently was. At last, she sighed and looked down. Her eyes widened.

Phenomena Willow: Second Year

102: Night Elixirs and Dream Potions: Professor Apo Carrie

202 Nightmare Infiltration Self Defense and Lucid Dreaming: Professor Cere Caligari

302: The Impending Apocalypse and The Signs Throughout History: Professor Peter Gaia

402: Dream Divination and Astrology: Dr. Stellaris Andromeda

50?: Imagicnation Mastery: Gemini (Private)

Scrawled at the bottom was very frilly, yet bold handwriting. “Yes Mena, you read it right. Due to your performance yesterday and your advanced Imagicnation, I’m moving you up to the second year. I trust you’ll handle this decision calmly.”

“Miraculous Magicaps!” Mena shrieked with excitement.

She caught Gemini’s eye who winked back at her. “Are you okay?” Aslan asked with concern.

“I’m a thecond year!” Mena lisped, getting so excited spit congealed in her braces and she had to slurp it up.

She handed Ashlan the rainbow paper. “Get out,” she said. “We’re in quite a few classes together. “102, and 402.”

“I’m soooo happy!” Mena yelled and everyone looked at her. “I’m so happy,” she whispered, her cheeks turning red.

“And looks like our first class is together,” Ashlan said as the bell rang. “We better get moving. I’ll show you the way.”

Before anyone could leave, Gemini cleared his throat loudly and raised his hand. There was a look of darkness on his cheerfully painted face. “Just one more announcement before you go. Students are allowed to consult me at any time EXCEPT after dinner. I’m a firm believer of early to dream, early to rise and I will not answer you no matter how urgent your needs are”—Gemini’s face turned cheerful again—“That said, enjoy your year!”

Gemini snapped his fingers and disappeared behind a revolving tarot card.

“Drat rats!” Mena muttered, “I didn’t get to ask him about my dream.”

“I wouldn’t worry about that, Mena,” Ashlan said. “After all, you’ve got private lessons with him. You can ask him then.”

“Yep!” Mena said, her face smiling again. “Let’s get down to Elixirs 102.”

Ashlan led Mena to the front of the school; when they reached the center room with the Dais that spooked Professor Gaia, they went up the heart shaped staircase into the first classroom on the balcony.

Professor Apo Carrie’s classroom looked more like a depository for plants and animal remains than an actual place of study. There were endless walls of bins raised high to the ceiling, shelves of books dedicated to anthropology, and five island tables—the one at the head of the class filled to the brim with empty beakers. A skeleton of what resembled an enormous eel hung from the ceiling. The professor sat cheerfully perched on a chair in order to compensate for his height.

Ashlan and Mena quickly squatted an island table close to where Professor Carrie sat. As everyone got seated, the bespectacled, buck toothed man gave a giggle, “’ello kiddies!” he said in his giggly, yet lispy voice. “I’m so excited to have all of you for a second year…oh, who is this?”

Carrie’s magnified eyes gazed at Mena, who felt a mixture of pride and embarrassment from being put on the spot. “I’m Mena,” she said sheepishly. “Gemini put me in your class.”

“Ah yesh,” Carrie said with a lisp. “You’re already becoming one of his favorites.”

“I am?” Mena said, her eyes widened as she pointed to herself.

“Of course,” Carrie said, “Anyone with a lot of organic imagicnation interests him. Anyways, today, we’re going to start a warm-up exercise to get your thinkers thinkin’ and your peepers peepin’!

Mena smiled, though she could detect some jealous glares from the looks of her classmates, all of whom had to work their way into the second year. She focused her attention on the professor in order to shake their stares off her.

“Today, we’ll make one of my favorite night potions: The Cute Fluffy Mammal Dream Potion. Anyone know what it does?”

“Yes, Miss O’Ryan?”

“Anyone who drinks that potion before bed will have vivid dreams of the creature that was used to make it.”

“Of course!” Carrie exclaimed. “Very good.”

Ashlan gave a haughty smile from answering the first question of the year. Mena saw others rolling their eyes and she had a good feeling this wouldn’t be the first question she’d answer.

Professor Carrie held his hands in the air. “Now I want each of you to make a different mammal for me. That way there will be no cheating. Think of it as a pre-test to gauge what you learned in the first year.”

Mena frowned. She didn’t know anything from the first year. Ashlan could see a look of nervousness on her face but patted her on the back.

Carrie put his hand to his head and made a small beaker fly out to every student. Each student grabbed the textbook on their desk and began paging through it. Mena followed suit. She knew the potions were Autobetized so she at least knew what page it was on. She reached the page of the potion and gasped. The runes on the page were very similar to the Autobet she grew up reading, and yet, they were different. They were much more elaborated and convoluted. “What is this written in?” Mena whispered to Ashlan.

“Oh,” Ashlan said. “It’s in the Dulabet. It’s standard for this castle and my homeland.”

“The Dulabet!” Mena gasped. “Oh no!”

She didn’t know the Dulabet at all. And when she looked at Ashlan, Ashlan said, “Groundborns tend to learn the Dulabet in year one. I’m surprised that Gemini didn’t think of that.”

“Miserable magicaps,” Mena sighed, resting her head flat on the desk so her shiny hair covered her head. “How am I going to do this? It’s not like I can understand this language…”

Suddenly, Mena sat up, her teeth spread in a wide grin and her eyes sparkling. “That’s it!” She put her hand to her head and pointed at the book and chanted,

“From Dulabet to Autobet, Magical Translate…so I don’t get a headache.”

The ink on the pages started transforming into a much more readable state. Mena could now read the words printed on the page. “Oh, you know what, I’ll do the Gopher Potion. They’re cute! I think he’ll like that!”

“Good idea,” Ashlan said. “After all, he looks like a gopher.”

Mena quickly located the G in the Dulabet and gathered the gopher parts listed in the books. She returned with small, round hairy things that were strangely hard, and dropped them at the bottom of the beaker. She quickly filled it up with hot water from the sink and small dream herbs she’d gathered from the bins and stirred it together until it turned a greenish-brown.

“Wow,” Ashlan said, “Done already? I knew you were clever, Rainy but I had no idea you were smart too. Guess I can call you Brainy Rainy from now on.”

Mena grinned from ear to ear, “Brainy Rainy. I like the sound of it.”

Mena relaxed for the next ten minutes as all the other students finished. Professor Carrie hopped off his stool and began to taste each of the potions. “Mmm, Janus Harvestar, let’s see how you did,” Carrie said, taking the potion from a pale Lunaborn with spikey black hair and a skeletal face who was sitting with her and Ashlan. He drank the blue beverage, and Mena witnessed a bubble appear over Professor Carrie’s head. Inside of it, she could see a silver-blue platypus-looking creature with a spiked silver tail resembling a scythe. Its face was cute, but peculiarly, its eyes lacked pupils, remaining hollow and white.

“Oh,” Carrie said. “A Cleaver! Very good! Aww he’s so fluffy and cute, just watch out for his tail! It can slice a small tree in two.”

Janus nodded, and with a wispy, yet emotionless voice said, “My daddy gets them as housewarming presents for old folks. Tends to do his job for him.”

Professor Carrie’s eyes shot open, and he quickly popped his bubble. “Erm, that’s very nice, Janus. Um, next!”

Carrie approached Ashlan and with a wide smile, he said, “Hmm, I wonder what Miss O’Ryan has chosen for her cute fluffy mammal potion. I hope you know it’s cheating to feature yourself in it.”

The class fell silent and Ashlan wrinkled her nose in disgust. Professor Carrie held up his hands lifting them nervously in a defensive position. “That was a joke! Gee, can’t say anything these days!”

He drank the potion and inside his bubble there was a red squirrel with wings. It chittered and shot flames from its mouth. Unlike the Cleaver, it had small, dark, round eyes; it was much cuter in Mena’s opinion. “Ah yes, the famed Fiery Flying Squirrel! Makes me want to exclaim “Great Squirrels of Fire! Very good, Ashlan! Very good!”

Professor Carrie strolled up to Mena and she could hear the excitement in his voice. “Now the moment I’ve been waiting for! What have you chosen, Miss Mena?”

Mena bounced excitedly on her stool. This was her moment of glory. Professor Carrie put the beverage up to his lips and chugged the whole thing. Mena imagined he’d be dreaming of adorable gophers any second now.

“Mmm,” Professor Carrie said, his eyes closed and suddenly his eyes shot open. He began to choke violently and fell backwards onto the floor, convulsing.

“Oh my galoshes!” Mena exclaimed. “I’ve killed our teacher!”