Chapter Two

August 17, 2003

Dear Gloom Journal,

Okay, so Miyazaki’s doesn’t seem quite so bad now that the other students are here. I thought I was gonna die of boredom last week, but now there’s stuff happening all over the place. First day of class, and already a kid managed to summon a squid demon into Lake Diablo. That was some funny stuff, seeing that kid flailing around in that giant tentacle like that. She’s just lucky the Summoning instructor was so fast on the spell, or we might have seen “The Sushi’s Revenge” out there today. I didn’t catch Squid Girl’s name, but she was cute, in a covered-in-squid-juice kinda way.

Also met the other kids in the Familiars class today, and I’m less impressed with them. If these are the people I’m gonna be spending the next three years with, I might have to buck family tradition and rethink my major. Note to any cops trying to find a clue to my murder: here are your prime suspects.

The least offensive of them is this Chinese punk rocker girl from San Francisco called Kiki Hark. I thought she was kinda cute at first, but then she kept punching me in the arm for some reason. Anyway, Kiki’s got this giant spider named Boris as a Familiar. I told her I thought Boris was cool, and that’s when she started punching me in the arm. It hurt. A lot. On second thought, maybe Kiki’s not that inoffensive after all.

The only other girl in the class is Lorelai Lovecraft, from this place called New England. She’s got some kind of land octopus as a Familiar. I’m not sure what it does, exactly, but it looks kinda cool. Cooler than Lorelai, anyway. She just stood around staring at everyone with those gigantic fish eyes of hers. I’m a creepy kid, and she was creeping me out. I’m voting her Most Likely to Hide the Bodies in the yearbook.

But Lorelai doesn’t begin to match Trevor Hitchcock. I only spent two hours with this guy, and I already hate him. He’s a snooty British kid, with some kind of other-dimensional thing in a box as his Familiar. He calls it “That Which Shall Not Be Named.” Whatever. He kept trying to put the moves on the girls, and just came off slimy. Bleah.

Trevor’s sidekick, Vito del Toro, wasn’t much better. He kept cracking his knuckles and talking about how his dad’s a “legitimate businessman,” whatever that means. Seems kinda dumb, too. I wonder how he even got into Miyazaki’s. Snappy dresser, though, and his Familiar’s this cool-looking black dog named Butch. It’s a Mastiff, I think. Whatever it is, it’s freaking enormous. It looks like it could swallow Ryuki in two bites. Not looking forward to fighting that thing.

And speaking of fighting, I won my first fight, like, ever today. Professor Tanaka asked for me and Trevor to have our Familiars spar, and Ryuki handed that Thing its ass. I was so proud, I gave Ryuki an extra helping of Virgin Bits for dinner. I don’t think I’ve ever been happier with my little dragon. Now, if only he’d stop setting my underwear on fire...