Dark clouds loomed over head, teasing us all with the prospect of snow that could fall from the clouds at any moment, but it refused. Frost and ice covered the ground, making the pathways and roads dangerous places to be for anyone who wasn't used to walking on ice. Cold winds wiped around at a rapid pace, people left their houses wearing layers upon layers of clothing, coats, scarves, gloves, the works. Some even resembled the Michelin man with their layers of clothing. Despite the unusually cold weather, people continued to go about their days, they went to work, they went to school, they even drove their cars on the frost covered roads. The strange weather pattern was nothing to most British people, well, other than Niska.

Niska had been a victim of the icy roads on more than one occasion and both Joel and I found it hilarious. We would be walking to or from school, moving carefully across the paths in order to avoid the worst parts of the pavement, and she would lose her balance and go over. I'm not one for mocking people or laughing at their misfortunes, but seeing Niska fall over several times in one day was a hilarious experience. The moment she knew she was about to fall, her eyes bulged and she grabbed around aimlessly looking for something to grab hold of, but there was nothing other than myself and Joel and neither of us were going to get involved with that, we would have been pulled over with her, and I wasn't going to go through that.

"You know, when someone falls, you're supposed to help them, not laugh at them," Niska said, pushing herself back into a standing position. Beside her, Joel and I were struggling to contain our laughter as she attempted to brush herself off, though it was impossible because ice is made of water. Instead, her tights and school skirt were soaked, you could tell she had fallen over.

"Come on, Nisk! It's funny!" Joel replied, laughter escaping his lips, though I don't think it was intentional.

"It's not funny. I. Hate. The. Cold," Niska said, punctuating each word so that it would make an impact. To be honest, it didn't make an impact, it was hysterical that she was being so aggressive towards the weather which was something none of us had any control over. Though as the temperature declined, I expect most people wished they could, especially if they hated the cold weather.

"You're Russian, how can you hate the cold?" Joel laughed.

"Correction, dear friend, my parents are Russian, I am a born and bred British citizen. I am allowed to hate the cold as much as you are, so there," Niska said, sticking her tongue out in response.

After the third slipping incident, Niska began to walk exactly where Joel stepped, matching his footsteps one after the other each time. She looked like an idiot and it was just as, or equally as funny, as her slipping slightly, or falling over completely. Honestly, anything she did was hysterical to me, then again, I hadn't spent enough time around normal people to gauge normal human behaviours, but I did know that she was an idiot. I was proud to call that idiot my friend, though I would call an apple a friend if I drew a face on it and gave it a name (I not done that in the past).

It was weird having spent only a month, not even that, away from home, but already I felt as though I fitted into this new reality perfectly. I had two great friends, one of whom had finally broken out of his shell to talk to me on more than one occasion. My teachers at school, minus Mrs Reynolds, were great and most of them liked me despite the awkwardness I so often presented in lessons. And I felt like I finally had a place where I fitted in. Where I wasn't left on the sidelines by an annoying younger brother and I would be praised for things I was actually good at rather than criticised and told Nick was better than more. Nor did I have him rubbing it in my face every five minutes. Honestly, it was bliss.

The problem, however, and of course there was one, was Mrs Reynolds. She was adamant that I was a witch, even if there was no logical explanation as to how or why I could possibly have controlled the snow that fell from the sky that night. Because of her weird obsession with me being an evil spell caster, my Maths has lessons had gone from the top level of Hell to the pits of darkness where Satan himself lay in hiding. No, that is not an exaggeration, it is the literal truth, though it does sound a little unorthodox.

When Niska and I walked into that classroom on the Monday, I swear Mrs Reynolds was throwing literal daggers in my direction, though in reality, she was simply staring at me. No one else found this to be the slightest bit odd considering she watched everyone as they entered her classroom for a fun day of learning. It was only Niska and me who noticed anything wrong with the situation upon which we found ourselves in. I had filled her in on what Mrs Reynolds said to me when Joel and I walked back to the living room on Saturday, it was the only way I could think of to get her to believe that we weren't snogging like she thought we were. She too found the idea to be insane.

"If she stared any harder, lasers would actually come out of her eyes," Niska whispered as we slid into our usual seats.

"Why is she glaring at you?" Alya asked, gesturing her head to Mrs Reynolds. Although Alya and I sat next to each other, we barely spoke in lessons, she often favoured with talking to her girlfriend, well flirting, rather than talking to me.

"She thinks Ken's a witch," Niska said, throwing her back under the table dramatically.

"Someone forgot to take their crazy pills," Alya laughed before getting distracted by her girlfriend, again.

Niska shot me a look, one that said 'this should be fun', just as Mrs Reynolds took to the centre of the room and begun to conduct her rather dull lesson. Every once in a while she would turn, look directly at me, and glare, as though I was doing something wrong, but I wasn't. Every question she asked was aimed at me and me only and as someone who sucks at all forms of Maths, it wasn't a very fun deal. But, with my sneaky Magical abilities, I was able to answer every question before she could even ask it in its entirety. The moment the question was asked, the answer would flash up in front of me, all I had to do was feign stupidity for a few minutes and then give the right answer, perfect.

For the rest of the lesson, I was subjected to question after question after question, all of them trickier than the last and I knew she was trying to catch me out. Anyone who had seen my exam paper knew that Maths was not my strongest suit and I was more than certain that Mrs Reynolds was determined to make me slip and prove I have Magic. That wasn't going to happen. Even if the answer was in front of me, I always gave a wrong one for the harder questions. Although it showed me general stupidity at all things Maths related, it was better than convincing her I was a witch without meaning to.

By the time the lesson was over, I never wanted to be in a room with that woman again, but I had no choice. Niska found the whole thing hilarious, which was probably her way of getting revenge on me for mocking her when she fell over outside. I suppose I deserved to laugh at by her, but it was still really annoying, that woman was out to get me and there was nothing I could have done to stop it, no matter how much I wanted to. I had seen so many films that say being the new kid at school is a nightmare, but I never thought I would have a teacher out to get me. Maybe I wasn't watching the right films.

When Tuesday reared its pretty little head, I was glad I didn't have to put up with Mrs Reynolds until the afternoon, at least then I was able to plan my mission of attack if she tried to bombard me with questions. Faking an illness was about five of the six on my list. But that was an issue for later on in the day, first things first were the weekly food tech cooking challenge and we were finally back in my element, cookies! Now, I do want to brag or anything, but I will, my cookies or general sweet things were always amazing because I had a little special ingredient compared to everyone else. Magic. No, it's not cheating.

"This week, we are back to our baking technical and things are about to get interesting. Today, I want you to make twelve gingerbread biscuits, decorated to look like fireworks so when we put them on a black piece of paper, it'll look like our night sky tomorrow," Miss Davis said. "Both taste and presentation count this week, so get to it!"

"Got somethin' in mind?" Joel asked as we walked over to our station and prepared ourselves for the challenge.

"Always do," I smirked, pulling out a set of scales, a mixing bowl and whatever utensils we were going to be using. Since our first victory during my first week, Joel and I had been a winning partnership for both sweets and savouries, though I sucked when it came to Masterchef weeks. Baking was my speciality.

Without a word spoken between us, we began our adventure towards creating a gingerbread firework display, something I never thought I would be making in my life. Joel mixed up a recipe I had given him for royal icing, my favourite for decoration, whilst I worked on making the gingerbread itself and let me tell you, it smelled amazing. Honestly, it was just like being home again. The cinnamon smell combined with the hint of ginger that wafted through the room was enough to make my mouth water and I was sure other people were feeling the same.

The lesson progressed with the smell of gingerbread getting stronger and stronger as the biscuits baked in the oven, which lead to a lot of standing around. As the gingerbread baked, you could almost see the clouds of sweet cinnamon as it radiated through the room, everyone was closely watching the ovens, waiting for the moment they could take the delicious cookies from the oven and eat them, well, decorate them and then eat them. Though I'm sure most people wanted to do it differently and I was one of those people. Decorating could have waited, I wanted to eat them before my stomach ate itself.

"I know how we can make this better," Joel said, nudging me in the side in an attempt to draw me away from the oven for a minute.

"Which is?" I pressed, glancing towards him only briefly. I didn't want to leave the gingerbread for a second, just in case, it all went horribly wrong.

"My Mam got some cheap glow in the dark food colourin' the other day. What'd you reckon?" he muttered, pulling multi-coloured pots of food colouring from his pocket. We were told we could bring in anything to improve our projects and food colouring was a definite since we were using icing. Glow in the dark icing, now that was a new one.

"Huh, didn't even know they were a thing. Might work if we convince Miss Davis to turn the lights off and close the blinds."

"She will, you are her favourite pupil after all. The genius baker!" Joel mocked, pretending to bow to me like some kind of weirdo. In response, I smacked him on the arm, hard. No one mocked my baking skills and got away with it.

"My Mama gave me all the skills I needed, thank you very much. Now, if you don't mind, the cookies are done and if they burn, I will kill you," I laughed, bending down with a tea towel and removing the cookies from the oven.

"You haven't burnt anything yet, I doubt you would start now," Joel said, taking a step back as I placed the tray onto the counter and began to fan them with another baking tray so they cooled quicker. I was not a patient person.

I spent several minutes with that improvised fan trying to cool the cookies at a faster pace, and I wasn't the only one who had the same idea. Throughout the room, everyone else was trying to fan their cookies to cool them because time was running out rapidly and we needed to decorate them. Whilst I fanned them into oblivion, Joel began to separate the icing he had made before into several bowls before adding in in several drops of the glow in the dark food colouring. The colours were almost neon, but there was no guarantee that it would work, they were cheap after all. But, I was hopeful. Plus, glow in the dark cookies sounded so cool and I really wanted to see how they would look. It's the simple things you miss when you spend half your life in isolation.

Luckily, the cookies cooled relatively quickly, with a little help from my Magical abilities of course, again, it's not cheating, just being clever. I'm more than certain that if anyone else had Magic they would also have cheated when it came to cooling biscuits, I mean, come on, it's a faster way of doing things. Anyway, with the cookies now cooled completely, Joel and I set to work with decorating them with the glow in the dark icing. We used small tipped piping bags to draw firework designs onto the gingerbread, but it was really difficult to draw fireworks when you've never seen them.

Instead, I copied Joel, using his designs as templates for my own but making sure they were not identical in colour, size or just in general. I did some huge fireworks, the kind that exploded in a huge shower of sparks, the ones that light up the entire sky. We also did Catherine wheels, two alternative colours chasing one another with sparks exploding around the outside. The two of us even went as far as to use two different colours on some of the bigger fireworks, mixing them together in hopes to show two fireworks combined into one. As we worked, I began to see flashes of different fireworks, bright images of flashing lights clouded my vision and it spurred me on to keep making up designs. It was as though I had a personal Google, and although it was disorientating, it was rather fun.

"Time! You know the drill, cookies next to a name plate ready for tasting!" Miss Davis called, clapping her hands together in order to get everyone's attention. Half the class were still engaged in decorating their cookies so barely paid any attention, it took several claps to get everyone's attention.

"Just two more minutes, miss? We're almost done!" Leo exclaimed, trying not to sound too whiny, but failed on a grand scale.

"If this was bake off, Leo, would you get an extra two minutes? I don't think so, put the icing down and put your cookies next to your nameplate or face my wrath!"

"She doesn't have a wrath, she's predominantly sugar," Joel whispered as we placed our gingerbread next to our nameplate. I couldn't help but laugh, though had to quickly turn it into a cough so no one stared at me. Little did people know, Joel could be quite funny when given the opportunity, only he was too shy to make jokes in front of others.

Once everyone had placed their cookies down, the scanning and discussing had begun. Whilst Miss Davis looked at them all individually, examined the decorations, everyone else in the class discussed the other cookies that were laid out in front of them. Some were bare after there had been no time to decorate them, others looked rushed, icing splattered all over the place in a rushed attempt to get the decorated. Others were perfectly normal, smelt amazing, looked like a firework display. It was going to be pretty hard for Miss Davis to pick the winner. Then again, she hadn't witnessed our glow in the dark icing, but neither had we.

We all waited with baited breath whilst Miss Davis looked over the cookies, oblivious to the little surprised Joel and I had set up, but neither of us wanted to say anything, Mainly in case it didn't work, that was the fear for the two of us. Secondly, she looked to in the zone it would have been a shame to break it out of her, though we knew we had to tell her what we had planned eventually. I mean, it was part of our big display after all. To leave it would be a crime to all humanity, or our humiliation, whatever came first. Just I was about to step forward and make a comment, Joel got in there first.

"Before you try one, can we show you somethin'?" Joel asked.

"Depends, how do you intend to show me?" Miss Davis questioned.

"Lights off, blinds shut."

"Very well. Leo, lights, Brandon, blinds. Yes, I did that on purpose."

"Fingers crossed," Joel muttered as the lights were switched off, the blinds were shut and we were plunged into darkness. Joel and I stood side by side, watching the table in hopes that our plan had worked and we were able to work our way into on to the top spot again. Just as we hoped, the icing on top of the cookies began to glow, the eerie colours radiating from the dark gingerbread. They weren't as bright as they could have been, but it was good to see they actually glowed.

"Surely that's cheating!" Leo exclaimed. He hated to lose, detested it and we had beaten him so many times since I started at the school and he was beginning to get tired of it. I, however, was not.

"I said you could bring anything in that might help, icing included. I did not specify the type of extras you could use so it's fine. It's the taste that matters."

With that said, Miss Davis began to lightly bite on a singular cookie from all of our plates, tasting the gingerbread in the hope it had the cinnamon taste that was expected. The smell was overwhelming and all I wanted to do was slam my face into all of them, but I wasn't allowed to. Seriously, the moment I was allowed to eat them there would be no gingerbread left untouched. I was going to eat them all. Honestly, Christmas presents were so simple for me, food and food only, I would eat anything and everything given half the opportunity. Food was life. Unless it was Candy Canes. I was sick of Candy Canes.

"Okay, all taste fabulously, some a little burnt and crispy, but the taste is still there and I am beginning to think of Christmas which is never a good sign. But, we must have a winner! We must always have a winner! This week, our star barkers are." There was a pause for dramatic effect. "Joel and Kenzie!"

"Again?" Leo said, sounding exasperated and a little bit sick of us constantly winning.

"Yes, again," Miss Davis said, rolling her eyes and Leo's childish behaviour.

"If it bothers you that much Leo, Joel and I will sit out of the next Bake Off week, I'm sure my mama's recipes can wait another week or so," I said, stunning him and the rest of the class into silence.

Truth be told, I was annoyed with Leo. It wasn't as though I set out every week to win, as though I used my Magic to cheat. Mama had trained me in the art of baking and anyone who is anyone knows that Mrs Claus is always known to be one of the best bakers in history. Of course, Leo didn't know that, but surely he had to know that there was always going to be someone better than him at something. It just so happens that I was a genius baker, that was not something I had planned. I suppose jealousy, other than my own, was not something often found in the North Pole. Lack of people made that possible.

After Leo's little outburst, I was glad to get out of that room and tuck into the gingerbread Joel and I had left over. I was so hungry I would have eaten my own hand if it were possible, plus it reminded me of home and, although I didn't want to admit it, I missed home. One thing I was glad I didn't get to miss, was real world experiences, the chance to see the world beyond the snow and the workshop and my parents. I had experienced my first Halloween, which was eventful, to say the least, and was about to witness my first ever bonfire night, now that was exciting. Bonfire night, according to Niska, was one of the best things anyone could experience and we were going to a field to watch them.

Yes, that's right, me, daughter of Santa Claus himself, was going to a field to watch a firework display, I couldn't have been more excited. On the Wednesday evening, after a long day of Drama work and avoiding Mrs Reynolds, Niska, Joel and I headed to a field based near a Primary school where a display had been planned. Together, we found a spot on the frost covered grass, unfolded a blanket and took our seats. I had managed to save a fair few of our gingerbread cookies for snacking on, well, I made some more after school since I ate most of them. We sat in the cold, waiting for the show to start and eating what appeared to be a never ending supply of gingerbread. It was quite nice to be honest, like being normal.

"They're sellin' drinks, do you guys want anythin'?" Joel asked, pushing himself up and brushing his now damp hands over his jeans.

"If you're offering and I don't have to pay you back, a coke would be fabulous," Niska said.

"Alright, Kenz? Anythin' I can get you? Ya know, I'm sure they're sellin' milkshakes," Joel said, moving his eyebrows for no apparent reason.

"A chocolate milkshake would be great," I smiled, watching as he nodded his head and turned around, leaving Niska and me alone on the blanket waiting for the show to start.

"So you two have gotten really close," Niska said, nudging me in the side.

"What'd you mean?" I asked, though I knew exactly what she meant and I wasn't going to deny it. Despite our friendship being remarkably rocky, to begin with, Joel and I had gotten closer during out food tech classes and anyone with a brain was able to see that. Only I didn't want to admit it, it was weird growing close to him when we hadn't gotten on at all, to begin with. I had no idea what brought him out of his shell, but I suspect it had something to do with the day he spent watching me from a distance.

"You know what I mean, Ken. One day he was glaring at you from across the room, and the next you're best buds. Plus, these gingerbread cookies are amazing, though that has nothing to do with what we're talking about."

"I dunno, he just started being nice to me, can't for the life of me explain why, but I'd rather be friends than have him stare at me for several hours."

Niska dropped the topic rather quickly, and we fell into a comfortable silence until Joel returned several minutes later with our drinks in hand. He handed us our drinks and settled into his spot and the three of us waited for the display to start.

Sitting there with Niska and Joel, watching the stars, I began to think about what may have happened if I hadn't decided to take the excursion. What would I have been doing if I had decided to remain at home for another dull year of my life? In truth, probably nothing. Nothing but sitting on my butt waiting for the next big thing to happen whilst the world went by without me. If anything, the excursion I had taken was one of the best decisions I had ever made. I had freedom to explore the world as I never could before, experience life as a normal person and do normal people things. Home was just that, a place I spent most of my life, but a place I felt like I didn't belong.

They always say home is where the heart is and maybe my home had changed.  

~~~

A/N - Chapter Seventeen is here! A little earlier than usual because I need an early-ish night. Tomorrow, I am moving to Uni!!!! I have to be up early to travel down which is always a fun adventure. I will keep you guys up to date on things throughout the next few weeks so be prepared for some Uni talk! 

Back to the chapter! Niska appears to have cottoned on to the strange friendship between Joel and Kenzie, what do you guys think of the friendship? Is it a little too strange? Could Joel be up to something? I want to hear your thoughts!

Don't forget to vote and comment if you enjoyed! And add to your reading list so you never miss an update from me!

Dedication - This weeks dedication goes out to BeatingHeartsBaby who is writing an amazing book called Masked that you should all check out!