Miss Pettigrew's Summer School for Exceptional Magical Children by P.N. Garlick

Author:P.N. Garlick [Garlick, P.N.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: anonymous
Published: 2023-10-28T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

Crabs

On Monday, I was back in classroom seven with the others. We started, as we always did, with stretching, moved on to breathing exercises, and then began our meditations. I was having trouble getting started that morning. Each time I tried, I was interrupted by some distracting thought. Miss Gupta had told us sometimes it would be difficult or impossible to meditate, but we shouldn’t worry about it. We needed to keep trying to see if it would come.

Just as I felt myself moving deeper, I heard a soft knock, and my mind returned to the room. I didn’t need to open my eyes to know that Miss Gupta had gotten to her feet and crept out. Faint voices reached my ears as she spoke to Miss Pettigrew in the hallway. From the tone of their conversation, I guessed they regularly spoke during our meditations, but I had never been aware of it before.

“How is everything?” Miss Pettigrew whispered.

“Overall, it is going well,” Miss Gupta replied. “Andrew continues to progress. I think he could pass the final test now. Molly and Stella are also improving. Anger is a powerful emotion, but it is not uncommon, and many magicians have conquered their tempers to go on to do great things. I have great hopes for them.”

“And Alma?” Miss Pettigrew asked.

Miss Gupta sighed. “I am very worried about her. She’s a smart girl, very smart, and she understands what I am trying to teach her, but she has so many different problems. She daydreams like Andrew. She occasionally gets angry like Stella and Molly. And her reactions to being startled are completely unpredictable. I understand using magic in self-defense, but she can’t seem to distinguish between danger and surprise. In all my years of teaching, I’ve never come across another student like her before.”

“No, I’ve never met anyone like her, either,” Miss Pettigrew said. “It seems all her problems come from a single source. She doesn’t think like a magician needs to. Her mind lacks discipline. A magical mind needs to be like a scientific mind, orderly and precise. She’s just too….”

“Artistic?” Miss Gupta said, finishing the thought.

“Yes, that’s it. The magical mind is not a creative mind,” Miss Pettigrew said. “Magicians need to understand how things work and be able to coldly reason through problems. Alma is too much of a freethinker. I fear she may not be cut out for life in our world. I’m sure it must break her parents’ hearts.”

“Yes,” Miss Gupta said. “I understand her mother is not a magical person.”

“That’s right, she’s an artist, quite a well-known one, too,” Miss Pettigrew said.

“And her father is Harvey Anwansi, the famous magician,” Miss Gupta said. “We’ve never met, but I only hear good things about him.”

“Yes,” Miss Pettigrew replied. “I’ve always wondered what brought them together. I know them both and they couldn’t be more different, but they are absolutely devoted to each other.”

“Sometimes opposites attract,” Miss Gupta said. “Maybe Alma’s problem is that she has too much of her mother in her.

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