The Two Worlds by Alisha Howard Page B

Her skin became pale, and her eyes
had turned a dull grey. Tears were streaming from her eyes, and I
resisted the urge to reach over and hug her.
    The clear-haired lady spoke again.
“Because of your actions, you will be suspended from using magic
until further notice. You will have to prove yourself capable of
handling such a great responsibility during such a dangerous time.
The assignment that you have been issued will be revoked.” She
reached for a glass of water that I hadn’t seen previously and took
a sip. “I hope this will provide you will enough time to think of
the seriousness of what you have done.”
    Rena and I both nodded.
    Paul stood up. “You may leave
now.”
    I don’t think we could have moved any
faster if we sprouted wings out of our backs.
    “ I can’t believe I got
suspended!” Nia groaned, lying on the couch. “If I would’ve just
listened to my little voice in my head, I wouldn’t be in this mess
with you two!” We were all hanging out in front of the fireplace,
glumly eating spaghetti that Nia had made while she waited for Rena
and me to return. “I was so close to completing my final exams,”
she huffed, shoving a forkful of food in her mouth.
    Rena sat slumped in an armchair to the
right of Nia. “My mother would be so disappointed in me,” she
mumbled.
    I, on the other hand, wasn’t all that
worried. So we couldn’t go and do our assignment? What was the big
deal?
    Nia seemed to read my mind and looked
over at me. “It may not be important to you, but there are those of
us who are ambitious here on Turgor. How do you think I’ll feel
about not being able to graduate with my class and get a job
here?”
    “ Nia, you’re not even
eighteen yet,” I said. “What type of job could you possibly
get?”
    “ Well, as a skilled Creator
you can get the cream of the crop jobs in the Counsel,” she snapped
back. “I think about my future, you know!”
    “ And I don’t?” I yelled back
at her.
    “ No, you don’t!”
    Rena put up her hands and glowed a dull
blue. “Come on, you two. Calm yourselves.” Nia hissed in irritation
and went into the kitchen to put away her dishes. “What are we
going to do now, Kay?”
    I shrugged. “I hadn’t really thought of
that. I mean, what is there to do when you’re not being sent on one
assignment after the next?”
    “ I’ll tell you what you do,”
Nia answered me, standing in the kitchen doorway. “Check your
DiGi.”
    I opened mine and looked down to see
the message:
     
    Kathleena Ann
McLaughlin—Probation
    Duty: Assistant at Brozek
Courts
    Location: 88523 E. Alphan
Lane
    Time: 5:45 a.m. Turgor
Time / 9:15 p.m. Earth Time
    Report to Counsel Member
Marionette Fleer
     
    I looked up and met Rena’s wide eyes.
“So I’m going to be an assistant?”
    “ Not just any assistant,”
Nia said. “And not just you. We all have to go.”
    “ What do we do?”
    “ When you work at the Courts
you deal with the processing of beings that are waiting to go to
court for various crimes.”
    “ That’s it?” I asked.
“That’s the best punishment they could come up with? A little
paperwork?”
    Rena looked confused as well, but Nia
shook her head. “You two are in for a surprise.”
    That night, back on Earth, I fell
asleep and immediately felt my body in the throes of violent
shaking. Opening my eyes with a start, I saw flaming orange hair
fly past me.
    “ AHH!” I heard from the
kitchen. Jumping out of bed, I fell to the ground as Dia shook
again, this time with a loud BOOM . Plaster crumpled off the
ceiling, and I could hear the distant sound of glass breaking.
Grabbing at the door frame to steady myself, I felt my way to the
stairs. The lights were completely off. I squinted to see where I
was going when another loud boom seemed to engulf our house. I
paused, shaking on the stairs as the house became quiet. The
windows all flashed a brilliant white light, and then my house once
again lurched. I fell backwards, losing my