3 months later and my life was very different. This 'ordinary' world took a lot of getting used to. I had learnt a few things about Atlo ' the ordinary world' and probably most disappointing of them all was the fact there was no magic. I tried to perform a magic spell I knew off  by heart once and it didn't work. Most of my knowledge of Srrin was pretty much useless in Atlo, for instance, Dragons don't exist here, so why would I need to know how to fight one? When I first came here and went to the orphanage before I got to go home with my foster parents, (Mr and Mrs Rivers) I tried telling some of the foster kids about where I had come from. When they laughed and told me to stop telling them 'fairy tales' I realised no one believed Srrin existed. Soon after that, I learned that I needed to keep quiet about my past because no one would believe me. Not even my foster parents believed me when I told them about Srrin and that was pretty hard to cope with sometimes - they all expected me to know my past and I did - but no one believed me. School I supposed was okay but I didn't really fit in. I mean, all the girls and boys in my class were wild compared to Srrin. In Srrin, school was taken seriously and  people who misbehaved were few and far between. Here in Atlo, I was quite alarmed when I entered school. People were just so noisy and naughty, always gossiping and chatting behind others backs. I quickly became a 'loner' in school - people didn't talk to me much, no one really cared about me in terms of friendship. Well I was fine about that - I liked being on my own so long as I had my foster parents around at home and nothing bad was happening. However, the absence of magic was disheartening. Soon, in Atlo, I gave up on magic. It wasn't in Atlo, only Srrin, so there was no point trying to believe in it here.

But then one day, something happened. I had always been intrigued by by birds but what happened today was bizarre! It all started at school, where I was sitting in a corridor, eating a piece of plasticy pizza. On my own, watching the world go past me in my schools long, grubby corridors. Then, all of a sudden, I heard a loud

"Squawk!"

"huh?" I thought.

It was normal to hear seagulls making a noise around my school, as they guzzled dropped chips and food greedily. But these were loud, screechy squawks that were unusual. I heard more squawks and curiosity got the better of me. I raced over to the nearest window and saw the most bizarre thing ever! There, on the school lawn, there was a girl. She had a coil of rope in her hand and every so often, she tossed a piece of rope in the air, lassoing a seagull. There were loads of seagulls circling above her, squawking angrily. In the ground, there were tent pegs with lasso ropes tied to them. The lassoed seagulls were tethered to the pegs one by one, whilst this girl lassoed others. As I watched her, I suddenly felt something I had only felt in Srrin. It was a particular feeling I only got when magic was happening. At that point I knew I had to see this girl, just to meet someone who was like me and could practice magic. I just had to. So I dropped my pizza, grabbed my bag and ran out of school to meet the girl. Outside, I ran over to the girl and asked,

"What on earth are you doing?"

The girl turned around, utterly unsurprised by my question. She was quite tall, had short hair and wore a black leather jacket. Her hair was ginger and she had a few freckles on her face. Only one of her ears was pierced and she wore a golden feather dangly earring in that ear. She also wore a feather around her neck, on a golden chain. She answered my question casually,

"Catching Lunch and Dinner. Why did you come to see me?"

I responded,

"I know you are using magic. I can sense it. How are you able to use magic here - I tried magic here once but it didn't work."

The girl looked surprised and then smiled.

"You are inexperienced, Srrin migrant. Magic works differently here in 'the ordinary world'. Magic is in Atlo, but first  you will have to find magic in yourself."

I was confused by this and asked,

"What do you mean I will find magic in myself?"

The bird girl responded,

"You are magic. I can tell from looking at you. You are a bird, like those seagulls are. I don't know when you will discover the magic side of you but you will discover it."

I was quite offended by this. How dare she call me a bird! I was a human, not a chip-guzzling beast like a seagull! I responded irritably,

"I am no bird! Can't you see I am a human? And how do you know I am from Srrin anyway?"

The bird girl responded, looking at me pityingly,

"I know your from Srrin because I can sense magic in you too. Ordinary humans cannot perform magic. If you don't believe what I say, then fine. But remember this..."

Her sentence trailed off as she got out a blowpipe she had in her belt. She aimed carefully at some tethered seagulls, then blew 3 darts out of the pipe. The 3 darts killed the seagulls as soon as they pierced the seagulls flesh. The bird girl picked up the dead seagulls, swinging their ropes over her back. Turning to face me, she finished her sentence,

"... I am here to help you, not bother you. If you need help about finding the magic side of you, fly to the top of the 'sunrise' mountain cliff."

She turned around and then she disappeared. She actually disappeared, vanishing into thin air. I stood there for a while, not knowing what to do our how to react. But when I heard the annoyed squawks of the tethered seagulls that had been left behind, I immediately knew what to do. In ordinary human terms, leaving those seagulls tethered there would be animal cruelty, so I pulled out my blade and cut their ropes to let them free. Oh and as to where I had got my large knife,  my 'blade' from, there were no customs controls when you traveled by potion portal  to Atlo. Watching the seagulls fly off, I wondered about what The Bird Girl had told me. But I had school to get back to, so I put my blade back in the sheath skillfully hidden in my jeans and promptly walked back to my schools entrance to go to my next lesson.