By: Avery Lin

Hi, I’m Abigail. My name is normal, my house is normal, and even my parents are normal. But somehow, I’m not. Just two years ago, I was accepted into an elite magic adventure school. I wasn’t fit for adventure. I mean, look at me. I’m skinny, wear glasses, and have a lopsided grin. I’m so different from the other girls at the school. They have muscles the size of boulders, scars all over their faces, and they’re built like mountain trolls.

The first time I saw my school, I was totally unprepared for what it would look like. It didn’t look like a mystical castle, nor a shack. It was a forest. Our rooms are treehouses in thick oak trees. We eat at picnic tables underneath a big willow tree that lights up with fairy lights at night.

My first adventure was horrible. I fell on my face three times, fell on my bottom five times, and got a very “light” kick from one of the biggest mountain trolls we were watching, leaving me with a good-sized bruise.

When the Survival of the Biggest and Strongest Competition came up, I wasn’t too pepped for the thought of getting beaten to pulp in the first phase of the competition. The first trial was to defeat a mountain troll. And with my luck, I was picked to fight the biggest mountain troll there was. Fortunately, this troll wasn’t very smart. I could dodge him quickly, but that was only because I was afraid of losing my life. It wouldn’t be very nice to be put in a coffin as a pancake. I passed the first trial by pure luck. The troll accidentally bumped into a Venus Flea bush that swallowed him whole.

The next trial was to wrestle a full-grown Hissfang Dragon. These dragons will eat you whole if you don’t find a way to avoid them. I was lucky enough to get a sleepy Hissfang, and it fell asleep at the start of the trial. I chucked rocks into its snoring mouth, but it didn’t wake. Even when it nearly choked on an especially large one, it still didn’t wake up. I accidentally picked up a deathberry and chucked it at the dragon’s mouth. The dragon swallowed it and died almost immediately, for the effect of a deathberry is very strong.

Now there were only five people left. The last trial was to overcome the mesmerizing landscape and hypnotizing eyes of the Stella Dragons in the Stella Forest.

At some point, I remember nearly falling asleep before I realized I was staring exactly into the eyes of a Stella Dragon. Yikes! It probably wanted to eat me as its appetizer. I quickly ran away and was surprised to hear that I won! I decided not to ask what happened to the other participants.

As surprised as I was, I couldn’t disagree with the free ice cream coupon they gave me for a prize.