A Witch's Guide To Being Human

STEP ONE: Understand and wear the common human fashion of that time.

I shut my note book where I wrote all my notes down in. It’s a simple checkered spiral notebook, similar to the ones in the human world I suppose. I hear footsteps hit the cold stone floor of our cave. It must be Mom, she’s a witch like me. She must be returning home from one of her trips. My mother always goes on trips when she’s feeling uninspired. Mom is a writer she writes thick novels about magic and witchy adventures and sells them to the human world, I’ve read some of her novels. And quite honestly they’re horrible, full of ridiculous magic and plots of world domination. But the humans devour them like crazy. I’m always lonely. I just don’t seem to fit in with the other witches and wizards, I'm good at magic, but I am not cruel like the rest of them. Witches are supposed to be cold and rude and always going to the human world to hex people. That’s why I don’t have any friends from magic school. Plus Dad is a professor at CFW(college for wizards) and the college is all the way on the other side of Mt. Mystic so he’s never around. Mom is always busy writing on good days, and on bad days she takes off on her trips to who-knows-where and doesn’t come back till who-knows-when. And finally my older brother, Atticus, is the apprentice of a powerful wizard in the huge city far from here called Scarlett Ember.

With the flick of my wand I turn my bag invisible so Mom won’t see.

“Nyx! You’re supposed to be working on your potions for the test!” Mom yells throwing her winter coat on the floor of the cave, soaking up the water from a puddle.

She must have gone on a trip to somewhere cold. I roll my eyes. Mom doesn't really care what happens to me she just wants to yell about something.

“I wasn’t feeling well.” I lie.

Mom scoffs. “I don’t care about that! Just study for that test I want to brag about you to my book club tonight!”

“Okay I’ll get back to studying.” I say.

Mom just glares at me and stomps deeper into the dark of the cave.

Now that I’m alone again I make my bag visible and finish stuffing it with normal human clothes and my spell books and my wand. I take a deep breath. My hands shake as I zip the bag shut. I can’t believe I’m doing this. I'm actually running away to the human world and I’m going to be a normal human.

STEP TWO: Change your name and make a normal human background story.

Goodbye Nyx. And hello Emilia, the number one baby name from 2004. (According to babynames.com) Emilia is a regular sixteen year old human girl who lives in a small apartment with her mother and father who are both realtors and their hobbies include baking cookies for their daughter.

I write more of my notes in my book and breath in the wonderful humanly smell of car exhaust and possibilities. I am actually in the human world! Right now I’m sitting on a park bench in the middle of a crowded human city. Only hours ago I was in my cold dark cave looking for the portal spell.

I looked up more research about humans on my spell-phone and discovered that normal human teens go to a place called high school for eight hours five days of the week.

STEP THREE: Find a normal human home.

I found a normal looking apartment for rent on line and instead of flying there I took a bus!

I just magic-ed up some money and rented the place. I had to get a two bedroom apartment because it has to look like my parents live with me.

Right now I’m sitting on the living room floor of my empty apartment flipping through my large stack of magazines, trying to figure out how to decorate my apartment. I decide this room needs a rug, couch, TV, and some pictures of me and my fake normal family framed on the wall. So I use my wand and make it all appear.

“Yes this is going good.” I say to myself.

I’m pretty sure that talking to yourself is not something a normal human does. I’ll have to work on that.

STEP FOUR: Go to high school.

I used some magic to sign myself up for school and it starts today. Perfect timing.

This morning I put on some dark jeans and a white flowy blouse along with some black flats. I really wasn’t sure what to do with my hair so I just braided my thick black hair and hoped it looked normal.

Then I took the bus and arrived at the school. I was about to walk into the huge brick building when I realized I didn’t have any books or a backpack. So I got my wand out of my pocket and recited a spell to magic-up a back pack for me. Then I continued into the school.

The halls are huge and crowded with teenagers. I get overwhelmed but manage to find the principal’s office.

I’m sitting in the principal’s office and she’s an older woman with red hair and a hunchback, she actually reminds me of the witch who lives in the cave next door to Mom’s cave. But she’s nicer, she gave me a map of the school and schedule. Then she told me that she would have a student from my first class take me there.

I tap my foot on the floor nervously, which apparently is a totally normal human behavior!

The door opens and in comes a girl who doesn’t look like all those girls in the magazines. She totally doesn’t look ‘normal’. Her hair is cut just above her chin and is dyed a dark green color. Her shirt is all sorts of different colors and materials, it looks like someone chopped up a bunch of different shirts and sewed them back into one shirt. I don’t know if this girl will be the best influence on me if I'm trying to fit in here in the human world, because she sticks out like a library card in a cauldron.

She spots me staring at her and frowns. The principal is sitting at her desk smiling.

“Indigo Stawarski,” The principal says to the girl and points to me. “This is Emilia Smith.”

“Hi.” The girl—Indigo—says in a dull voice, still frowning.

“Okay Indigo Stawarski go take Emilia Smith to her class.” The principal says in her high pitched voice. “Oh and Indigo don’t forget to be nice.”

At that Indigo frowns harder, which I didn’t think was possible.

Indigo takes me to a room full of desks and students. At the front of the room is the teacher a plump old man who glares at me when he notices me. I thought that humans where nicer than witches, but I’m staring to feel doubtful.

“Morning students, I am your homeroom teacher: Mr. Grim.” He says in a taught voice.

All the students look at me and I suddenly feel like I want to hide, at least at magic school I knew who to fear…

Turns out that home room is basically just a big waste of time. One of the teachers was pretty nice but the rest of them were pretty cold and strict like my teachers back in magic school, well at least the humans never threw anything at me.

STEP FIVE: Make friends with the top kids. Or just make any friends.

And that’s what I plan to do at lunch. I’ve watched some movies about high school and I know that lunch is when all the important things happen. Like in that human movie High School Musical, I can’t wait to be part of a singing and dancing party at lunch. I just hope that that Indigo girl isn’t there she was a real wand in the mud, always frowning.

Finally the small woman at the front of the room—Ms. Rogers—says: “Class is dismissed.” Everyone grabs there backpacks and gets out of there as soon as possible. It’s finally lunch time!

After I got some food from the cafeteria with my magic money I look for somewhere to sit. I see a table of girls who look popular and normal, but the table is really full. So I walk across the cafeteria. As I pass by a table full of boys I hear one of them whisper, “Weirdo!” Then all the boys at the table laugh. My cheeks burn, but I keep walking. The only table that isn’t full is the one Indigo and some other weird looking kids are sitting at. I look at their table considering sitting there. I hear some one at the table say. “We should ask the new girl to sit with us.”

“No way, she’s such a bore. And look at her she looks rich. She can’t sit with us.” This coming from Indigo.

I have no idea what she’s talking about, but it sounds really insulting. So I turn around and walk towards another table.

“Wait, Emilia!” I hear Indigo say and I turn around. “You can sit with us.”

I eye the table with the normal looking girls one last time and sit at the table with Indigo.

So far no one’s sang or danced and everyone has just been talking and eating. What a disappointment.

Sitting at the table are three kids. Indigo. A girl with dark skin and a bunch of black braids on her head. She is wearing a silver t shirt and sunglasses with one lens popped out. And a boy with weird black spiky hair and a crooked nose. I want to ask a whole bunch of questions, but I feel like I will stay more normal if I don’t know.

“So, I haven’t seen you before did you just move?”

I take a bite of my sandwich, it doesn’t taste as good as the magic food we made back in the witch world bad.

“Emilia!”

I look up, I hadn’t realized someone was talking to me. It’s the girl with the broken sunglasses.

“Well…” Oh no! There are some holes in my background story. “Um, well…My mom and dad are realtors.”

Broken sunglasses girl looks confused. And Indigo rolls her eyes.

“What does that have to do with what Molly said?” Crooked nose boy asks me.

“Um…Because my parents were showing our apartment to some people interested in buying it and they decided that they wanted the apartment. So we moved there.” I lie.

“Oh.” Crooked nose boy says. “So where did you move here from?”

“Paris.” I say, the only human world city I can think of at the moment, I really needed to make a better background story!

Indigo rolls her eyes again, and broken sunglasses—apparently Molly—looks intrigued.

“Paris? Really?” Molly asks.

“Um, yeah.” I nod my head a few times trying to look sure.

“Were you born there?” Crooked nose asks.

I don’t know what to say.

“Why don't you have an accent?” Indigo says accusingly.

“You don't have to be rude Indigo.” Crooked nose says, and Molly agrees nodding her head.

“Oh just hush up Roy!” Indigo says to Crooked nose—or Roy I guess.

Suddenly the bell rings and everyone gets up to go to their next class.

STEP SIX: Eat normal people food.

Well school was really disappointing. And I didn’t even make any friends! Now I’m just sitting in my apartment on my magic couch all by myself. I’m not any less lonely than I was in the cave in the witch world. I pull my note book out of my backpack and look at my check list to be human. I guess I need to eat some human food.

I make boxed mac and cheese for dinner. I don’t use any magic and it’s actually kinda easy, like making potions. I even walked to the store to buy it, no flying.

STEP SEVEN: Make plans with friends.

Step seven is going to be hard considering I didn’t make any friends. I just need to make friends with those normal looking girls I saw at lunch yesterday.

Today at lunch I go the table with the normal looking girls at it. And one of the seats are actually empty!

“Hi! Can I sit with you?” I ask.

And a bunch of girls scoff, but one of the girls wink at the rest and says to me. “Yeah of course you can sit here.”

“But Ashley?” A girl with mouse brown hair whines.

“No, this nice girl can sit here, Alice will just have to sit with the boys today.” Ashley turns to me.

“What’s your name?” she asks sweetly.

“Ny—Emilia Smith.” I say, smiling.

“Sit here Emilia.” Ashley pats the seat next to her.

I set my tray on the table and open a bottle of juice. Ashley scribbles something on a sticky note and hands it to another girl.

I take a sip of juice when the girl with mousy brown hair smiles at me and pats me on the back. “I’m glad you came to sit with us Emilia.” She says sweetly.

A boy carrying a tray of food to a table stops at our table and says, “Hey Nerd!” To me and all the girls at the table start high fiving and laughing. I don’t understand. A girl from another table comes over to me and says, “What’s up Nerd?” and laughs and turns to Ashley. “Good job, she looks so embarrassed!”

Ashley laughs and soon almost the whole cafeteria is laughing at me and I still have know idea why or what just happened. A hand from the crowd grabs me by the arm and drags me off. I look up confused, It’s Indigo, she probably had something to do with this. But I still follow her to her table and sit down.

“Forget about her.” Indigo tells me. “She’s just a spoiled brat, she pranks all of the new kids. You’re actually lucky that prank was nothing compared to some of the others she pulled.”

I pull the note of my back it says: Imma Nerd—on it.

“I thought you didn’t like me.” I say.

Molly laughs. “No, If Indigo didn’t like you wouldn’t have sat with us yesterday.”

Crooked nose—Roy—sets his juice on the table. “That’s just how Indy is. She seems cold but she’s actually nice, well most of the time.”

Indigo glares at Roy.

“Thanks for helping me.” I say to Indigo.

Indigo just shrugs her shoulders and smooths out the wrinkles on her shirt, a neon orange t shirt three times to big.

“Hey we’re all going to hang out at my house tonight after school, you can join if you want.” Molly says to me, pulling her broken sunglasses up and resting them at the top of her head.

And that’s when I see Molly’s other eye. Yesterday all I could see was the one eye, brown, pretty average I think. But now I see the other one it’s bright blue! Molly catches me staring, with my jaw wide open.

“I was born like this.” She says like she’s used to explaining. “I wear the glasses because the one eye is super sensitive to the light. So I just popped the lens right out of the glasses!”

“Wow.” I say.

“So are you coming to Molly’s tonight? We’re having pizza.” Roy asks me.

“Yeah, sure.” I say calmly, but inside I am super excited. Maybe I will have friends.

STEP EIGHT: Explore and study your town.

On Tuesday I went to Molly’s house and everyone was super nice, even Indigo. We ate pizza and watched a movie and talked. Despite how weird Indigo and her friends are I actually had a normal time I think. And the rest of the days at school I didn’t see Indigo and her friends much, besides homeroom and PE and of course we sat together at lunch. I did decent with the grades, but most of the teachers were really strict and some were mean, it was still much better than magic school. Some of the kids still made fun of me about the sticky note stuff, but I looked up what ‘nerd’ meant on my spell-phone and it didn’t even seem too much like an insult. Now that I had friends—I hope—school has been much better.

Right now I’m exploring the town when I see Mom flying in the sky on her broom! Oh no!

“Nyx!” Mom yells when she sees me even though I tried to hide behind a tree.

“I’ve been looking for you everywhere! Oh I was so scared!” Mom says, hugging me super hard.

“Mom I want to live in the human world from now on, the witch world is to harsh for me.” I say.

Mom has tears in her eyes. “Oh please come home. I know you probably thought I didn’t love you, but I I just have trouble with feelings stuff, you know?”

This was new to me, I always thought Mom didn’t love me.

“I can’t come home. I have friends here. I go to human school.” I argue, not wanting to return to the dark and cold cave.

“What if I go back to the witch world, but still go to school here?” I ask.

Silence. Mom is definitely going to say no.

“Fine.” Mom gives me another hug. And I know that my family loves me. My new friends are going to be surprised when I tell them I’m actually a witch, but I have a feeling that they will accept me, because they’re pretty weird themselves. And maybe weird is good.