When Janice woke up the next morning, she couldn't remember where she was. It took her a few minutes to realise that she was in the school dormitory. Checking her watch, she realised that it was seven in the morning. She quickly got out of bed, and looked around the dormitory.

She had expected her dormitory to be something similar to the one described in the Harry Potter books, but it was the total opposite. The dormitory was styled to the very latest furnishing, with light yellow curtains and matching bed sheets of a delicate seashell design. What really amazed Janice was that there was a painting in their common room, a portrait of a group of women gathering around a table. The women inside the painting were waving towards her.

"Had a nice rest, dear?" One of the women inside the painting asked.

"Yes. I had a really good rest. Thanks." Janice replied.

"Well, dear, you better wake your roommates up. You guys have to eat your breakfast. Classes start at eight-thirty." Another women replied.

Nodding, she peeked inside each curtain separating the beds and checked where Landy was. When she found Landy, who was sleeping right beside her, she gently woke her up.

"Landy...Landy...wake up...we have to go down now." Janice whispered.

"What? Hey, why are you here? Am I dreaming? Must be." Landy replied groggily, before falling asleep again.

"No, Landy, you are not dreaming…you'll have to get up now… I'll need your help to call the other girls up. I don't know their names!" Janice whispered urgently.

"What? Oh yeah… You fell asleep the moment we stepped in here...okay then. I'll help you call them. Gimme a minute." Landy replied, stretching herself.

"See this cubicle? The one just right in front of you? Well, that's Amelia. And the one in front of me is a girl by the name of Zoya. Now why don't you try to call them?" Landy replied.

"Okay...I'll try." Janice replied slowly. With that, she pulled open one of the curtains and peeked inside. A girl with blond hair was still sleeping. Janice presumed that she must be Zoya and gently shook her shoulders.

"Urm..Zoya? This is your roommate, Janice. You have to wake up now. We'll have to change from our pajamas into our school robes. We need to be in the hall by eight-thirty." Janice whispered.

"Mm? Eight-thirty? " Zoya mumbled, her eyes fluttering open, revealing her astounding eye colour, which was a sparkly aquamarine.

"Urm..yeah, eight-thirty." Janice mumbled...mesmerised by Zoya's eye colour.

"Thanks, urm..." Zoya replied, wondering who she was.

"Oh, my name's Janice." Janice replied, before going to the next cubicle to wake Amelia up.

Half an hour later, when all the girls had already changed into their school robes, they were ready to set off for the hall. When they had reached the common room, they saw the boys shooting sparks at each other.

"Hey Janice! Come and join in our mini duel! It's really fun!" Chee Hao said, as he shot some red sparks towards Lawrence.

"What? A mini duel? No thanks." Janice replied quickly. She didn't feel like embarrassing herself in front of everybody. Besides, she didn't know any spells yet.

"Don't you guys want to have some breakfast? Classes start at eight." Janice questioned the boys.

"You did'nt check the house notice board, did you? It says that there would no school for the first years today. Classes for us start tomorrow." Boon Kee said, as he ducked sparks shot by Lawrence.

Feeling confused, she walked towards the house notice board where there was a notice pinned up:

Attention to all first years

First Years please take note that there would be no classes on the 4th of January. In place will be talks about the school held by Professor Lim. Please assemble at eight-thirty in the hall.

"A talk? " Landy repeated.

"Yeah. Come on, let's go down for breakfast." Janice replied. With that, they climbed out of the portrait hole and walked towards the hall. Janice stopped dead in her tracks.

"What's wrong, Janice?" Landy asked.

"Urm...where's the hall?" Janice replied. She was so tired last night that she didn't realise where she was going.

"That's easy. Just follow me. I know where it is." Landy said brightly. With that, they started to walk again.

After walking through many staircases and corridors, they finally reached the hall. Gratefully, Janice quickly found a place at the CuiHua table and looked at the breakfast. Again, there was a lot of food on display - fish porridge, chicken porridge, Scrambled eggs, sausages, bacon, Nasi Lemak, Hash Browns, Toast, and all sorts of Jam you could think of. As Janice helped herself to some chicken porridge, the boys came in, panting.

"Did you guys just do a hundred metres sprint?" Landy said in a syrupy voice.

Lawrence was panting like a dog, which somehow reminded Janice of Sirius Black, Harry's godfather.

"The three of us stumbled into the forbidden corridor just now...we saw...." Lawrence panted.

"What did you see?" Landy asked excitedly, accidentally spilling her glass of milk.

"I don't think you guys want to know it. Besides, it would give you nightmares to last a lifetime." Chee Hao finished.

"WE want to know what's in there." Landy replied firmly.

The three boys now stared at each other, not knowing what to say.

"Pass us the strawberry jam please, we're starving." Boon Kee said briskly.

Furious, Janice slammed the bottle of jam on the table to Boon Kee, causing bits of jam to fly onto the table and continued eating her porridge.

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