This all started this afternoon. My friends and I were in New York City. Lily and Sami were arguing because Lily pushed Sami into a large puddle.

"You almost killed me!" yelled Sami. Her eyes were as orange as a raging flame. That is not a good sign.

"Oh, stop complaining," said Lily, "you were in there for like five seconds."

"You know I can't touch water! I could have died!"

"But you didn't," reminded Lily, while she ate her cookie. Sami took her cookie.

"Give it back!" demanded Lily. Sami burned the cookie and gave the cookie ashes back to Lily.

"There you go," said Sami, laughing.

Sami kept on laughing until Lily pushed her into another puddle. Maya and I helped her out of the puddle. Her hair was soaking wet and wasn't moving.

"Why do it?" I asked.

"Cuz it's funny," said Lily, laughing with Ellen.

"Okay," I said, "the next person to push Sami into a puddle or any body of water, sleeps outside the cave tonight!"

"Thank you, Angela," said Sami, as she stood up from the puddle. Unfortunately, while we started walking again, Lily pushed Sami into a bigger puddle. We glared at her.

"Totally worth it," said Lily, laughing.

"I really hate her," mumbled Sami, as she stood up from the puddle for the third time.

"Can you guys stop pushing each other in puddles for two minutes?" Said Maya.

"Yeah,we have enough problems already," I said, "like the fact that we're out of decent food and that we have only one gold piece left and unless we find a way to make more money, we're all going to have to go hungry tonight."

"We're not gonna starve tonight, look," said Ellen, pointing at some wizard boys having a wizard duel. Wizard duels are very common. My friends and I are sorta pros at it. After you lose a duel, you must cough up money or something that you wagered on before the duel. My friends and I don't have wands, but we can still use our hands to cast spells.

"We can't duel them," said Maya.

"Why not?" asked Sami, "we can take those four dorks."

"We can't duel them because we might not have much to offer up if we lose," I said.

"Well, what do we have?" asked Lily.

Ellen searched through our travel bag. "Let's see," said Ellen, "We have one gold piece, our spell books, some nuts, a couple of rocks, and nuts that look like rocks, no wait...these are just more rocks."

"Why are rocks in our travel bag?" asked Sami.

Maya looked nervous. "Well defiantly not because I've been putting rocks in your sleeping bag every night for the past week if that's what you're thinking," she said. Ellen threw out the rocks.

"No wonder my sleeping bag was so lumpy and hard," said Sami.

"I'm surprised you didn't figure it out," said Maya, "anyway, do we have anything else?"

"Well," said Ellen, still searching, "Some of Angela's herbs, Sami's books, a hair tie, a box of raisins.....hey, what are these Lily?" Ellen pulled out a bag filled with cookies and gummy worms.

"You can't prove those are mine," denied Lily.

"The cookie you were eating looks exactly like the cookies in this bag," said Ellen.

"I thought you said you found that cookie in the trash," said Maya.

"And I told that guy that Sami liked in sixth grade that she wasn't irritating to be around and a good girlfriend, I lie. Sue me," said Lily, "and besides I was gonna share with you guys."

"No you weren't," we all said together.

Lily sighed. "Fine, you caught me," said Lily.

"Hey," I said, "let's wager these in a duel."

"Hey, those cost me twenty silver pieces," said Lily.

We stared at her angrily. "Would you rather eat Angela's herbs, nuts and some raisins?" Said Maya.

"Here's an idea, why don't we just eat the cookies and gummy worm?" asked Lily, "I'll share, I promise."

"No you won't," said Ellen, "and anyway, the health nut won't let us eat them for dinner." Ellen pointed at me.

I sighed. "We'll eat these tonight, but I say we should still wager these in a duel. We can't just live off of junk food, it's unhealthy," I said.

"Can't be any worse than that time we went without food for three days," said Sami.

We shuddered.

"Those were very dark three days," said Maya, "I was considering eating Lily during those days."

"Considering?! You almost did!" reminded Lily.

"I apologized to you about a thousand times! Get over it!"

Lily sighed. "Fine, lets just duel these guys already!"

We walked towards the guys, as they were gloating on their victory.

"Hey dorks," said Sami, "how about a magic duel?"

The tall one with black hair turned toward us. "Depends," he said, "what are you putting up?"

I showed them the bag of gummy worms, cookies and our last gold. The boys snickered.

"Seriously?" Said a shorter, redhead boy, "that's what you're putting up?"

"We also have a box of raisins and some of those trashy Twilight books if you want them," I said, "One of them came with a 3D bookmark of Taylor Lautner with his shirt on and off."

"Hey, don't wager my books and hands off my Tay Laut!" said Sami.

"Why? You've already read all of the books and seen the movies," I said, "and you've got to get over your Jacob obsession."

"Yeah, I've never liked Twilight," said Ellen, "their information about werewolves and vampires are totally off. For one thing werewolves are actually called "wolf demons", not werewolves."

"No one cares!" said Sami, "just keep your hands off my books!"

"Fine, we'll just offer the sweets and the gold piece," I said, "we'll duel you for, say twenty gold pieces?"

"Do you think we're idiots?" said the tall guy.

"Yeah, make it forty gold pieces and you got a deal," said the blonde guy.

"Deal!" We said before any of the other boys can process the sentence.

The tall guy smacked his hand against his forehead five times. "Nice going, Brady," he said, "oh, well, it shouldn't be too hard to take down a bunch of girls."

We glared at him angrily. "I don't like him," whispered Sami.

"Me too," whispered Lily, "he's getting a beat down."

We began by setting up the magic dueling circle.

"Since there's five of us and four of you, one of us will sit out for a while," said Ellen.

"I'll sit out if everyone is okay with that," I said.

"No," said Sami, "we need you. You're the only one of us who can heal."

"I can heal," reminded Maya.

"We know, but you're healing methods involve stealing the life energy from others," said Lily, "if we were fighting a monster, this would be different. But we want to beat them and maybe humiliate them and make them cry, but defiantly not kill them."

"Hey, are you five weaklings done yet?" Said the redhead.

Sami gritted her teeth. "On second thought...."

"No!" We all said, except for Lily.

Ellen stepped forward. "I'll sit out for a while until you guys need me," she volunteered.

"Thanks Ellen," said Maya.

After we set up the magic dueling circle, we took our positions and began the duel. (Before I continue any further, here is a little knowledge on Wizard Duels. In Wizard Duels, there is a magic circle, this called the Magic Field. It has four zones. The first zone is where the players take their stance at the start of the duel. The other three zones are zones that players can get knocked into by the opposing player's spells. If you get knocked out of the magic field, you are out. If you're whole team gets knocked out of the field, it's a knockout as they call it, and the opposing team wins. When all of the players in one team are knocked into one of their lanes, the opposing team can advance one lane forward for their next attack, which will make it challenging for the other team to make a knockout. You cannot attack opponents from the sides, attack on another team player's turn unless the correct spell is used, or have your summoning monsters eat the other team members. Got it Lily and Sami? During a duel on your turn, you can attack, defend, heal, create natural disasters, or summon a creature to assist. A player can cast shield spells even on your opponent's turn to block an attack. During a duel, a wizard can switch out a teammate with another teammate during a timeout. However the teammate will have to start at the lane the last team member was at before the timeout. So that's basically the basics of a wizard duel, let's get back to mine).

The boys pulled out their wands. We prepared ourselves to cast spells with hand magic.

"Pull out your wands already!" said the tall guy, "I'm not getting any younger."

"Or quieter," muttered Lily, "we don't have wands. We use hand magic."

The boys snickered and started to laugh.

"Are you girls amateurs? If you are, we'll give you a chance to back out now," said Brady.

"We happen to be very gifted at magic," said Lily, "we can beat you clowns without wands!"

The boys continued laughing. Sami's eyes turned a blazing orange color. That was not a good sign, I had a bad feeling of what was to come. Her hair also began to move like a blazing fire, and her hair tie couldn't tame the flames, in fact it burned like a piece of wood.

"Since you boys like to laugh," Sami said slowly. Her voice sounded kinda demonic. "We'll see if your still laughing when I throw into the heart of the Fire Empire and you're burned alive and screaming in agony!"

The boys stopped laughing and looked terrified. "Geez, we were just joking," said the redhead.

"Where's a big puddle when you need one?" muttered Lily.

We started the duel, after we stopped Sami when we sensed that she probably would throw the guys into the heart of the Fire Empire.

"We'll let the green hoodie go first to be a gentlemen," said Brady.

"Gladly," I said. I readied myself to cast the first spell. I moved my hands in formation to cast a spell. The field flowed with magical energy. My trap was set.

"Hey, what gives?" asked the tall wizard, "nothing happened."

"Hmmm," I said, "I guess it didn't work as well as I had planned. Sorry guys."

The guys started laughing again.

"Not helping, Angela," whispered Sami, "now we look like idiots and amateurs."

I made an embarrassed expression. "I guess I'm done."

"I'll go," said the tall wizard, "I'll show you how a REAL wizard casts a spell."

He waved his wand. Fire surged around their side of the Magic Field. I taking a guess here, but he might be a fire element wizard.

"I'm casting a spell that will knock you amateurs into next week," he said, "don't worry; you might be back next Friday."

Fire rose from the opposing field and it was heading straight for us. "Noitpure aval!" chanted the tall wizard.

Lava began to erupt from the ground. We didn't have enough time to cast a shield spell to protect ourselves. It seemed there was nothing we can do.....or was there? The spell I cast was activated. Large trees formed from the ground and created a dome of oak trees around us and it shielded us from the lava. When the trees and lava cleared, I smiled in triumph. The boys' mouths hung open.

"Wha-what just happened?" said Brady.

"My spell didn't backfire," I said with pride, "My spell is a spell that activates when a natural disaster spell occurs. The spell protects everyone who is on the same lane as me from being hit by a natural disaster spell. And it also means that we're always going to be protected from all natural disaster spells because my spell stays active until the duel is over."

"Nice one, Angela," said Lily

"That'll teach that dork," said Sami, "now I want to move next."

"Go ahead," said the tall guy, "show us what you got forest fire!"

"Yeah, Barry," said the redhead, "you tell her."

Sami lit up like a raging fire.

"I'm going to do a natural disaster spell," said Sami, who was now in her fire form. The guys looked terrified. "My spell has more than enough power to knock all of you out of the Magic Field."

She waved her hands into position to cast the spell.

"EKIRTS ROETEM!" She chanted.

Meteors struck down from the sky and knocked Barry and his gang out of the Magic Field. My friends and I cheered with joy. Sami reversed back into her wizard form. Sami's power increases when she is in her demon form, however prolonged use of that form will make her go nuts with fire power. Barry gave us our winnings and his gang recollected themselves.

"That was some awesome magic skill," said Brady.

"Yeah," said Barry, "you guys must be powerful wizards from the academy. Sorry I called you amateurs, you guys obviously are no n00bs at magic."

My friends and I looked confused.

"Academy?" Asked Maya.

"Yeah, the Wizard Academy in Wizard City," said Barry, "you guys attend the Wizard Academy, right?"

"You must have gone to the academy if you're that skilled," said Brady.

"We haven't gone to school since our hometown was destroyed," I said. The guys began to snicker, then they started laughing.

"No way," said Barry, "you guys have never been to the Wizard Academy? I figured your enrolled there since you five knew such powerful spells."

"That explains the hand magic," laughed Brady.

"Oh put a sock in it, Blondie!" yelled Sami. Brady stuck his tongue out at Sami. Sami conjured a fire ball from her hand. Brady cringed back in fear.

"So just out of curiosity, how do we enroll in this Wizard Academy?" I asked.

"I think we've said enough already," said Barry, "we're going to leave now. Thanks for the laughs by the way."

The boys walked away laughing.

"Hey, I don't know what you guys are laughing at, when we're the ones that beat you!" Sami yelled, "Shouldn't you be embarrassed?"

The guys stopped cold in their tracks. "Um, well, you five wimpy amateurs just got lucky, that's all," said Barry.

"Yeah, well, um see yah," said the redhead as they walked away.

"I really hate those boys," said Sami.

"Ditto," said Lily.

"Hey, at least we can buy food now," said Ellen.

"Yeah, sure, whatever," said Sami, "Hey, can I catch up with you guys later? I've got to get something."

"Sure," said the rest of us. Sami ran ahead.

"Fifty gold pieces say that she's going to set the guys on fire," I said.

"Maybe we should stop her," said Lily.

We just shrugged and took no interest in Sami's activity. We bought food at the market and headed back to the cave we were staying at. We had to make our own fire since Sami wasn't back yet. We cooked the fish and bread we bought at the marketplace, divided up the cookies and gummy worms and made sure to save some food for Sami. I usually don't eat a lot of meat, unless its tofu. Most life wizards like me don't eat land meat, but fish and any other seafood in the ocean is fair game. While we were eating, we talked about the Wizard Academy that the guys were talking about.

"So about the Wizard Academy," I said, while nibbling my fish, "I think I've heard about that school from my parents. It's an academy where young wizards can learn and train themselves there. I also heard that you can learn different types of spells even if the spell is not in your class of wizardry."

"I think we should send in application to that school and train there together," said Ellen, "I think we can get some at the spell shop. I saw one in town on our way back to the cave."

"Maybe we can find somewhere decent to live and we can stop living in caves and junkyards," said Maya, "I'm really sick of living in caves and junkyards."

"Well we had no choice," said Lily, "it was either stay and get killed or travel around looking for somewhere safe."

Maya, Ellen and I flashed angry looks at her. "Your parents weren't killed," I said angrily, "you could have stayed behind with your mother, your stepfather and your sisters. We didn't make you come with us!"

"I wasn't going to stay behind while my best friends fight to survive without me," said Lily, "besides, my parents were getting on my last nerve."

"At least you have parents," I muttered. Just then, we heard Sami coming in, carrying clothes.

"I'm back," said Sami, "oh cool, fish. I'm totally starving."

"Where were you? I asked, "and whose clothes are those?"

"I stole them from those annoying boys," said Sami.

"You didn't," said Ellen.

"Oh yes I did," said Sami, "they were swimming in the lake, so I took their clothes and ran full speed."

Lily moaned. "Are you serious?" Said Lily, "you didn't invite me to help?! That's not fair!"

"Dose anyone else realize how wrong that was?!" I asked.

"Relax, they were wearing swim shorts," said Sami.

"That's not the point I was concerned about," I argued, "After we eat, your going to return their clothes and apologize unless you want to sleep outside with Lily tonight."

"Aw, I thought you guys forgot about that by now," complained Lily, "do I really have to sleep outside the cave?"

"Hey, you're the one who said pushing Sami in a puddle would be worth it," I reminded her.

"But what if it rains?" She asked.

I shrugged. "Figure something out, you're the storm wizard."

Sami rolled her eyes. "Fine I'll return their clothes, but what were you guys talking about before I came in?" Sami asked.

"We're talking about the Wizard Academy in Wizard City," said Maya, "we should enroll in it. We can learn powerful spells to defend ourselves and become master wizards, any objections to my idea?"

No one spoke up, we were all in agreement.

"Okay, tomorrow, let's go and fill out an enrollment sheet," said Maya.

"Why wait?" Asked Sami, as she unfold the clothes she took from the boys. She had flyers and application sheets wrapped in the clothing. "I picked these up on my way home. That's right, who's your best friend?"

We looked over the applications and filled them in. As I looked over the flyers, I noticed a small problem. "Hey guys," I said, "it says that this school is the finest school for wizards only."

"So what's your point?" asked Ellen, "we're all wizards here, they'll let us in."

"What about wizards who are related to the ruler of a fire monarchy?" I hinted.

We turned to Sami.

"Oh, right," said Ellen, "well, we can solve that problem easily."

How? I wondered, what if they find out Sami's half fire demon? Will they still allow her to attend? She hardly uses her demon powers anyway, so she should still be allowed in.

"A Sami has to do is just don't use her fire demon powers or go into her demon state," said Ellen.

"That can work," said Lily.

"But that means no fire blasts," I said to Sami.

"I can do that," said Sami.

"And no fireballs, no demon form, no using any fire demon power whatsoever and no more setting stuff on fire for fun," I said.

"Oh come on!" complained Sami, "Can I at least set Barry's pants on fire?"

"No!" We yelled.

"Fine, no fire that isn't fire element wizard fire," agreed Sami reluctantly, "anyway, is everyone done with their enrollment sheets?"

We all nodded. "Hey Lily," I said, "go take these down to the messenger owl outpost."

"Why me?" Asked Lily.

"Because if you do, then you won't have to sleep outside tonight. Deal?"

Lily sighed. "Okay, deal."

She took the sheets and left the cave. After the rest of us finished eating, Ellen pushed Sami out of the cave and told her she can't come in until she returns the clothes, which she did reluctantly. After Lily and Sami got back, we went to sleep, or at least tried.