Jonka took a step forward.

I stepped back.

She didn’t look that threatening at first glance—after all, how scary can someone be with a little tooth-gap smile? But there was something about the way she grinned. Crooked. Like her face was saying, “You’re going to regret this.”

Then she snapped her fingers.

The other kids, who’d been background noise until now, started moving. One got behind me. Another flanked my right. A third—some freckled boy with one eye messily painted purple—just started laughing for no reason. Wonderful. Normal people.

“Scared?” Jonka tilted her head like a crow about to peck a corpse.

“No. Just... evaluating my options,” I said, trying to sound more sarcastic than terrified.

I took a step sideways.

She took two.

That’s when I looked back for Marty. That useless, lazy, sarcasm-powered adult who was supposed to be supervising me.

But Marty...

Was just...

Gone.

Gone gone. Not even the lingering smell of boredom he usually left behind.

“Oh, perfect,” I muttered. “This is definitely going on his stupid list.”

Jonka raised her fists like we were about to box. “Last chance. Gonna play with us or not?”

“I’ve got a better idea,” I said, and bolted in the opposite direction like my life depended on it—which, honestly, maybe it did.

The running part? Pathetic. I was five. My legs barely touched the ground before tripping again. And Jonka? She had to be at least seven. That’s like a whole decade of evolutionary advantage.

She was right behind me in seconds, yelling “GET HIM!” while I darted between crates of vegetables and adult legs, earning a chorus of “Who let that brat run loose?!”

Wrong turn.

Another. Still wrong.

I was cornered—wall behind me, hay cart to the side, and a very uninterested cat in front.

Deep breath. This was it.

I pulled the little piece of chalk Marty had given me before the trip, along with his irritating advice: “Never know when you’ll need a stylish exit.”

“I didn’t want to use this,” I muttered, kneeling. “But it’s better than getting punched by a girl with a missing tooth.”

I started drawing a basic wind glyph on the ground. My hand shook. The formula was in my head, but the lines came out messy. It didn’t have to be pretty—just functional. Hopefully.

I finished and stood in the middle.

Jonka turned the corner right then.

“What are you—”

The circle lit up.

And the ground exploded.

Well... almost exploded. It was a low-level propulsion spell. But I hadn’t regulated the force—and technically I wasn’t tall enough to cast this kind of thing properly—so I launched upward with all the grace of a sack of potatoes fired from a cannon.

I screamed.

Loudly.

The sky flipped. The ground turned into a tent.

And I landed.

Right on top of a watermelon.

SPLAT.

Silence.

An old man with a white mustache and an apron full of seeds stared at me like his entire life had flashed before his eyes—and unfortunately, it involved airborne children.

“...You gonna pay for that melon?” he asked, flatly.

I was still lying there, melon guts dripping off my head.

“...Talk to Marty,” I mumbled.

My voice was muffled because half the watermelon was still stuck to my face.

The man let out the kind of sigh that didn’t come from lungs, but from the soul. “There’s always a magic kid wrecking my stall. Always.”

Before I could explain that this was not “destruction” but rather “an organic-impact emergency landing,” someone grabbed me by the collar—and of course, it was him.

Marty.

Back from the void. Like a cat that shows up after the house burns down, looking smug about it.

He lifted me with one hand like I was some kind of mildly cursed flour sack.

“Had fun?” he asked, staring at the crushed melon.

“Define ‘fun.’”

The vendor huffed, pointing at the mess like he expected us to magically reassemble the fruit. Marty just reached into his pocket and dropped a few coins onto the stall.

“For the trauma. And the produce.”

“Are you two related?” the man asked.

“Worse,” said Marty. “Temporary guardian.”

We walked away before anyone else could hand us a damage report. Marty moved like nothing happened, and I was still dripping melon pulp.

“You left me alone,” I said, aiming to be offended.

“You left me alone,” he corrected, annoyingly calm. “I went to buy bread. Two minutes. In two minutes, you turned into a magic projectile and destroyed a poor man’s fruit stand.”

“It was self-defense!”

“It was magically-enhanced mayhem,” he said. “But hey—you used the chalk.”

“Only because I had no choice.”

Marty glanced sideways. “And yet... you didn’t die. That’s almost impressive.”

“Wow. Almost sounded like a compliment.”

“Don’t worry, it wasn’t.”

I wiped melon pulp off my face and looked around at the chaos I’d caused. The crushed fruit, the angry vendor, the curious stares—it all felt like another day in the life of a magically incompetent five-year-old.

Maybe one day I’d get the hang of this whole ‘not nearly killing myself’ thing. But not today.

Today, I was just a kid covered in watermelon, running from a tooth-gapped gang and trying to figure out how to survive until bedtime.

And honestly? That was probably enough magic for one day.