Chapter 1
The Blue Parrot
Bright sunlight shined over a collection of old buildings and grassy courtyards that sat near a vast forest. There was rarely a cloud above as if to allow the blue sky to bless the youngsters all wearing the same blue blazers as they entered the grounds through a big iron gateway. A big, blue parrot sat on top of the gateway and watched the youngsters as they walked through. Among them was twelve-year-old Lily Wong, dragging behind her a pink carry-on luggage case across worn gray pavement as she took a look around at what will be her new home for the school year.
Lily was pretty short for her age and often mistaken for being younger than she actually was (much to her annoyance). She had slightly narrow eyes and straight black hair cut just below her chin.
Her mother was a high-ranking officer of an international company and was often traveling around for work. And her father was a renowned doctor and researcher. Because of their work, they had no time to look after Lily, so they enrolled Lily as a student of Bluestone Academy, a boarding school for children from well-off families like them.
"This place is even bigger than I thought," she mumbled. "And the buildings look so old. I wouldn't be surprised if some don't even have air conditioning."
Bluestone Academy has been around for more than two-hundred years and was famous for churning out students who grew up to do all kinds of big things like start their own companies or invent something.
Lily followed the stream of her like-dressed peers to the big, castle-like building made of dark-gray stone situated at the heart of the compound. She could hear birds singing over the chatter of people and the sound of tree leaves rustling against the wind. After waiting a long while in line, she made it to a table where she handed some important papers to a lady with a laptop.
The lady gave the papers a quick look through and then directed Lily over to a white screen where she had her picture taken with a blue digital camera. Soon after, Lily was handed a white plastic card with said picture and was told to be very, very, VERY careful with it as it not only served as her I.D., but also as her wallet and dorm key.
After getting directions to the girl's dormitory, Lily thanked the lady and turned to leave when, suddenly, a voice reached her ears.
"Beware!"
Lily stopped, startled by the faint whisper and turned around.
"Sorry, did you say something?" she asked.
Bewildered, the redhead girl behind her blinked and shook her head, replying, "No."
The redhead girl looked about the same age as Lily, but was a head taller.
The girl's bewilderment made Lily's cheeks go hot with embarrassment and Lily quickly stammered, "S-sorry. It was probably something else. There are lots of people yammering with each other after all. Ah ha ha ha ha ha."
She laughed nervously, realizing too late she was only making things worse for herself. Both the redhead girl and the check-in table lady looked at her funny.
Way to go, Lily, she thought to herself bitterly. You haven't even been here five minutes and already, people think you're a weirdo.
The best thing to do at this point would be to run away. But just as Lily turned to leave again, the blue parrot suddenly swooped in and snatched her I.D. card from her hand with its dark, curved beak; her very, very, VERY important I.D. card.
"Hey! My card!" Lily cried out.
She chased after the bird, yelling at it to stop and give back her card while pushing against a flowing river of people who had come to grab their own cards. Lily ended up getting a lot of attention because of that, but she didn't care. Getting back her I.D. card was more important. Without it, she couldn't even buy lunch, much less get into her dorm room.
"Someone stop that bird!"
Most people just watched without doing anything. But one kind soul, an older, tall black boy with half-inch curled hair, jumped up and tried to catch the parrot with his bare hands. However, he missed and the bird continued to fly away as free as can be. Lily brushed past the boy and followed after the parrot halfway down the road before turning to a white L-shaped building that was three-floors high.
The parrot flew around the building to a half-oval opening at the back, leading down to the basement level and swooped inside. Lily jumped down over the three steps and stomped inside after it. As soon as she entered the building, bright light flashed over the opening and then both disappeared leaving behind a blank wall.
Not knowing the way in (and out) was literally gone, Lily ran into another flight of stairs that spiraled down, down, down. She used it to follow the parrot all the way to the bottom. Everywhere around Lily and the parrot was made of dark stone, much like the walls of a medieval dungeon. And also like in a medieval dungeon, there were fiery torches hanging on the walls to light the visitors' way.
The chase continued down a long hallway. And then finally, Lily entered a chamber as wide as the inside of a national football stadium.
Lily stopped in her tracks and watched the parrot fly all the way to the other side, to a marble podium standing on an elevated stone stage at the very end. Using her phone's camera to zoom in, Lily could see the bird gently put her I.D. card onto the podium before flying up the ceiling where it disappeared.
So good news, Lily no longer had to chase the bird. Bad news, there was a giant hole between her and the I.D. card. The hole stretched all the way from the right side of the chamber all the way to the left side of the chamber, so there was no going around it. And there was really no telling how deep the hole was, because as far as Lily could see while peeking over the edge, there was nothing but complete, pitch-black darkness.
Shoulders slumped, Lily thought she would have to give up. But when she turned to leave, she saw only a wall in front of her.
"Where'd the exit go?" Lily asked aloud. Friendly reminder, she was completely alone. Not even the parrot was around anymore.
Color quickly drained from her face and she threw herself at the wall, slapping her hands all over it. Maybe she had gone through some kind of secret passageway and it closed behind her, she thought. If that was true, there should be a switch or something to open it back up like in the movies.
To her despair, however, she found no such switch. Only cold, rough stone touched her reddened palms.
She was completely trapped.
"HEEEEEEY!" she screamed while hammering her fists against the wall. "HEEEEEELLLP! ANYONE! PLEASE!"
There was, of course, no response. Likely, there was no one on the other side. And even if there were people there, the wall felt too thick for Lily's voice to get through to them.
"Oh, wait! My phone!"
She pulled out her smartphone again. But just as she was about to make a call, she realized that she had no bars. There was no signal in the chamber.
"Aaaaaah!" Frustrated, Lily yelled while furiously scratching the sides of her head.
"Now what do I do?" she whined aloud to herself. She dropped her hands down to her sides and looked at the wall with slumped shoulders. Her hair was a mess after all that earlier scratching. "Now that I think about it, where even am I? What's a weird room like this doing under a school building?"
But more importantly, how was she supposed to get out?
Lily looked over the huge gap on the floor to the other side of the chamber. The bird had disappeared up the ceiling. There was likely hole up there it used as an exit.
"If only I could fly, I could get out the same way that parrot did," she grumbled to herself. "I wish I was a bird."
Sadly, she was not. She was a human. And humans cannot fly.
At a complete loss, all she could do was sigh.
But then, a loud rumbling sound reached her ears, and she turned left to see a section of the wall lift up to expose a small secret room. Inside the room were just two things: a broomstick and a big, blue pointed hat. Both floated in the air as if there was no gravity.
Lily wondered, "Is that supposed to be a witch's broomstick?"
She knew like everyone else that witches used magic broomsticks to fly around. But she also knew like everyone else that witches and magic brooms were not real. At least they were not supposed to be real.
However, when she went over to check, Lily found nothing holding the broom and hat up. No strings, no invisible stands, no nothing. She ran her hands over and under, and around the sides at least ten times over to be sure. The broomstick and hat were clearly floating on their own.
Lily looked at the broomstick and then glanced over at the huge gap keeping her away from her I.D. card and probably the only way out of the chamber. If the broomstick really was magic, then it could be her ticket out of here.
"But if I'm going to fly, it'd be cooler if I could leap-fly like a magical Kung Fu hero like in those Chinese shows Mom likes to watch," she muttered to herself.
The broomstick flung the hat into her face, as if to scold her and say, "Don't be so picky."
She wondered if she hurt its feelings.
Lily wasn't really sure about riding on a magic broomstick. But it was probably her best (and only) way out of this chamber, So she grabbed the broomstick and swung one leg over it. On the bright side, at least there was no one around to see her mount a broomstick like some silly little kid playing pretend. That still didn't stop her from feeling embarrassed though.
She pulled the hat down over her head (wearing it only because it came as a set with the broom) and gripped the handle of the broom tightly in front of her with both hands.
"Okay. Here goes nothing!"
Lily breathed in and then breathed out. And then she jumped with all her might.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, she still doubted that this was going to work. That she was wasting her time doing something utterly ridiculous. So she was absolutely amazed to see herself hovering about a foot or two above the floor. Whatever doubts she had were instantly shattered and slowly, her lips spread and curled into a big smile.
Magic was real, she realized with excitement. It's really real! And she was actually using it to fly on a broomstick like a witch in the movies. This was a stupendous, world-shattering discovery.
"Whoops!" she cried out. "Nearly forgot I need to get out of here."
She breathed in and out again, and tightened her hold of the broomstick. The broomstick slowly started to move to the gap when she leaned down. And then, when they reached the edge -
WHOOSH!
Lily and the broom zoomed over the hole to the other side of the chamber. When she reached the podium at the end of the chamber, she twisted herself upside down, held her hand out and snatched up her I.D. card.
With her prize in her grasp, Lily swooped up through a hole in the ceiling and rapidly ascended to a white light above her head. In seconds, she was out of a chimney and high up alongside clouds.
"Whoa!"
She could see the entire school and half the surrounding forest that stretched to the ends of the world. Among all the L-shaped buildings, the U-shaped buildings, and the plain box-shaped ones too, Lily spotted glass domes that she thought looked like giant diamond jewels the way they sparkled in the sunlight. The glass domes were clearly greenhouses and Lily could not wait to see what kind of beautiful gardens they contained. Needless to say, there was also a vast, grassy sports field that already had kids running around, playing their own games.
For a little while, Lily watched the teeny-tiny people down below moving around from building to building. Unsurprising, most of them were bunched up around the old castle-like building that towered over everything else. A strong wind blew around her and made her hair dance up like it had a life of its own. And then, filled to the brim with thrill, Lily zipped around in the sky giddily giggling.
But little did she realize that while she was having the time of her life with real magic powers, there was someone in the shadows plotting like an evil villain.
**********
Inside a dark and gloomy-looking office on the fifth floor of the castle building, two men sat face to face and hunched over a chess board. A blue parrot watched the two men perched outside the window.
Commanding the white pieces was an elderly man with matching short, white hair and beard. A slightly younger man with black, but graying, hair commanded the black pieces.
The parrot pecked on the glass twice, attracting the white-haired man's gaze for just a brief moment. And then his eyes returned to the game and he moved a pawn forward.
"At long last, the time has come," he said.
The black-haired man responded, "Indeed," as he moved his bishop away from the white-haired man's pawn. What is he talking about? He silently wondered. And why did I reply like I knew?
The white-haired man asked, "Are preparations going well?" But then paused and thought, Hm? Wait a minute. Is this guy in on the plan? Or am I mixing him up with someone else?
"Everything is in place, sir," the black-haired man answered. Preparations? What preparations? Preparations for the assembly later today?
"Good," said the white-haired man with a satisfied nod.
It looked like the black-haired man really was in on the plan after all, he thought, the plan that he's been working on for the last two hundred years. What else could they have been talking about? Today's assembly? Certainly not!
"Two hundred years. Two hundred years, huh?" mused the white-haired man. "That's certainly a long time."
"It certainly is," the black-haired man agreed while wondering, Now what's he talking about? Is he going crazy? Is that it? Has he finally gone senile from old age?
Ignorant of the black-haired man's true thoughts, the white-haired man muttered to himself, "Yes, two hundred years is a long time. But at long last, all the actors are set and we can finally begin the show! Mwa ha ha! Mwa ha ha ha ha!"
Oh, great, the black-haired man moaned inside his head. Now he's talking to himself and laughing like a cartoon bad guy!
And what show is he talking about?
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