Name:

English Teacher:

Year completed:

Assignment Commentary:

Annalise

Ms. Tekarian

2000

My teacher assigned us an essay with magical creatures...

March 27, 2000

The day started like any other late summer day. It was the first day of school, but that added little excitement to this particular twelve-hour period in which the earth was facing the sun. When my little brother and I arrived at school, I saw him to his fourth grade classroom and made my way to that of the sixth grade. When I entered the classroom, I saw that my best friend Tiffany had saved me a seat. "Who's our new teacher?" I asked, having taken the seat next to her. "Nobody knows, not even if it's a man or a woman." "I hope we have Mrs. Evers." "Oh, didn't you hear? She quit." I hadn't heard. All through the usual chitchat I wondered who it would be.

At exactly eight thirty, the door swung open and what appeared to be an enlarged red lizard or a minimized one-foot high dragon trotted briskly into the room and hopped up onto the teacher's desk. A few shrieks rang out from the student section of the classroom but these were totally ignored. "Good morning, class. I am your teacher, my name is Robert Fireball Winston," he said in a crisp British accent. He wore a red, slightly singed bowtie. His spectacles were small and round with black rims. "A-a talking lizard!" someone screamed out. "Quite incorrect. Dragon. Of the Red Mushu variety. I shall begin by taking roll." About halfway through the list, he sneezed and the roll book was promptly engulfed in flames. When the time came for the distribution of textbooks , he sent a student to retrieve them from the library as he did not trust his own sinuses not to set a few stacks of books afire. After distributing the books, he announced that we would be starting the day's lessons with biology.

I noticed just then that he had carried a little brown briefcase into the classroom when he had entered. Out of it he pulled two furry, fighting round animals. One was green, the other gold and they wrestled about on the table. They each had two blue eyes, the only trace they had of a face, with two arms and two legs. "These are called Sretifs, fighters pronounced backward. The only thing that can put them asunder is fire. I don't wish to inflame the desk, so I shall merely put them back in my briefcase." At that moment the bell rang, but it was only the first bell, so we settled back in our seats. And so the day went on. School that had been such a chore became so much fun that by the end of the day no one wanted to go home.

After the lesson on Sretifs, we studied dragons. We learned that they originated in the Philippines, not China, as the saying goes. There are several varieties of dragon, Mr. Winston told us, and their colors and sizes vary from red to green and from one to twenty feet. We took note on the names of varieties, a test having been promised us.

The next day, Mr. Winston was carrying a silver box with a snake engraved upon it. How he managed to carry that heavy thing into the classroom was a mystery to me. "Today we will be studying Basilisks. You will have to wear these protective multi-layered goggles or else you will die, and we certainly can't have that happening. Now, does anyone know anything about Basilisks?" No one responded. "No one? Very well then. Basilisks originated in south-east Asia. The are deadly twenty to forty foot-long serpents. Most breeds are illegal worldwide if owned by humans. Any questions?" "How long do Basilisks live?" "About sixty years." "What do you mean illegal?" "If the breed is illegal, humans aren't allowed to own them, although there is the WBSF, the World Basilisk Smuggling Federation." "What do you mean by different breeds?" At this, Mr. Winston looked as though he had just been asked to explain why the earth is round. "Each breed of Basilisk is different just as each breed of dog is different. Some breeds of Basilisk kill by breathing on their victims as well as staring them in the eye. This particular breed of Basilisk,"he said, pointing to the box," will only try to stare you in the eye, it cannot kill you by breathing on you. "Goggles on?" He prepared to open the box.

It was going to be an interesting year.