A long break has given our students a chance to focus on honing longer stories.

Hailey Myra Leung from 4G spent a great deal of time during her break to write— and rewrite— this story of magic time travel.

“Hmm... Nice work, Bella, ’’ Miss Lee turned to Alia and asked curiously, ‘‘Why don’t you start working on your potion, Alia? Our class will be end soon.’’

“Ugh,” mumbled Alia. She threw her hat on her floor with a big thump. Alia peeked at the teacher and she swung her wand and shouted, “Luwisa,” the hat flew back to her head.

Miss Lee smirked and walked away.

“Come on, Alia. You have to do this, or you will be kicked out of the school!” said Bella, Alia’s best friend and her roommate. She shook Alia’s body when she was talking. She knew Miss Lee disliked Alia.

“What? I don’t even want to be a witch! It doesn’t tickle my fancy,” mumbled Alia. She threw her witch hat on the floor again.

“Well, I have an idea. Why don’t you make a time potion? You can go back to the past. You can make your decision again,” Bella said quietly. “You are a fourteen year old girl, I think you can manage it,” Bella was a bookworm and a very intelligent girl. She knew many things about magic, potion and spells.

“I couldn’t agree with you more, I’ll make that. Thanks for the idea!” said Alia. Her eyes sparkled like stars.

She went back to her room, then quickly opened her textbook. She turned to page 207. She had been reading about the Time Potion. She saw some potion recipes:

Back to FIVE minutes--- three drops of minutes, sixty drops of seconds and stir well, add one more drop of minute.

Back to TEN minutes--- Ten drops of minutes, and one drop of second, and mix well.

Back to ONE HOUR--- a drop of an hour and mixed with some of Mr.Time’s white beard.

Back to ONE DAY--- Sixty drops of hours and Miss Time’s cat fur.

Back to EIGHT years--- Last year’s calendar, torn into pieces, a few drops of seconds.

“Oh! It’s this one!” shouted Alia. She pointed to the Back to EIGHT years recipe.

When she saw all the ingredients, she was excited. “Great! I have all the ingredients. This is much easier than I thought!” She tore the calendar of last year and put it into her bowl and added some seconds.

Magically, the bowl turned from gray to red, orange, yellow then green. Some words floated up in the air. It wrote : To use this potion, apply to your hands and face. Say where you want to be.

“Wow. I have to apply this musty and disgusting thing on my hands and face,” mumbled Alia. That was one of the reasons why she didn’t like to be a witch. You have to make some gross stuff and usually apply it on the face and hands, even in the eyes sometimes.

Alia took a deep breath and applied the mixture on her face and hands. She quickly said she wanted to go back to the old house living with her Mum. Alia wanted to make her Mum change her mind, maybe she could follow her dad as a journal traveler to travel the world. She quickly closed her eyes and felt a blustery wind coming towards her and spinning around and around. Before she entered the Cloudarths, she lived with her dad for a short period. Her dad told her to give up studying and follow him to travel around. He encouraged her to look around the world.

Alia felt her heart pounding. She didn’t know where she was. She rubbed her eyes and saw herself lying on a comfy big bed.

Alia looked around and found herself back in her bedroom at home. Alia felt proud of the spell.

‘‘My spell worked!’’ said Alia. Alia got up from the bed, stood on the floor and looked at her bare feet then she screamed loudly.

“Why are my feet looking so small?” Alia rubbed her eyes.

She quickly opened her closet and saw herself in the mirror. She became her old self.

“WHAT? I came back as a kid?” Alia was left dazed and confused. The ‘Time Potion’ wasn’t written in the instructions that she would go back in time without being younger. “Why did I become a little kid? I thought my whole body was following me, not just my soul. This is confusing,”

Alia heard some footsteps going towards her room. She quickly went back to her bed and grabbed a blanket and hid under it. She felt someone was staring at her. Alia peeked then quickly hid back in the blanket.

Her Mum, Elizabeth, looked at Alia and touched her hair. Alia had long black hair like her Mum.

Alia sat up and took a deep breath, ‘‘Mum, I don’t really get why I have to go to a magical school. Why can’t I go to a regular one like other kids do? They can enjoy their school and have fun. I want to be what I want,’’ Alia’s hand was shaking but she still looked at her Mum.

Alia’s Mum opened her mouth, like she wanted to say something. Elizabeth’s teeth chattered.

Elizabeth pretended she heard nothing and said, “Oh, good morning, my dear. I feel like I haven’t seen you for ages,” smiled Elizabeth and hugged Alia tightly.

“Morning, Mum,” said Alia. She hugged back Elizabeth. she sighed softly.

“Your dad will be coming home at the end of this month. You haven’t seen him for five years,’’ said Elizabeth. Her face looked serious suddenly.

“Really?” exclaimed Alia. Alia jumped up and down on her bed. “Yay!”

Elizabeth continued, “Alia, I know you hate being a witch. You will know how to cast spells and protect yourself! This is for your own good! I will not live forever and be with you, so please listen to me!” Elizabeth put her hands on Alia’s shoulders. She opened her eyes big. Her face suddenly turned pale and serious.

Alia’s eyebrows scrunched together. She knew being a witch wasn’t a bad thing. Her grandma told her before that she had a talent for making potions too. Alia couldn’t see her Mum after she entered the magic school. Somehow she thought of herself as an abandoned child. The purpose of this mission was that she wanted to live with her Mum, she didn’t want to be by herself anymore.

Alia said, “Mum, I am a grown up. You can tell me or share anything with me,”

Elizabeth sighed and said, “So when you are five years old, every child must go to Royal Wizardry School. That’s the time when you learnt about magic history, flying on brooms, and more. During potion class, you made the memory potion and the love potion.”

“What’s so special about the memory potion and the love potion?” gulped Alia.

Elizabeth looked behind and whispered, “Well, a memory potion is very important and VERY, VERY hard to make. The principal didn't even know how to make it either. You were only a five year old kid. You were the first person that made the love potion. If someone drank it, he or she would obey you and that spell would never be broken. You also had a lot of flying broom prizes. You broke the ‘Wizardry World Record’!”

“I thought everyone could do those spells and potions,” said Alia, scratching her head.

“No, not everyone could do those potions and spells!” said Elizabeth. “The best witch in the eon, Ravana Diabols, was a very smart woman in the past. Her last sentence was ‘There will be a better girl ruling this world.’

Some evils wanted to rule the world, too, so Uncle William joined the group because he wanted to be powerful like the other evils.”

“Alia, I used the time potion to come back to rescue you. After you entered Cloudaths, I was trapped by your Uncle William. I found out that your dad was killed by him. I came back to protect you. I don’t want any bad thing to happen again,” said Elizabeth, she took a deep breath.

Alia’s eyes turned big. “You came from the future too?! Me too! What does Uncle William look like? I thought that you didn’t love me, so you sent me to the boarding school so you don’t have to take care of me. This time I came back from the future. I want to ask you to live with me,” asked Alia sadly.

“It was an accident. I was caught by Uncle William after you entered the Cloudarths. He locked me in the cage. One day I escaped from the cage and found the time potion recipe, so I came back to rescue you. Uncle William used the spell to disguise as your dad. He has light brown hair, and is a thin and tall person. His face looks like an eagle,” said Elizabeth.

Alia remembered the last time her dad came home. They went to the human’s parks and beaches. They had a lot of fun. She couldn’t believe he wasn’t her dad. She just remembered ‘he’ told her not to go to magic school and they could live together happily.

The next early morning, Elizabeth opened Alia’s room loudly. She shook Alia to wake Alia up. Elizabeth taught Alia how to make potions and cast flying magic spells.

“Alia, add more dragon tears!” Elizabeth guided Alia step by step. Suddenly, Elizabeth shouted, ‘‘Don’t fall asleep! Add this pink potion.” Elizabeth lacked patience when Alia had no motivation and made many mistakes. She didn’t know what happened to Alia.

Elizabeth taught again and Alia failed, “Please check the book, it said the finished product is an arctic color. It’s not a lavender blue potion. You have to add more ‘blue mermaid scales’ to make the potion perfect.’’

“Mum…” Alia moaned.

Alia suddenly sat on the floor and said angrily, ‘‘ Mum, I can’t believe Dad’s gone. Magic is so hard and annoying. I’m not saying magic is bad but…It’s just not my thing and I don't really like it!”

Alia hoped to see her dad. She didn’t want to stay at home any longer. She knew her Mum loved her, after Alia's dad's death, her Mum became miserable. She had a lot of anger. She came back to the past wanting to change her Mum’s mind. She hoped their relationship could change. She missed her friend, Bella. At night, Alia cried under the blanket. She hoped to change the situation. “I really want Mum to be normal again… and I want Dad to be here with me too…” thought Alia.

A few seconds later, Alia had a thought. “I can go back to the past with Mum and we can stop Uncle William from killing dad, then we could be a happy family!” Alia slept on the bed and thought about how to help her dad from the past. “I can’t waste time,” said Alia. “If we use the time potion, we will be in our past selves again. We don’t know where he was,” Alia thought. She sighed.

“What about a spell to create a time tunnel to travel back to where dad was, then rescue him!” thought Alia.

Alia spent days inventing the tunnel back to the day his Dad died. She used Miss Time’s cat fur, one handful of Witch Smoke (When witches or wizards go to the human world, they have to use the Witch Smoke.) and ten drips of hours. She didn’t tell her Mum what she was doing. Her Mum was busy making some protection around the house. Alia read many books that her grandma left her. She found a magic book that talked about time tunnels. when she was trying the spell, Surprisingly, a blue tunnel appeared!

“YES! I DID IT!” shouted Alia, jumping up and down, she ran to her Mum's bedroom and she heard her Mum was practicing magic spells.

Alia went in front of her mum and shouted, “Mum, guess what? WE CAN SAVE DAD!”

Elizabeth looked at Alia and excitedly asked, “How?”

“This is your dad’s shirt, he always wore this. Maybe with this shirt, we can find him more easily!” said Elizabeth, getting a gray T-shirt out of an old cupboard. When she closed the cupboard, she saw an old photo flying out from it. “Oh,” she said, looking at the old photo. “That’s me, and that’s your dad, Noah. You should miss him a lot,” Elizabeth smiled with tears.

“Yes,” said Alia, looking at a handsome man with black furry hair. He was wearing the same shirt Elizabeth was holding. She also saw a beautiful girl with long black wavy hair.

“Alright, now you know what your dad looks like. Let’s go travel and let’s find him,” said Elizabeth, putting the photo back from the cupboard carefully.

“I'll show you the tunnel, follow me!” said Alia. She held her mum's hand, went to her room and pointed to the blue tunnel and looked at Elizabeth excitedly.

“Recently I thought about how we could save dad. We can’t use the time potion since we don’t know where Dad was. I found that the time tunnel can solve the problem,’’ said Alia. She held her Mum’s hand and ran towards the tunnel.

Alia kept calling her Dad’s name and holding her dad’s shirt during traveling in the blue tunnel.

“Dump!”

Alia and Elizabeth fell down to a trash bin and looked around.

“We are inside the garage,” whispered Elizabeth smiling. ‘‘Next time, manage the location,’’ She looked at the rusty old wall and looked at Alia.

Alia nodded and peeked outside.

Elizabeth suddenly held Alia’s arm tight and said, “Alia, your dad is there. Uncle William is behind your dad. Hurry up, we have to rescue your dad now,” Elizabeth said. “You will go behind him. I will use some spells to distract Uncle William. You try to hurt him if you have a chance. Follow me and don’t make any noise. Be careful!”

“Alright,” said Alia. Alia quickly tiptoed behind Uncle William nervously.

Alia looked at Elizabeth and saw her nod.

Elizabeth took a deep breath…

“Chlut!”

Alia looked at the bloody knife and her hands. It was her first time seeing someone stabbing another person. She felt her heart beating fast.

“Nooo!” Uncle William dropped his wand on the floor and looked at Elizabeth.

“You! I hate you!” Uncle William yelled.

Alia nodded and used her wand to point at Uncle William’s heart.

“Amous,” said Alia.

A gleaming lighting went into Uncle William’s body then he fell on the floor.

“E-Elizabeth?” shouted Noah, Alia’s dad. He quickly rubbed his eyes to make sure he wasn’t dreaming. A golden rope tied Uncle William and his wand to make sure he couldn’t hurt anyone.

“Noah!” mumbled Elizabeth as she felt her tears running down her cheeks.

“Dad!” shouted Alia. She ran towards her dad and hugged him very tight.

Noah couldn’t believe his wife and daughter here. He said, ‘‘Elizabeth, why are you here with Alia? I was planning to go home to surprise you,’’

Elizabeth said, ‘‘I am so thankful to see you again. I feel like I am having a good dream,’’ Elizabeth told Noah what had happened. Noah hugged Elizabeth and Alia. Alia told Elizabeth that they had to leave by the time tunnel. Noah immediately went back home to see his wife and daughter.

Alia felt herself having a family again. Alia said goodbye to Elizabeth. She used the time potion to go back where she came from. She went back to Cloudarths after a minute after she used the time potion.

She quickly ran to the classroom to find Bella. ‘‘I love magic now, and I love what I'm learning. Thanks for giving me an idea to go back to the past,’’

Bella looked at Alia and smiled, “What are you talking about?’’ Alia refreshed her new memory. Alia hugged Bella, ‘‘Nothing, I think I had a long dream.’’ When Alia had her term break, she went back home to visit her parents. Now she’s elated!

Back in Time?