Chapter 3

They made it to the 3rd floor, where there was a long beautiful rug in the spacious painted hallway. Richie found a window that should show the front of the school and saw something peculiar. He went to the window to confirm what he thought he saw.

"Wow!" He sighed as he saw the delicate snow falling outside the window. He knew instantly this was an illusion. It was late August after all.

But at the precious young age of 17, Christopher Robyn was a master illusionist. This had to be his handy work!

Seth sat on a piano, which was being played by Professor Diaz. They were both dressed like characters from a Christmas carol, with coats, scarves and the top hat looking hats on their heads.

Chris was dressed as a holiday butler, serving Apple Cider and holiday cakes to the bewitched protestors. Eddie, dressed as Santa Claus, picked up snow balls and started playfully chucking it at any protestor trying to resist the illusion and continue with their protest. Those protestors would then throw snow balls at him and soon lost themselves in the game. Eddie and the enemies soon had a great time in their all out snowball war.

Seth swung his legs happily while sitting on the edge of the grand piano. Plucking his guitar strings, dressed in his winter best, as he sings the Christians a song:

"I know what Christians like:

Christmas snow

Less yes, more no."

"Peppermint and Hot Cocoa," Chris sang, twirling around with his silver tray to hand out goodies.

"Christmas Tree's

Tea and cream,"

Seth threw his head back and laughed as snowflakes dusted his skin.

"sweetened with the stuff of Honey Bee's"

And Eddie, leaning on a giant crucifix with Jesus on it.

"Morbid Christ Idolatry"

Seth laughs and strums the guitar strings.

"All of which, as a witch, I must agree!

All of which, as a witch, there's camaraderie!"

The news reported had her head stuck out of the window, watching in open mouthed amazement. The school, at least the front of it, was a fantastic winter wonderland. It was a beautiful Christmas scene, complete with reindeer, dancing elves, and sparkling white Christmas lights all over the building.

The people from the "Rebels of Christ" church stood absolutely dumbfounded as snow fell all around them. Their wrath and protest were suspended, as they allowed themselves to believe the illusion. It was all so terribly beautiful, and few of them were strong enough in to resist. The few who understood that this was a trick of magic felt powerless to do anything to turn away the crowd from a perfect scene of warmth and cheer.

A frosty wind, complete with kisses of snow flakes, snuffed out the torch fires, as animated snow men with trays of cup cakes slid through the snow, leaving single-line tracks wherever they went. In the moat that surrounds the front of the main building, there were swans and red lotus flowers with tea candles glowing on the water. The news lady and camera man were thoroughly impressed. Richie admitted it was a magical illusion, and they didn't care. The smile couldn't be pulled from their faces. It appeared the kids and their magic school had won!

A while away, still a bit on the horizon, there was a school bus approaching. Richard stared at it for a moment, but then went back to the snowball fight and winter scene, wishing he could have stayed with the squad and played, until he looked at the school bus again and understood what he was seeing. A wave of panic over took him.

The bus was full of more angry protestors, and even though the illusion below was strong, all it took was the slightest disturbance from "reality" for the spell to be broken for all of them.

There was build up that needed to be done to enchant people, especially a crowd as large as the one below. And the people on the bus didn't get the build up, they may not see the illusion at all.

He tried to figure out what to do. The first thing that came to mind was a simple spell to kill the brakes on the school bus. The bus was so far away that it would be about a 20 minute walk from where they were to the campus. That would buy the team time, maybe they could even get rid of the news people by then.

The bus was getting close. He decided on a spell that would disable the bus' breaks and stop them in their tracks. He shut his eyes and tried to cast it as quietly as possible. He didn't want the news people to realize what was going on.

So he cast the spell, opened his eyes…

"Oh Shit! No! SHIT!!" Richie shouted. He banged the window sill as he watched the bus launch forward top speed towards the happy Christmas scene down below him.

He backed away a little from the window wide-eyed, but the news people moved in more. "What's going on?"

Rich pushed himself back to the window, sticking his head out all the way.

"Look out!! Seth!! SEETTHH!!!" Vegas yelled out the window. "SEEEETTTTHHHH!!"

The laughter and the music down below was too loud. He wondered if he should try the spell again, but what if he messed up again? All he could do was turn and run and try to get to them as soon as possible.

"Hello?" The news reporter asked as Richie ditched her and the camera man running down the hall.

"Abrahcadabra!" Vegas shouted and tapped his head with the glowing tip of his own wand. He needed to get downstairs and outside as soon as possible, but the thoughts were coming into his head too fast to concentrate on any one of them.

The spell worked to move him several feet forward in an instant, but he needed to get further. Boy, he wished he'd paid better attention to Seth when he taught him teleportation spells.

"Abreahcadabra!" Richie shouted and tapped his head with the wand again. This time he found his head, right arm and left foot sticking out of the wall.

"NO!! HELP!!!" Richard screamed. "SETH!!!" He couldn't even feel his right hand, the one that held the wand. Onion booty unleashed a loud scream, and he could just barely see that in the other end of the hall, the news reporter looking at him astonished. The camera man had the camera trained right on him.

"Keep filming," he heard the news lady say to him as she carefully ran down the hallway in her high heels. Richard's face breaks as he tries to get out of the wall, but he couldn't. He was part of the wall, and he couldn't even get his wand out to try to create a spell to escape.

"What…in….the hell…" The reporter moves in, but then backs away from him as if even terrified to touch him.

Then he heard the hard crashing sound that sent a shock wave through the building and made it quiver like a mild earthquake.

Another scream from the reporter, and she fell backwards right onto that handy onion booty. And she trembled, still looking at Richard half fused into the wall of his high school hallway, like the realization that there was "Danger" in a place where the laws of the natural world didn't apply finally hit her.

"Let's get out of here!"

"Wait!" Richard called to them before they could disappear down the staircase. "Please tell someone to come help me!"

"What's happening? What happened to you?" she asked.

"I botched a spell!" Richard said with tears in his eyes. "And now I can't get out of the wall."

"We gotta go cover that school bus!" The camera man shouted. "The way it was racing towards the school, I know that's what made that crashing sound."

Richard started to black out. Before he slipped back into the darkness, he heard the lady reporter say she would get him some help.

"I was trying to kill the breaks on the school bus, but I think I revved it up instead!" He cried. Why? Because he honestly feared he would die and didn't want it on his conscience that he might have killed a bus load of people.

And then everything went black...