A bold move on my part [Diana Carey] on Labyrinth Gardens

Jake Manger

October 02, 2014 10:46 PM

A bold move on my part [Diana Carey] by Jake Manger

Jake had been to a few balls in his time, and he actually thought they were pretty great. Everybody always looked wonderful, and there was music and dancing. It seemed like a place where nobody could ever be sad, which was probably what he liked best about it. He liked when people were happy; it made him happy too!

The thing about this ball at Sonora, though, was that he was apparently expected to have a date. Now, Jake was not terribly interested in girls yet, but anybody would eyes could tell that there were a lot more girls than boys at his school, so if he did not ask somebody, it would just be less fun for more people. With that in mind, the Teppenpaw resolved to find himself a date.

But the problem was how to choose. Jake did not have any close friends, so he felt no stronger about any girl than the rest of them. At first he thought he might just pick the prettiest, but that soon fell through; girls were all beautiful in their own special ways. So what was he supposed to do?

Jake thought long and hard on the subject, paging through the names of all the young ladies in his mind. He knew them all because he took it upon himself to know everybody’s name, which was not too hard with a small school like this but made him feel more like he belonged. He thought about first names and he thought about last names. In the end, he based his decision on a last name.

“Carey” seemed to be a name that carried weight around here. Plus, he remembered Diana Carey from classes; she was a petite Pecari with brunette curls. She always seemed nice enough. Asking her would probably make his family happy. (Not that any of his immediate relations really cared about that stuff. It just looked good anyway; maybe it would look good enough for his mom to forget about the Sally thing.)

The twelve year old spent the next few days trying to find Diana alone so he could ask her. Eventually he spied her on a stroll in the Gardens, a bit ahead of him. A grin spread a cross his face as he called to her. “Hey, Diana! Wait up!” Jake scurried up the path as quickly as he could without getting out of breath and thus looking stupid, all panting and red-faced. His scurry was a brisk walk, really. Maybe a borderline jog.

He still wore his smile when he finally reached her. “Hi,” he spoke casually. “Uh, I’m Jake. Manger,” he included as an afterthought. Last names mattered here. “We have a bunch of classes together? I was wondering…. if... maybe…. you’d like to go to the ball with me?” He was surprised how nervous he was now that this was actually happening; his knees felt funny and his palms were kind of sweaty. Asking girls to balls was apparently really hard!

12 Jake Manger A bold move on my part [Diana Carey] 280 Jake Manger 1 5

Diana Carey

October 04, 2014 6:55 PM

An impulsive one on mine by Diana Carey

So far, there was nothing exactly wrong with Diana’s first year. She had met her roommates, who seemed like pleasant, socially acceptable girls to know. She had written home, excited, about the ball at the end of the year and been promised a pretty dress and a new necklace to wear to it once spring came around. Every Wednesday, she went to see Jay at the big library table he spent most of his evenings at – from what she had gathered, this table was where the oldest member of the family had presided over the rest of them for years, now, except for last year when Jay had shared it with Alexandra Devereux because she was only a Carey on her mother’s side and Diana and Jay’s sister Theresa…lacked the skills to help out much – and was always praised when she demonstrated the skills she had learned in the past week, and had been even more flattered when Jay had asked her for opinions of two of her classmates. Admittedly, his interest in Clark Dill and John Umland had not been prompted by anything really important, just Quidditch, but he had still asked her opinion, which made her think he thought she was smart enough to have one worth asking about.

In spite of all that, though, something just felt off. Diana did not feel like she was doing things right. She thought it might be Brandon’s fault – it was all right to still act like kids at home, but Bran seemed to think they ought to be that way together at school, too, when Diana had spent the two years since he left learning about how important it was to be a lady at school, both for the family’s and for her own sake. She had almost gotten used to it, but now, it felt strange to sit inside and work on a needlepoint pillow to give to her mother for Christmas instead of sneaking into the kitchens to cause chaos with Brandon just to see if they’d get caught. Brandon, too, was confused about why Diana curled her hair neatly now, and wore lip gloss, and was even trusted with a needle – she never would have been before, after all, because Jay and Theresa, who had really always looked after her and Bran more than their parents did, knew she would just make trouble with it. Somehow, though, she didn’t think that her resulting habit of avoiding her favorite brother was all it was, but she didn’t know what else it could be. Something was just off.

She was thinking vaguely about this as she took her afternoon walk one day, a habit to clear her head before she went to the library to start her homework, and jumped when she suddenly heard someone call her name. She thought, as she turned, that it might be Brandon, but no – it was a boy she recognized from her classes. She did not, however, know his name, and so smiled uncertainly as she stopped to wait for him to catch up to her.

He was nice enough to introduce himself, and her smile became more friendly after he did. She blinked, though, confused, when he asked her to the ball, as it was both months away and, well, she was pretty sure they had never actually spoken before….

On the other hand, though, the alternative was spending the evening watched over by her family, and having someone go out of his way to notice and dance with her would, she was sure, be a real feather in her cap with the other girls – a group she still did not feel completely comfortable with, not after growing up surrounded by brothers and male cousins and not being close to either of her sisters, but which she knew she needed to be respected in. Most first years probably wouldn’t have anyone but older brothers, if that, and she thought she had heard the surname before, so she wouldn’t get in trouble for it, so…why not?

“Um – all right, why not,” she said impulsively. “Unless we find out we hate each other before then, of course,” she added quickly, with her brightest smile. "But otherwise, all right." Since she was here to win friends, she asked, "would you like to walk with me to the library to start finding out?"

0 Diana Carey An impulsive one on mine 294 Diana Carey 0 5

Jake

October 18, 2014 11:25 PM

I like this impulse! by Jake

Jake was actually somewhat surprised that Diana said yes (well, technically she said “why not”), but the confirmation lifted a load of his shoulders and improved his physicality, knees feeling a bit stronger under newfound confidence. He interpreted the bit about possibly ending up hating each other as a joke, because, while sometimes purebloods could be difficult to completely interpret, she boasted a brilliant and rather beautiful smile. “That’s great!” he said with a mirroring grin.

“Would you like to walk with me to the library to start finding out?” she posed. So she was going to the library. That, Jake figured, meant that she was bright. That was good; the Teppenpaw loved intelligent people. Arnold and Sally were some of the smartest people he knew, and Ryan was definitely no dummy either (no matter what Carrie had ever tried to tell him). While Jake was not nearly as smart as any of them, he loved listening to them talk about things they knew or cared about. Ryan’s Transfigurations were amazing; Sally was going to law school; and Arnold sometimes shared his Intermediate-level notes with him. They were, he felt, all geniuses in their own rites, and maybe Diana would prove to be one too!

Jake extended his arm to her. “Diana, accompanying you would be my pleasure,” he beamed with sincerity. Much like his cousin Marcus, he genuinely thought highly of women and consequently could easily flatter. Apparently Marcus won “Class Flirt” in the yearbook a lot, which seemed weird because the older boy really was not flirty; he was just nice. Jake had the sense that might happen to him too once his classmates got to know him a little better.

“Do you mind if I ask what you’re looking for there?” he inquired politely. “Is it something for class or for pleasure? Because if it’s for class, I could definitely try to help you if you needed, and if it’s for fun, I know a bunch of good books. I haven’t read them all, but my Arnold always recommends them to me, and I promise he’s an excellent source.”

12 Jake I like this impulse! 280 Jake 0 5

Diana

October 19, 2014 3:15 PM

It seems to be working out fo both of us by Diana

Diana was not too surprised when she was taken up on her offer, but she was a little surprised to be offered an arm. She took it anyway, smiling and deciding to just go along and see what happened next. This was turning out to be a surprisingly interesting day….

“You have an Arnold, too?” exclaimed Diana, then blushed as she realized how that sounded. “I’m sorry – one of my cousins is named Arnold. He’s one of my better cousins, but I wouldn’t ask him for book recommendations.” Arnold didn’t have a lot of interests, that Diana could tell – just Quidditch and a wife, neither of which held much of Diana’s attention – but she liked him. He had played with her and Brandon when they were little and usually let them win the games and hadn’t seemed to find them as annoying as most people had.

“I was going to do my homework,” she said, getting back to the real question, “but I wouldn’t mind hearing about good books, either.” She did read on her own sometimes, to fill the time; not as much as Henry, who liked to be left alone with his books full of facts and could be worked into a truly bad temper by people, like Brandon and Diana, who tried to provoke him into doing something a little more active with his time when he was at home, but it had been something to do sometimes after Bran left for school with Henry and Jay and Theresa, leaving her, with Cecilia and Peter, her two younger siblings, just being babies and her cousins all being grown up, with no one to play with anymore. Bran’s first year had been awful for her, and she’d missed him last year, too, worrying more, though she had had better sense by then than to admit it, about him once she realized something bad had happened at the school than she had for her other siblings or her cousin Anthony. "What kinds of things do you and your Arnold read?"

0 Diana It seems to be working out fo both of us 0 Diana 0 5

Jake

October 21, 2014 9:28 PM

Fo sure! by Jake

”You have an Arnold too?” Diana exclaimed, then blushed. Jake wasn’t really sure why she blushed except maybe because she had been loud. It seemed like girls were taught not to be loud or to occupy much attention, but he personally disagreed. He thought girls had every right to express themselves however they wanted, even if that meant being a bit loud. “I’m sorry--one of my cousins….”

“Oh, you don’t have to apologize to me,” he inserted quickly before she returned to the question at hand. Homework, huh? Jake had already offered to help, but he retroactively lamented that promise because he was only really decent academically, not any sort of intellectual prodigy like his (biological) siblings. Sally was probably the smartest, and Arnold was a quick second. His non-biological step-brother--or just brother, as far as he was concerned--Ryan was no dummy either, though. The book recommendation thing, Jake could do a lot better.

”What kinds of things do you and your Arnold read?”

“I like adventure stories, mostly,” the Teppenpaw answered merrily. “But my brother, he could read anything. I think if you handed him a dictionary, he’d hand it back in the same night. He just really likes reading.” There were a lot of elevated books Arnold had read on recommendation from Sally, for which Jake was happy; books were his older siblings’ main bonding point. But most of those books, when sent down to him, were just too hard. “Do you read much?” he asked in return.

12 Jake Fo sure! 280 Jake 0 5

Diana

October 23, 2014 7:20 PM

We both get an F in spelling by Diana

Diana giggled when Jake said his Arnold might read a dictionary in a night. “That sounds like my Arthur or my Henry,” she said. “Another cousin, and one of my brothers,” she added.

She considered how to answer the question about her own reading habits. “Some,” she said. “Not dictionaries or anything, though. I wanted to come to school when Brandon – one of my other brothers – did so bad, so I spent ages just reading – you know – school books, books about people going to school, I mean, not textbooks, so I could pretend I had, too.”

Diana felt a little silly admitting that, even though she didn’t think it was that strange. Lots of people read those kinds of books; some of them were even adventure stories, more or less, the ones people had bought for her older brothers to read instead of the more ‘friends and boys’- oriented ones they had bought for her and her sisters, so Jake might have read some of the same books she had, even. “They made school sound a lot more exciting than it really is, though,” she added. “I haven’t found a single hidden treasure here all year, and if any of my brothers have fought dragons or gone on quests or anything, they haven’t told me about it, and I couldn’t imagine having a real adventure and never telling anyone about it.”

She smiled up at her date. “You’ve been here longer than me, though. Have you heard any interesting legends about Sonora?” she asked, not really caring if he made stuff up off the top of his head or not. It would at least be something interesting to talk about, which was almost rare with people who were supposed to be society enough for her to respectably talk to much.

0 Diana We both get an F in spelling 0 Diana 0 5