Fenton opened his eyes to stare up at the cloudless summer sky. It seemed to complete, so tranquil, like a blank canvas waiting for the artist to be inspired. For Fenton it was horrid though. He liked extensive thunder storms, where the rain tap-danced across the land, battering everyone and everything that it came into contact with. It was weather to be proud of. All it would take would be seven words and Fenton could have it that way, and it would stay like that until he had had had enough of it. That was always the temptation with magic. Just because you could, didn’t mean you should, and true power was said to come from knowing the right time. Fenton disagreed with this, true power, in his opinion was being able to create a storm at will, not bottling it up for some unknown date in the future.

Among the magical community he was quite feared. There were few who were naturally strong enough to be able to undo his works, and those that could generally didn’t intrude on his turf. His brooding took him down the familiar melancholic path. His thoughts were interrupted by the high pitched call of a girl, calling him for dinner. It was his younger sister Chloe. She loved summers, and cloudless skies, which severely intensified the sibling rivalry between them. It was unfortunate that magic could not be used against your own flesh and blood, because he could beat her easily in that field. He forced himself up from where he lay. Now that meal time had been called he was hungry. That was another thing that annoyed him about the way magic functioned, you couldn’t sustain yourself with it. You had to eat just like everyone else, not magical food, but plain boring meals, prepared by an inept cook, who also happened to be his mother, though that was also no choice of his own.

For someone so young there was a lot of hatred against the world all focused in one place, but that just helped to magnify his power. He felt the crackle of power along his spine. As he stretched and bent it this way and that. It was tired of being tied up, bound to the confines he had agreed to stick to. It wanted out, and he wanted to give it that. He hushed it in his most comforting frame of mind, promising it ‘soon’, which was hollow promise, as well it knew. Dinner turned out to be stewed beef, in gravy with dumplings and boiled to death vegetables that had lost most of their vivid colour. Dismally he ate them, all the while thinking of fast food, as he had done for most of his life. The dumplings were just as bad, they were slightly burnt on one side, and still a semi-liquid goop on the other.

The meal was finished quickly. Well, he reckoned that there was no point dragging out the agony. Dessert, such as it was, was a crumble, with what had once had possibly been apples, and almost definitely blackberries…or possibly raspberries, it was hard to tell by this stage. Fenton decided to give it a miss. He slunked up into his room to flop on his bed. He needed an escape, away from the rules, away from a life where he had to hide his power from all his school friends, as they weren’t magically gifted. It was easy to do. Five words and two short steps and he could be on another world altogether. He had thought about it many times, but after looking at the logistics, he needed more than his own power to do it, which was always a problem, especially in such a financially challenged family. He blamed his absent father for that one. Fenton still had his maths homework to deal with, like most things, it seemed that he couldn’t use magic to solve that problem either. That was a real problem, it was the one subject he could not do, no matter how hard he tried, he just couldn’t understand it, all the numbers doing complicated things to each other, that could only be torturous. It got even worse when letters were thrown in as well. Fenton took one look at it and decided to give it a miss. One more failed homework in the subject wouldn’t make much difference.

By now night had fallen. “Asparos thiandos mailikta.” he muttered, aiming some non elemental magic at the television to turn it on. “Flakeossed Mariowakos.” The channel changed over. It was the lazy way of doing things, but he couldn’t be bothered to get up and change it. There was some cop film on, that would do, it would take him to bed time anyway, and at least then another horrid day of his life could be over and done with. At least tomorrow he was doing something even remotely exciting, well, it was different from lounging around the house all the time. Admittedly window shopping with mates wasn’t the best thing in the world. But then there was always the possibility that they would go in for a few five finger discounts. That was a lot of fun, especially when you’re nearly caught, but not quite, the adrenaline buzz keeps you going, and afterwards it is remembered as exciting.