all I could remember learning was the knowledge that Amelia had the hots for Marc.
Nicole’s room was silent, as I had thought, and the girls were, as I had suspected, in Felicity and Jessica’s room. It seemed at once that homework was in order because Lisa and Natalie were there as well, and it sounded like they were working on the history of magic projects. I plugged headphones in and continued to listen to them while setting to work on my Maths homework.
The project was desperately dull, and only a few questions in, I decided I would use the Light Crystal to get through it a little quicker. I understood what I was doing, but there was just so much there that at this rate, I would take all night. I gripped the crystal and, remembering how my previous two requests had been made, thought to myself, I wish I could get through this Maths homework quicker. I felt it go warm, as it had the previous times it had worked, but I couldn’t see any difference to my Maths homework.
Almost instinctively, I knew what had to be done. I picked up my pen and began writing. What I was writing, I didn’t know. All I knew was that I was writing faster than I had ever written in my life. Within minutes, I had done several pages, and by half past 4 I was done. I looked back over my work (I still called it my work, given that I had written it) and found I had answered all the questions, complete with working, though I’d hardly known what I was doing. Almost all of them were correct, bar a couple, which I had to fix up, but this was even better; at least that made it look more authentic.
Feeling considerably more cheerful, I put the work back in my bag, making a mental note to do the same for Peter when he got home; he didn’t have a chance of getting it all done tonight, with how late he was going to be. Then I leaned forward and rested my head against the computer screen, my exhaustion finally catching up with me. I wasn’t sore from the day’s experiences, but I certainly was tired. Perhaps it was a sort of mental exhaustion, because even though I hadn’t brought any aches, pains or broken bones with me out of the box, I’d worked very hard to get through it. The voices of the five girls next door were still in my ears, but I had hardly paid them any attention. I focused dimly on what they were saying for a moment, but when I realised it was still homework, I gave up and allowed myself to relax.
I couldn’t recall dozing off where I sat, but I must have done, because the next moment I was being roughly shaken. I looked up and saw James standing over me, looking amused at the sight of me leaning against the monitor.
“You want to watch out,” he said when I pulled the headphones off my head. “It’s no good for you to be that close to the screen.”
“Says who?” I asked irritably. “My eyes were shut.” I checked my watch. It was now just after 5 o’clock; I really had dozed off.
“What were you doing, anyway?” he asked, sitting down on my bed and looking at me.
“Just finished homework,” I said. “That maths. Used the crystal to get me through it (Peter and I had filled him in about the crystal the previous afternoon) and I was just listening to the girls, but they’re not talking about anything interesting.”
“Must have been boring if it was enough to send you to sleep,” said James, sniggering.
“I don’t know,” I said reasonably. “The stuff in chick flicks is normally pretty juicy and I’m pretty good at sleeping through that too. Besides, I was really tired. I had a—er—unusual detention.”
“Yeah? What did Hall make you do?” he asked nervously.
“Long story,” I said. “Explain when Pete gets back.”
“Fair enough,” he said. “Unplug those headphones; I want to hear too.”
“It’s only homework,” I said. But I unplugged them anyway, so that Nicole’s voice was suddenly coming from the speakers. “Where’ve you been anyway? With Erica again?”
“Yeah, around her place,” he said. “She seemed to think it was high time I met her parents.”
“You’ve been with her for two days,” I said scornfully. “At this rate, you’ll be engaged by this time next week.”
James laughed. “I see your point, but I think it’s felt like a lot longer for her after—you know—the last couple of weeks. She’d told them all about me anyway, and they were pretty cool, considering they’re city people.”
I sniggered. The general consensus in Chopville was that people from the city took much for granted while us country folk appreciated the simpler things in life.
“When’re you going to bring her round here to meet the parents?” I asked.
“Well, she’s already met them once,” he said. “But I suppose we should give her a proper introduction now that we’re on. How does 2017 sound to you?”
I laughed, but didn’t know what to say to that, so I said nothing. James seemed to be expecting me to tease him about finally having the guts to get a girlfriend, but my mind was a long way from doing that, so instead we listened briefly to the girls’ voices, still coming from the computer.
“No, listen,” Lisa was saying. “I’ve read about all this. They’re known as itchicans.”
“Or some sort of chickens anyway,” said Nicole, and all but Lisa burst out laughing.
“Why itchicans?” asked Jessica finally once they’d settled down. “Surely they could have come up with something more sensible; itch-seers or something.”
“I have no idea,” said Lisa. “All I know about them is that they see red marks on a person’s skin where that person may be feeling itchy, and the itchier, the redder. But I can’t find any known cases of it; they’re not recorded.”
“Well just say that then,” said Natalie, who sounded like she was heartily sick of talking about it.
“Oh come on, Nat,” said Lisa, exasperated. “How’s that going to look in the project? ‘I’m sorry teachers, but I don’t know if itchicans really exist because I can’t find any record of one admitting it. We only go by the Sorcerers’ word, but they could well be lying.’”
“You don’t have to word it like that,” said Felicity. “Just say that no record of itchicans exists.”
“Which came first,” asked Nicole, “the egg or the itchican?”
They all burst out laughing again, even Lisa this time. Trust Nicole to crack jokes when the rest of them were trying to concentrate; that was such a Playman thing to do.
“You ever heard of itchicans?” I asked James.
He shook his head. “No, but Lisa was telling us the other day about people who’ve been cursed to see things differently. I suppose this is just another one of those.”
“Come on,” said Lisa finally, sounding stern again. “Let’s just get this last bit done, then we can call it a day.”
“Thank god, ‘cause I’m starving,” said Nicole. “But not for chicken.”
“I wish they’d talk about something interesting,” I said.
“Hang on, they might in a minute once they’ve finished,” James was saying, but I’d stopped paying attention. The Light Crystal was still in my hand in my pocket, and as I had spoken, it had suddenly gone warm again.
“How’s this,” suggested Jessica. “’Itchicans are believed to be people who can see red marks on people’s skin where they feel itchy, the state of the redness depending on the’—er—‘intensity of the itchiness.’ Is that a word, itchiness?”
“Sounds good enough to me,” said Nicole.
“’But today, no records of itchicans exist, so no one knows if this enchantment is the same as other birth-made enchantments.’”
“Perfect,” said