Joseph Umland
July 27, 2016 5:18 PM
Brooding. by Joseph Umland
For the second time in as many years, Joe was grateful, deeply grateful, to walk into the warm-toned confines of the Teppenpaw Common Room. As he sat down in a chair gratefully, stretching his legs out in front of him, a corner of his brain wondered, off-task, if there was going to be one day of every year where he was really, really glad to be here, seven together in the end, to make a set, but then he dismissed that as stupid. Being brought to Teppenpaw at the end of his first day of school had been a relief last year and escaping the company of his siblings was a relief today, after the Easter break of his second year, but what could possibly happen next year?As soon as he thought that, he crossed his fingers to ward off bad luck. He hadn’t expected today, after all, and his awareness of the fact that things could always get worse was why he had worried that he might get Sorted into Crotalus last year. John and Julian both looked down on Crotali….
It was amazing, he thought, just how much could change in two weeks. Two weeks ago, Teppenpaw hadn’t lost the Quidditch match yet, and just over a week ago, when he and John had gone home for Easter and had been forced to tell their sister about said loss, John had tried to offer indirect consolation by telling Julian in some detail how clever Joe had been as he'd helped Gabe completely deceive Joella Curtis, Joe had gotten annoyed by the sympathy and started talking about how well John had done in the unfamiliar position of protecting the Aladren Seeker before Christmas, and Julian had laughed at them both. ”Roland is bold and Olivier is wise and they are both most marvelously brave,” she’d paraphrased, and the Wars of the English Peas might well have flared up for the first time in years if their mother hadn’t entered the room just then. It had only seemed a little funny at the time, but the memory seemed practically ecstatic after the misery that had been Wednesday through Sunday.
Worse than the actual tension, though, had been the knowledge that it was his fault that his brother and sister had been unhappy. He couldn’t know if it would have helped anything if he had broken faith with John and explained to Julian why their brother was in such an erratic, dramatic temper after he’d realized John and Julian were fighting, but there wouldn’t have been a situation that needed any help if Joe hadn’t agreed to speak with Sam. Maybe there was some outside chance their birth mother would have found John and provoked him into a fit anyway, but Joe was pretty sure the odds had not been in favor of that happening. He’d felt sorry for Sam and a little anxious about the whole street gossiping about them if there was a scene and because of those concerns of his, his two closest siblings had now acted like strangers to each other, at best, for half a week. At first Joe had wanted to beg them to get over it, but now he was more inclined to bang their thick heads together. What was wrong with them?
Maybe distance would do what reason couldn’t. He hoped so. A couple of thousand kilometers was a long way. In a week, one of them would scribble an apology and enough time would pass between now and midsummer for them to both let it go. They were family. What could they possibly hold onto for that….
He shut that line of thought right down. There were things that were unforgivable, even in families. It could always, he always remembered whenever he got too optimistic, be worse. But he couldn’t believe John and Julian were quarreling over anything as severe as that. They’d get over it. He was sure of that, as sure as he was that his brother was not crazy, as their biological mother had alleged, and that Julian did not love her biological parents more than theirs, as John had very nearly alleged. But he was still glad to be back at Sonora, to be away from it all until it blew over.
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Joseph Umland
Brooding.
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Joseph Umland
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