I grabbed my blanket and pulled on my covers, hugging my squishmallow plushie and looking around. Outside the windows, the trees cast creepy shadows in the dormitory and lightning flashed outside. I got up, dressed in a thick fur coat, and stepped out of the room to enter the huge common room. To my surprise, my best friend, Amara, was also there.

    “Lily! What on earth are you doing! It’s three a.m.!” Amara whispered. I shrugged awkwardly.

    “I could ask the same thing to you,” I replied wisely. “I’m scared…”

    Amara nodded. “Don’t judge a book by its cover,” she said. “This school looks nice, but my sister told me that in the day, it’s an amazing paradise. At night, it’s a true horror castle.” She shuddered. “And she doesn’t let me sleep with her.

    Lightning flashed in the sky, followed by a loud clap of thunder. Heavy rain splattered down hard on the brick roofs. Amara hugged her duck plushie tighter.

    “It’s horrifying,” I agreed. “Let’s go back to sleep.” Dragging our toys, both of us left and returned to our rooms.

“Tell me what happened,” said Isabelle. She walked me down to the canteen. The sun was up and it was breakfast time. The canteen was a square, air-conditioned room with many tables, plants and food stalls.

    I gulped, shuffling my feet nervously. “Ummmmm… last night, I couldn’t sleep and it was really scary and it was horrifying and I’m really scared and I don’t like this place and I want to go home and I—"

    Isabelle sighed. It was my first day here, as well as Amara’s. We had not gotten used to the school yet, especially because it was a magic school. It had been my dream to go to a magic school, like Harry Potter. However, today, I regretted my decision.

    Just then, Amara’s sister, Raina, came dashing by, panicked.

    “Have you seen my sister?” she asked in a hurry. “I don’t know what happened, but today she just disappeared! I knew it, I should’ve let her sleep with me…”

    Darn.

    “How?” asked Isabelle. A few interested girls leaned in to overhear the conversation. Raina explained that she saw Amara in the morning, but after she went to the bathroom, she never came back.

    “That,” said Lindsay, who was another one of Isabelle’s friends, “is petrifying.”

    “It’s only the first day!” I commented. My obnoxious sister pushed me aside with the most annoying words ever.

    “Look, Lily. This is what you call teenager work and business. You are tiny. You don’t mess around with this. You don’t poke your nose into this. You’ll play fool. You join us when you’re older,” she snapped.

    I flared my nostrils. This girl was impossible!

    “She’s MY bestie!” I shrieked. “MY bestie! MIIIIINE!”

    Isabelle rolled her eyes. “Go away,” she muttered, pushing me away indignantly. All her friends watched me, which was the most humiliating situation of my whole life!

    “I’m not even done with breakfast! You dumb pickaninny!” I yelled.

    My sister started pretending that she couldn’t see me. Half of me wanted to slap her, and the other half of me told myself to leave her. So, I decided to leave them and find Amara on my own. I guess Isabelle felt a little sorry for me as she shoved a ham and cheese sandwich in my hand before I managed to scurry off.

    The whole school was all panicky. I looked around, trying to find Amara in the sea of children. But I knew Amara would not be in common places, otherwise someone would have brought her to Raina.

    I felt really weird on my own. I wandered around the school for ages, until Amara texted me:

            Lily, where r u? It’s time for class! D: Ur way past late, everyone is

          waiting for u! :((

    I was truly shocked. Amara could still talk with me! She still knew that I was late for class! I immediately texted Isabelle, and after three seconds, she replied.

            When didya get that text, can send me?

She thought I was lying! I couldn’t believe it, but I took a screenshot of it and sent it to her all the same. She sent me a reply that she was not allowed to use mobile devices whilst performing Transfiguration. I headed back to the common room while texting Amara, but someone blocked her and she was unable to see my text messages.

    The next day, I headed to class as usual, but this time, after class, I headed to the teacher to ask him about something.

    “Mr Redmont, my friend disappeared and she actually texted me that I—” I stuttered, and realized: I had to tell the teacher I skipped class yesterday to try to look for her!

    “What’s it?” he asked.

    “Umm… aren’t you going to kill me?” I muttered.

    “Tell me,” he said firmly. “If it’s necessary, and important.”

    “I skipped class yesterday to… find her…” I said in a wobbly manner. “Uh, have you seen her 

recently? She’s my only friend.”

    “No,” Mr Redmont replied. “You can still hang out with your sister and her friends.”

    My face turned red with a fresh wave of fury. “They’re dummies,” I said loudly. "They are silly old hags and I hate them more than I hate you!"

    Without warning, I dashed out of the classroom, screaming. My homework list flew and smacked Mr Redmont in the face like a slap.

Lunchtime, I sat with Isabelle and her friends. Temperance, her new bestie, stared at me, joyfully, and squeaked, “OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHH my GOD, she is soo cute!” Isabelle gave her a look that said ‘She won’t be that cute once you’ve seen the whole of her’.

    Isabelle bought me some Carbonara from the Italian food stall and she herself got some mutton soup. She looked really serious.

    “Lily,” she said, “look, I’m really sorry about yesterday, but, tell us, what did Amara send you?!”

    “Not like you’re a detective or anything,” I said loudly. Temperance and Lindsay laughed so hard that they were crying. I stared at them. 

    “Tell me,” insisted Isabelle.

    I shrugged and said, “She told me I was late for—” I stared at Isabelle. “Wait a minute… I thought I sent you the screenshot of the text? You should know what she messaged me, right? You’re trying to shame me somehow, aren’t you?” I eyed her suspiciously.

        Isabelle rolled her eyes. “Never mind…”

    It felt really weird at school without someone there to say hi when you meet him or her. It was super embarrassing to go around alone with older girls teasing me. Only Temperance and Lindsay would try to keep me calm.

    When I arrived at class, I was early. The teacher had not arrived yet, and no one else was 

in class. I picked up the Daily Prophet, and started reading the latest news. It seemed like my school was one of the safest magic schools; most other schools would have dangerous beasts hidden among them. I read up that a few centuries ago, many beasts lived in the school. The second last one to be killed was the gryphon, of griffin.

    The last beast that still had not been executed was the Manticore. My greatest suspect of that dummy who decided to go steal Amara. I was very terrified when I saw the different pictures of terrifying monsters on the paper. When the teacher stepped in, I quickly folded the paper and stuffed it into my bag as the teacher had banned newspapers in class for some reason. I yawned as I took out my potion ingredients and books. I set up my cauldron beside my assigned table.

After class, I was sure: it was the brainless manticore who decided to catch Amara. I texted Isabelle about it as I headed to my Herbology greenhouse.

    “Please be careful today,” Professor Sprout announced as everyone gathered at the vegetable patch. “Today we will be learning about some horrible Mandrakes. Careful, they are absolutely mental. And they can make someone deaf.”

    The interesting Herbology lesson continued for some time. I dreamily stared out the glass roofs. Up in the sky, I thought I saw a griffin, flying through the sky with a screaming Mandrake in its beak. I shook the thought away and put on my earmuffs (to block the yelling of the “mental” Mandrakes).

After a few weeks, all 1 could come up was that Amara was taken away by a Manticore. Manticore, also spelled mantichora, manticora, or mantiger, is a legendary animal having the head of a man (often with horns), the body of a lion, and the tail of a dragon or scorpion. It was the most feared beast in the world and to be honest, I wanted a chance to see it.

    “You DON’T,” warned Raina as she sent me to my Herbology greenhouse. “It Victoria around a week ago... Did you not get the news?"

    "Nopey nope," I replied. "But really??"

    “It’s not good,” Raina said with a frown. “Everyone won’t focus in class and um, yeah, you get the idea. You’re the first person to say ‘Woo! I want to see’ or something like that. My sister told me you’re weird, but… no one really likes it when someone died. Especially when a manticore was the killer.”

    “Hooray,” I said.

    Raina sighed. “I ‘ll tell Isabelle to send you, I sent the draft to her,” she said. “And my number. You can add me.”

    After class, I checked my phone to see the newspaper draft Isabelle sent me.

Manticore spotted in Oblogmorn

Killed a pupil at 8th February 2021

There has been a manticore spotted in Oblogmorn, the magic school for only witches. It has killed a girl at 8th February 2021, around 6.45 a.m. A young witch named Ashley found her body backstage, behind the Auditorium. We asked her what happened. She said she was trying to find her twelve-inch wand as she remembered leaving backstage and found a blood trail that lead to Victoria Spier’s body. The last of a manticore’s tail had back half of body had been spotted disappearing into the wall. Oblogmorn has set up more security boundaries. The charms teacher has been teaching all non-living things to recognize a picture of a manticore.