Warren's Magical Menagerie

Tony Warren woke to the sound of dogs barking and cats meowing around him in the pet shop his family owned. The shop was on the bottom level and the family lived above it. But not many knew the whole truth about the shop. Warren's sold magical animals. Tony, his parents, and his sister Faye all had magical powers. Each of them had a familiar that helped them with their magic, and most of them had come from the pet shop at one time or another. Tony had a cat named Patchouli and his sister had a rabbit named Mugwort. His mom had a hamster named Rosemary, and his father had a lizard named Nightshade. Tony's friends only knew that he had the cat and lived above his family's pet store. They didn't know that he and Faye went to see their neighbor Rowan, who was a witch, in their spare time, to learn how to use their magic along with Patchouli and Mugwort. The two kids were developing a deeper bond with their familiars and a deeper grasp of their magic. Tony could cast simple spells and sometimes it was a temptation to use them at school when he was struggling with his work or being picked on.

One day, Tony's friends in the Jets gang saw him with Patchouli, talking to her. They wondered what was going on and Tony couldn't come up with a good explanation. He tried lying to them, attempting to convince them that it was all a trick, but they didn't buy it. He finally had to swear them to secrecy and tell them about the pet shop. Riff and the other Jets were amazed when they saw things like pink mice, cats that read fashion magazines, parrots that attempted to fortell the future, and all the other unusual animals in the pet shop. They finally started to believe that Tony and Faye had magical powers and were willing to remain his friends as long as he didn't use them on them.

Tony and Faye continued to learn more about their powers in their spare time and were soon able to do all sorts of things. The only time Tony ever used any serious magic was in class when a fellow student was cheating and wouldn't admit it. He even tried to frame a new student by putting his list of words under the other student's desk. Fortunately, Tony, who had seen the cheater taping the list under the new student's desk, brought it to the teacher's attention, told the truth about what he'd seen, and used a truth spell on the cheater, who confessed to everything. After school, he told his father what he'd done and why. His father lectured him about using his powers frivolously, but realized the other student might not have been willing to tell the truth on his own. So he merely warned Tony not to use his powers unless it was necessary and certainly not to cheat himself. Tony promised, and that was the end of that.

Things in the pet shop were basically normal after that---well, as normal as things could get in a shop full of magical animals anyway. Riff and the Jets were frequent visitors, and frequently the mice would attempt to coerce them into giving them extra treats, while the dogs asked for pats and strokes. Riff and the boys knew they would never truly get used to the unusual pet shop and the animals that lived there, but they liked it there because their friend was there and the customers that came in the shop were frequently very interesting. Tony found it hard to do his homework in the chaotic pet shop, but he wouldn't give up living there for anything in the world. All in all, the world of Warren's Pet Shop was as normal (or abnormal) as ever.