“Candace, how long do you think this sleeping spell is going to last?” Nat asked. She sounded bored and I couldn’t blame her, I was bored too. We had been driving for about half an hour and we couldn’t decide if we should stop and stay in a hotel for the night, or just go to the airport.

“I have no idea. I don’t think very much longer. I hope not, because we’re getting closer to the airport and we have to make a decision before we park the car, or we can stay in a hotel and we need to find one.”

“Where are we going?” I heard a groggy Brooke asked. She sounded really tired, but otherwise alright. 

“I think we’re going to the airport. I think we could sleep there if we have to. We need to get started on this mission, and we need to fly to Egypt.” I figured I could trust them with the country that we needed to fly with, but I didn’t want to tell them everything that had happened with Magic.

“We’re going to Egypt? How did I not know this? How come I was sleeping?” She paused and then gasped. “You didn’t put the forget spell on us did you, and then put us to sleep?” I was impressed. Brooke had seen right through our plan. I didn’t think she would even consider the fact that she had a forget spell on her, but I guess she had been doing magic for a long time.

“Yeah, we’re going to Egypt, and you and Brent just fell asleep. It’s not my fault you guys were super tired.” I didn’t answer the rest of the question, hoping that Brooke would just forget I asked, but I was unfortunately wrong.

“Candace, did you put the forget spell on us? If you did, you’re violating the magical law. It clearly states that you must not use magic, unless you absolutely have to! You can’t take magic for granted, Candace.” Of course it was all my fault, and it was like Nat hadn’t done anything.

“I don’t know the magical laws! I didn’t even know about magic this morning! I have no idea what’s right and what’s wrong. Besides that’s a dumb rule! You have magic; you might as well use it!” I exclaimed. I didn’t like the magical laws. They seemed to permit you from doing anything.

“So you did put the forget spell on us?” Brooke demanded.

“I didn’t say that. Just a question, but can I ever lose my powers?”

“No why?”

“Well then I don’t need to worry about taking my powers for granted. If I am never going to lose them, then I can use them whenever I want.”

“Candace, you have to learn to deal with real life situations without relying on magic. Believe me, after a few years of magic, you’re going to want a way to be normal. Relying on magic will make it so much harder for you to do normal things.”

“I don’t care.”

“So you did use magic on me and Brent then?” Brooke wouldn’t give up would she?

“I still didn’t say that.”

“Why can’t you just say yes or no? It’s that simple!” I could hear anger in her voice. “Candace why are you so stubborn? You can’t just say yes or no, two simple words! All you have to say is yes,” She paused. “Or no.” She had said it so slow, and it made me seem like a dumb person.

“I am sick of your attitude! Why do you always have to butt into these situations? You’re not the leader of the mission and you are not the most powerful out of the four of us! You may know the most, but that doesn’t put you in charge!”

“So that is what this is about? Not being the leader? Not being the person in the spotlight who everyone adores?” That was it. She had crossed the line. I moved over to the outside lane and pulled the car over. I unbuckled my seat belt and turned around. I stepped into the back seat even though there wasn’t much room between Brooke and the sleeping Brent. I got right up to Brooke and glared at her even though she probably couldn’t see me.

“I don’t care about the spotlight. I am the leader of the mission and you are not. It’s not about the spotlight it’s about my turn. You had your chance. This is mine.” I said quietly and dangerously. “Never say that again or I will do something much worse than this. Believe me; you would not want to be there.”

Brooke didn’t comment and I jumped back into the driver’s seat. “Nat, do you want to stay at a motel?” I no longer cared about getting to the airport as fast as possible. I just wanted to get out of the car with Brooke. If it meant sharing a hotel room, I didn’t care. There was more space than in the car.

“I think we should. Brooke and Brent are both tired, and we could use a rest too.  We’ve been going all day. One day delay shouldn’t be that bad.”

“Yeah I think you’re right.” Of course I had never been so wrong in my life.

We walked into the motel entrance.  Brent had woken up just before we pulled into the motel parking lot. He had no clue that we had put the forget spell on him. He was just very tired and needed to sleep. Before we went in we figured out the details.

“Do you guys have enough money for this?” Brooke asked. We hadn’t spoken for the rest of the car ride and I didn’t want to answer her. Thankfully Nat did.

“Yeah, Candace and I worked a lot the last while, so we have a lot of money. Of course we brought it all along, since we knew we’d need money.”

“Oh where did you guys work?” Of course Brooke had to start a conversation.

“We worked at a fresh fruit stand in the spring and summer and then in the fall and winter we worked at Tim Hortons, which didn’t pay as well. We quit in January, but we got our good pay. Of course we wouldn’t have quit if we had known the fruit stand was going out of business, so this summer we had no jobs.”

“Oh that’s good. You guys worked a lot then? Like how much, and how long?” Of course Brooke took this time to ask all the questions, but she couldn’t have asked them when we were driving.

“Yeah we worked a lot. We had started at the fruit stand in the summer going into grade nine, and then the next three springs and summers, besides this year of course. On a school day in the spring we would work at the stand four till about eight and on Saturdays and during the summer we worked every day, except for Sundays, from eight in the morning until seven at night. Then Tim Hortons we worked every winter and fall from three thirty, to nine at night. So that was busy on school nights, and then every Saturday and during Christmas break, we would work from nine to nine. We were pretty busy, but we didn’t do much and we would take the occasional break off.”

“Wow, you guys worked a very long time! You must’ve been sick of it.”

“Yeah after a while it got boring, but Candace and I always worked the same shifts.” I was getting impatient. I was sick of waiting. I was getting really tired and I just wanted to lay down in a bed and sleep.

“How much did you guys make an hour?” I rolled my eyes at Brooke, which she couldn’t see since it was dark out.

“At Tim Hortons we got paid $10.25, and at the fruit stand we got paid $14.00.”

“Wow that’s really good. How did you guys get all your homework done?”

“Well our parents made sure we had a spare every semester, so we could do our homework then.”

“How did you get all your credits?”

“We had to do online summer school courses. So after we got home from work, we would just do our schoolwork for those courses.”

I really wouldn’t recommend summer school. It really sucked, because you knew everyone was having fun. We were working too of course, which I didn’t mind, because Nat and I always made every day fun and exciting, and sometimes our other friends would come and join us. Coming home from work and doing school work during the summer sucked.

“Oh I see. How much did you guys make during a week?” I was about to yell at Brooke, but Nat answered the question too quickly.

“I don’t know. We never figured that out.”

“Okay, let’s see. In the spring you got fifty-six dollars on a school night. So fifty-six times four is two hundred and twenty-four dollars for five school nights, and then on a Saturday you make,” She paused. “One hundred and fifty-four dollars, so one hundred and fifty-four plus, two hundred and twenty-four is three hundred and seventy-eight dollars a week. Then in the winter months you would make about sixty-seven dollars a night, times seven, is about,” She paused again. “It’s about three hundred and thirty dollars! For just the five nights, plus about one hundred and twenty dollars for working twelve hours on Saturday, so that’s about four hundred and fifty-three dollars for one week at Tim Hortons. How you guys really did work a lot!” I was amazed by how good at math Brooke was. She didn’t seem like the type to be good at math, but she sure was.

“Yeah we did make a lot.” Nat seemed amazed by Brooke’s mathematical skills too.

“Working at Home Hardware pays pretty good too!” Brent of course had to chip in. “Candace, is this going to be cheap though? Because I really don’t feel like wasting any money.”

“Yeah it looks pretty cheap. Probably not the best quality, but it’s still a bed to sleep in.” I tried to be nice to him.

“Okay, so Candace, me and you can share a room and then Natalie and Brooke, you two could share a room right?” My temper flared again.

“Who made you the boss?” I demanded. I don’t know why he thought he could tell me what to do. I was not going to listen to him, and I certainly wasn’t going to share a room with him, while Brooke and Nat were together. I didn’t like leaving Brooke with Nat, Brooke was too sneaky. She could make Nat come onto her side. It sounded so childish to think that way, but I just had a feeling about Brooke, and it wasn’t a good one.

“Um no one did, I’m just trying to make a decision and get things done.”

“This is Nat and my mission! You’re lucky we took you along. Remember you could be sitting back home and having no idea that magic exists.”

“Candace chill out.” I rolled my eyes again. I felt like I’d been doing a lot of that lately.

“Brent you can sleep in the lobby or buy your own room, or sleep in the car. Nat, Brooke, and I will share a room.” Then another idea popped into my head. “Or Nat, Brooke, and I could have the beds and you could sleep in the bathtub. If we split the cost four ways, then it would definitely be cheap.”

“No way! I’m not sleeping in the bath tub. I’ll just pay for my own room if I have to!” I had never heard Brent so angry. He sounded ready to kill me, but probably didn’t try because Brooke was there.

“I was trying to help, Brent.” I said. “If you want to pay more you can. You can sleep in the bathtub, and we’d give you a few blankets and pillows if you want.” I was trying to help him, even though I was angry with him still for trying to take charge; I had to try to help.

“No, you girls would have to get up to go to the bathroom and then I’d have to leave and then go again, then get up, and so on.”

“You can’t say I didn’t try then!” I snapped. I opened the door and walked into the motel. I went to the front desk. “I need a room with three beds please, or two king sized beds. Whatever’s cheaper.” Nat was in a second later. 

“Candace, we can just share a Queen bed.” I nodded. I figured Nat wouldn’t care. We were sisters anyways and we always shared a room at home.

“Okay, so a room with two queen sized beds then”

“Alright, just give me a minute. Do you want a non-smoking room?”

“Yes please.” The worker told us all the things we could do, including the free breakfast tomorrow morning. He handed us two room key cards and we walked to our room, leaving Brent in the lobby by himself. I figured he’d get the room beside ours.

We walked into our room and got ready for bed right away. We were all so tired and we finally all were in our beds.

After about ten minutes I could hear Nat’s even breaths and I knew she was fast asleep. I listened to Brooke’s breathing and five minutes later she sounded like she was asleep too. I tried to sleep, but I couldn’t. I kept thinking of the mission, just feeling like we shouldn’t have stopped. I was glad we had for Nat’s sake, but I couldn’t sleep. My body was tired, but my mind was wide awake. I couldn’t sleep, so a little while later I changed into my jean shorts and a t-shirt. I decided to take a key card with me. I needed fresh air, which always helped me settle down and fall asleep.

I pulled my wand out of the air just for comfort. Now that I had my wand, I didn’t like not holding it or having it in my hands. It was like a teenaged girl addicted to her phone, she didn’t want to go anywhere without it. That was like me and my wand was like. I knew it was floating above my head all the time, but I just didn’t like not having it ready.

I walked around the side of the building, because I was just going to walk around the entire building once. The night air was biting my bare arms and legs. As I turned the corner I saw a very strange thing. Something I definitely was not expecting. There was a little pig, curled up in a ball, trying to stay warm. I saw that the pig had a collar on it and I approached it. Most people would’ve run the other way if they saw a random pig in the middle of a city, but I didn’t care. I liked animals and I felt bad for the little pig.

I crouched down when I was beside the pig. The pig lifted its head and faced me as if it were a dog. I looked at its colour. It had a tag on it that said ‘Maddie the Pig, beware fire.’ That seemed odd to me, but once again I just ignored that.

“Hi Maddie. What are you doing here? Are you lost? Did you run away?” I didn’t know why I was talking to a pig, because obviously she couldn’t talk to me. Apparently Maddie didn’t like being talked to, because suddenly she stood up and snorted at me, but there was a dangerous glint in her eyes. A glint that made me nervous. “It’s okay girl.”

Obviously it wasn’t, because suddenly wings started coming out of her back and they grew. They were black wings that were the size of a smaller bald eagle’s wings. When they were fully extended, they made Maddie look so much bigger and scarier. I grasped my wand tighter, but I bit back words, because words only seemed to make the situation worse.

I slowly began to back away, because even I wasn’t that dumb to stay close to Maddie. Unfortunately she didn’t like me backing away, and she decided to breathe fire at me. I jumped back and she squealed in rage. Once again she attempted to blow fire at me, but this time I was quicker. “Aqua,” Water, I shot a stream of water at the fire and the only thing left was steam. Maddie stomped her foot, like she was going to charge, and charge she did. She began to run right at me like an angry bull. I just jumped out of the way. I didn’t want to hurt Maddie. She looked so innocent, and she was too small to hurt. 

Maddie took another deep breath and I guessed she was going to breathe more fire at me so I prepared myself to fight her back. I would try to give her a chance, but if she kept trying to kill me, then it would have to result in one of our deaths. I looked at her face which made me sad. Her innocence reminded me of my dog that had died a few years ago after getting hit by a car. I missed having a dog, but Mom and Dad didn’t want another dog, since Nat and I worked so much.

I felt heat shoot past my face, and it had just barely missed my face. I could feel the pain on my face. That fire was hot and I had been very close to it. My face probably had a minor burn now. “Aqua bulla,” Water bubble.  A water bubble surrounded me and it seemed like I was in a zorb ball, which was something I had always wanted to do.

I had to figure out how to do two spells at once, because eventually I would tire, and I had to figure out how to stop Maddie’s fire too.

Maddie breathed more fire at my water bubble, and it got thinner. I focused on the spell and my water bubble got thicker again, but Maddie kept pelting fire at my water bubble and it eventually evaporated. I didn’t understand how I was supposed to be the strongest magician ever if I couldn’t even beat a little pig. “Aqua,” Water, I shot water at Maddie’s mouth and she tried to blow more fire, but none came out. I was very happy with myself, but then Maddie decided to come at me again. It was something I definitely didn’t expect, so the second she made contact with me, I was down on the ground. My vision had gone a little fuzzy, because I had hit my head on the pavement. My head throbbed, but I couldn’t give up. I figured I’d be one of the two to die, but I couldn’t go out now, not when I hadn’t even started the mission for real.

“Maddie please.” Maddie was standing on my stomach and she stomped her foot. I felt the wind knocked out of me. “Rursus,” Back, I had to get her off me, and then I’d have to kill her. I didn’t want to, but I would have to. Maddie flew back, but she didn’t seem stunned at all. I began to get up again, but Maddie ran right over my legs and into my stomach. I fell back down and smacked my head really hard on the pavement.

My prediction was right; I would be one of the two to die. My vision was almost completely gone as I gasped for breaths. I thought I heard footsteps, but I wasn’t sure. I looked around and saw an angry pig on top of me. I closed my eyes and prepared for death.