Presenting myself for duty, ma'am! on Cascade Hall

Headmistress Powell

August 14, 2009 4:04 AM

Welcome back... and a surprise! by Headmistress Powell

It wasn't customary for the Headteacher to give a welcoming speech in the students' return from the winter holiday. However, it was becoming increasingly common at Sonora, as an effect of re-introducing the midsummer activities, and Sadi had some important news to share with the rest fo the school. So at the evening meal upon the students' return, she called attention to herself by tapping her water goblet with her spoon and asking for quiet. When the students had settled, Sadi spoke.

"Welcome back," she greeted with a gentle smile. "I hope everyone had a refreshing break." Again, a smile and a short pause before she continued. "You will probably be aware by now that Sonora Academy has recently re-instated the tradition of Midsummer celebrations. This year, we will be holding a bonfire, and students will camp out on the Quidditch pitch." Again Sadi paused to allow any reactions to this news to occur and subside before she delivered the real surprise. "However, the bonfire will be before your end of year exams," - it was usual for the end of year event to be just that: at the end of the year - "so that we can accomodate a guest school for the occasion. We will play host to staff and students from Rocky Mountain International."

Sadi had expected the buzz that followed this news. She herself was excited to invite another school to visit, but the venture was not without its complications. Though subject matter was similar, no school was the same. Each Headteacher would have their own approach to teaching, and as such they were bound not to see eye to eye on several matters. Nevertheless, the students were, in essence, the same: eleven to eighteen year-olds, studying magic in America. Sadi hoped this would be a wonderful chance for unfamiliar students to engage with each other. "While this is an exciting opportunity for you to meet other witches and wizards of your age," she again addressed her school, "I hope you will remember that you are representatives of this school, and that you will behave accordingly."

"During the daytime, there will be activities for you to take part in, organised by your House prefects. If the prefects, head Boy and Head Girl could stay behind after the meal to discuss this with me, I would appreciated it." That was enough talking for now. "Enjoy your meal!"

Subthreads:

Presenting myself for duty, ma'am! by Prefect Saul with Headmistress Powell, Paul Tarwater, Josh Santoro, Elly Eriksson, Lila St. Martin, Josiah, Geoffrey Layne

*In hallway outside of Cascade* Post -Speech Dealings by Laurie Cider (and briefly, Ian Grimm) with Cecily Smythe

0 Headmistress Powell Welcome back... and a surprise! 0 Headmistress Powell 1 5

Prefect Saul

August 14, 2009 4:53 PM

Presenting myself for duty, ma'am! by Prefect Saul

At the Headmistress's announcement, Saul could barely sit still long enough to finish his meal. He fidgeted in place and spilled his water and wondered out loud what kinds of activities he and the other prefects were supposed to be organizing. His theories ranged from cave spelunking to aerial tours of the dessert to a variety of activities at every altitude in between.

Once he finished all his pepperoni - the rest of his meal lay largely forgotten and abandoned on his plate - he had decided he'd eaten enough and could no longer wait another moment to find out what, exactly, it was that he was supposed to be doing for the bonfire.

He bounded up to his feet and hurried to the Staff table for the Prefect Meeting, his expression bright and eager, happy to have something new to do other than the usual school activities. After everything going one during the previous year, he'd had entirely too much free time on his hands this year. He was hopeful this bonfire would be every bit as exciting and engrossing as the Concert had been.

And maybe it would spark the perfect idea for whatever his senior year prank was going to be. None of the plans he'd come up with so far had that special Saul zing to them.

1 Prefect Saul Presenting myself for duty, ma'am! 82 Prefect Saul 0 5

Laurie Cider (and briefly, Ian Grimm)

August 15, 2009 2:27 AM

In hallway outside of Cascade Post -Speech Dealings by Laurie Cider (and briefly, Ian Grimm)

Laurie found a seat next to Josh, listened to the unexpected welcoming speech, and then watched, with a distant and vague feeling of horror, as the seat across from her was taken by the very person she wished to see the least. Ian Grimm flashed a beady smile and grabbed a bread roll, tossing out a greeting that that sent her flying into action.

"Hello Laurel. About that phone call-"

Laurie yanked the third year Aladren from his seat before he could finish and dragged him out of the Cascade Hall, hoping that her (terse) smile would somehow explain her hasty exit. It was only once assured of some amount of privacy, two passages out of the Hall, that she released her hold on her unwitting companion.

"I thought we agreed to keep things quiet." Laurie was all things bothered, her fingers tightly gripped on the edges of her sweater. "That means no surprising me in the Cascade Hall like just now, and no acting like we're suddenly best friends."

Ian scowled, an expression she was growing all too familiar with, and began straightening the sleeves of his button-down. "To be exact, you ordered and I was merely left with a dial tone. You hardly allowed me an opportunity to respond last night."

"My brother was calling for me," she explained distractedly, her mind far too wrapped up on more important things like explaining away Ian's presence in her every-day and his far too knowing address from earlier. "Besides, I don't think there's a need to tell anyone about our connection." Her expression darkened; she could only imagine what the scene in Cascade Hall must have seemed like to Josh. He already had a poor opinion of Ian from past encounters; although, to be fair, Laurie doubted anyone had a good opinion of Ian. He was altogether very strange. "I don't need my boyfriend to get the wrong impression."

"I would think," Ian said, his tone disdainful, "that you should be more worried about your boyfriend learning you're keeping things from him. I hear word that omission of facts is akin to lying."

"It's not lying," she snapped, cheeks flushing; she refused to consider his words as anything but needless prodding. "I'll tell him . . . eventually. It's not exactly pressing on my list of priorities." The innate selfishness of her words went unrealized by her, but Ian's scowl gained a hint of amusement as he leaned in.

"Careful cousin, you showed the Grimm part of you just now."

Before she could muster a response appropriate enough to fully express her outrage, the younger boy sauntered off, his hand extended in a brief wave of farewell. Laurie stared after him, exasperation and relief warring for dominance. Ultimately, neither won, an underlying well of misery surging past them and settling into her chest. She had not left her parents in good terms at all; the discovery of her new hair color was taken poorly all around, and had Laurie not been privy to the true circumstances of her parentage, she would have thought their reaction insanely out of proportion. As it was, she sympathized greatly with her mother, who spent the remainder of the holiday dripping with tears whenever Laurie and her quite brown hair entered the room; so what if Laurie now shared the same hair color as the rest of her family? In the end, it didn't matter what her appearance was, blood was blood, and Laurie had only served to drive this point further with her mother in the worst sort of way. Laurie knew she was adopted, and her parents, of course, knew she was adopted, but they did not know that she knew, and it made it all the more horrible.

Her father had dropped her off that morning at the port-key stop with barely more than a sentence passing between them; for once, she had wished that the trip to Arizona had included a plane flight, if only to have given her more time to try and come up with something to say- anything, really, to say that would make things better.

Somehow, though, she felt that nothing was going to be better, not for a long, long time.

"You have company, girlie."

Laurie straightened at the whisper that drifted into her ear from the portrait behind her. The gingham-dressed milkmaid pointed down the hallway, and Laurie's eyes widened in alarm. Indeed, her hallway had been shared after all, and God only knew how long it had been so. Just how much of her conversation had been overheard? If it had, just what could she possibly do to ensure silence? Anxiously, she brushed her still unfamiliar brown hair from her face and squared her shoulders, calling out as she walked forward.

"Hi, I didn't see you there." And hoping to discover the length of the stay, she tried for small talk. "I had to get away from the Hall chatter, just too much noise after break. Did you just step out?"

0 Laurie Cider (and briefly, Ian Grimm) *In hallway outside of Cascade* Post -Speech Dealings 0 Laurie Cider (and briefly, Ian Grimm) 0 5

Headmistress Powell

August 17, 2009 3:41 AM

Calling all Prefects, Head Boy and Head Girl by Headmistress Powell

Once food had been eaten and the prefects began to gather at the staff table, Sadi led them to a smaller, quieter table in the Hall and invited each of them to take a seat. When all were assembled, she told them about their duties in more detail. "As prefects," she said, including Geoffrey Layne and Briony O'Leary in this address, "you will be required to organise and run some daytime activities for Sonora's own students, and those who are visiting. I would recommend three activities in total, with a small group of you running each, so as not to give yourselves too much work."

"Now then, the staff had some ideas about what you might like to do. These include a team broom race or activity, some sort of obstacle course involving aspects of teamwork, and an academic competition of sorts: a guess the potion contest, for example." There had been lots of ideas submitted but these three had seemed the most popular and achievable, making least mess on the day (which was a strong mark in their favor). "The details of the events are up to you," the Headmistress continued. "Just check your final idea with a member of staff. So, if you'd like to form yourselves into groups you can start planning whenever you're ready. Are there any questions?"

OOC:Pick a group and an activity for your character - those who don't decide will be placed where they are needed. A couple of team activities would be nice, to allow for lots of character interaction. Feel free to submit any queries here IC, on on the OOC board.

0 Headmistress Powell Calling all Prefects, Head Boy and Head Girl 0 Headmistress Powell 0 5

Saul

August 17, 2009 9:15 AM

Torn and confused by Saul

As Headmistress Powell explained what it was that they would be doing as Prefects and Heads, Saul's smile grew even more than it had before. He liked all of the ideas she came up with except the academic contest one. That one, he was sure, was quite out of his league. He figured the Aladrens could handle it without any trouble and turned his thoughts to the other two.

This was where the trouble lie. Both the team broom race/activity and the obstacle course sounded awesome. His mind was already coming up with variants and ways to make them both really fun, for both the participants and the organizers.

He also looked around at the thirteen other students in charge of organizing and started counting out how many people would be in three evenly split groups. He came up with two groups would have five people and one would have four. Ideally, in his opinion, his group would be himself, Briony, Elly, Irene, and Pepper, but thought this might unfairly split Eavan from her friends, and six was too many.

He was torn. He was undecided.

He was talking. "I want to do the obstacle course!" The declaration was possibly more of a surprise to himself than to anyone else. But he could run with it. Obstacle courses were the best. "But if the other groups need any help or ideas, especially the broom thing, I'm totally not too busy."

He looked at his four friends, the two other Pecari prefects, and the two red-haired Teppenpaws, not sure if he should encourage all of them to join him, or just some of them. Plus, it might be a little weird to work with both Briony and Pepper. Briony had been acting a little strange around him this year and Jose seemed to think he should be dating Pepper instead. But maybe if they did all work together, they could sort out whatever it was that was making things weird.

1 Saul Torn and confused 82 Saul 0 5

Paul Tarwater

August 19, 2009 12:27 PM

I'm glad nothing has changed by Paul Tarwater

Midterm had been so nice, so very nice and quiet. Practically nobody had stayed at Sonora for the term, and he had time to walk around, without a care in the world. Read, sleep, relax. Who cared that he’d been sick practically the whole time? Why should that have slowed him down when he had already slowed down naturally, if anything the sickness was a welcome. He’d actually slept, he’d forgotten how nice sleeping was, even if he had to wake up with a stuffed nose and burning face. It had been such a nice Midterm break, either way.

And now, it seemed it had been over way too fast. School had started again, and the school was as congested as his sinuses over Midterm. He still had the cold residue, but found that coupled with the inability to sleep anymore made it ten times more unbearable to be here. What was worse, he had been able to skate through the first half of school without a problem, without a worry, without a care other than avoiding the dark haired Pecari that was his sister. Coming back to the after-Midterm feast, he found now, while stuffing his face with the good food, that not only were there going to be more people visiting Sonora, but now he had to get up and discuss it with everyone else instead of going to his room after the meal.

Being a Prefect wasn’t the greatest thing in the world for Paul Tarwater. Who disliked being around people to the point that he practically shrunk walking up to the Headmistress with a scowl and wishing he could just disappear into nothingness, thanks, which he was taking bets that no one would care anyway. He could at least count his lucky stars and say that at least, at least there was no chance of him getting Head Boy. Ever. Prefect was a fluke, but with the biased students picking out who they felt was “best Head Boy and Girl”, he certainly would not be chosen. Lucky stars counted, there were a lot there.

He stood among the others, listening to what may be the plans here. And nearly fainted. And then, nearly swore.

Yes, because Paul Tarwater worked well in groups. Paul Tarwater worked well in groups of people he didn’t like. This was a fabulous idea, put Paul Tarwater in a group to think up activities for some other stupid school. What was this woman on? He winced again, hearing Saul Pierce call out for that obstacle course thing, not that Paul was ever going to touch that in the first place, but now, he decided, it would be even better to stay away from. He was better at the academic stuff anyway.

He coughed, his voice still scratchy from the cold, but what else was new? “I can make potions... or something like that,” he offered, practically an inaudible whisper. He was no follower, but if someone else wanted to do something with his offer, he would take it. No way was he setting an entire

0 Paul Tarwater I'm glad nothing has changed 0 Paul Tarwater 0 5

Josh Santoro

August 19, 2009 5:33 PM

It hardly ever does. by Josh Santoro

Well, that was definitely a strange announcement. A different school would be over-taking (yes, he was thinking over-taking because a place to cause havoc would be idea for students who weren’t from around here) the school for the bonfire. He wasn’t really sure how that would turn out other than in complete chaos. Oh well. He would grin and bare it as he had done for many other things in his life. Such as, having to spend some of his summer in the presence of Danae’s parents.

There were many positive things that Jose liked when it came to being Prefect. First and foremost, it would look great on his college applications. Second, it meant he had some authority even if he nearly never used it. And third, he could keep up with what was going on behind the scenes that other students weren’t aware of. Of course, that didn’t mean there weren’t any negative things that came with being a Prefect.

One negative thing was that, even though he had the inside scoop, he also had to actually help put things together. It was moments like this that Jose truly believed that Helena would have been the better pick of the two. She had jumped wholeheartedly into the concert/play last year without missing a beat while Jose had only wanted to help from behind the scenes. It just went to show how different certain people took to things.

Like now. Saul, who was always so eager to jump right into the swing of things, called the one thing that most of the students were more than likely to flock to during the bonfire. Of course. Which also meant that all the other Pecaris and anyone else who enjoyed following them would also flock to the obstacle course. Now, Josh liked Saul and the other Pecaris, but he could only handle so much of them before their rambunctiousness got the better of him. He had lived with a Pecari his whole life. His patience was thin.

Paul Tarwater, who Josh was always a little hesitant on due to his relationship with Danae, spoke up about potions. Josh frowned momentarily. This was the other option that Josh had been thinking about taking. Potions he was pretty good at. Academics, Josh was good at. So, doing this activity was the best option for him. Removing the frown from his face, Josh spoke up to Paul, “I’m pretty good at Potions too. I’ll work with you on this one. It shouldn’t be too bad deciding on what to make or what to do in general.” Josh said, before adding to himself I hope.

0 Josh Santoro It hardly ever does. 0 Josh Santoro 0 5

Elly Eriksson

August 20, 2009 8:58 AM

I disagree. Transfiguration professors? by Elly Eriksson

After a really good midterm holiday, Elly was, as usual, excited to be back at school. She had - for the first time - managed to stay up-to-date with her holiday homework assignments so didn't have that manic feeling of needing to rush to get everything done that she usually associated with returning to school. Plus the second half of the year was always fun, what with Midsummer celebrations and pranks.

Hey wait - add to that. Midsummer celebration, pranks, and another school?! Elly could barely contain her excitement (though she seemed to be doing a marginally better job of it than Saul). Sure, there was a tiny hint of possessiveness of her school, and a minute worry that the other students might not be so friendly, but these thoughts were squashed quite successfully by the opportunity to a) make new friends and b)show off their school to a group of unfamiliar students.

After knocking back a large glass of lemonade and a mound of cheesy potato wedges, Elly followed the other prefects to where Headmistress Powell started to tell them a bit more about the activites. They all sounded fun. Academics were not generally Elly's thing, true enough, but potions was a different matter: she was ace at potions. Though Paul Tarwater and Josh Santoro seemed to have claimed that one already. Elly was happy to work with Josh, but she was under no misapprehension that she and Paul were buddies. Best leave that one alone. That left the decision of whether to work on the obstacle course with Saul, or the broom event. Both were tempting. Elly wondered whether being in the same House as others organising the event would be an issue, but she decided not - this wasn't about Houses, it was for everyone.

"I'd like to do the obstacle course, too," Elly ventured. Then, as an after-thought, she added, "but if everyone else wants to do that I'm happy to do the broom one, instead."

0 Elly Eriksson I disagree. Transfiguration professors? 92 Elly Eriksson 0 5

Cecily Smythe

August 20, 2009 5:54 PM

Post-holiday catch-up by Cecily Smythe

It was almost painful to be back in school after such a wonderfully relaxing break. Of course seeing the Ladies helped a great deal, but Cecily was still wound up even as the Headmistress started talking. She barely reacted to the 'surprise' news. With a cousin at Rocky Mountain and her father being the Minister for Education, Cecily could hardly not have known the news already. Nevertheless she happily engaged in chit-chat about whether there would be any pureblood wizards about their age who would be coming over to Sonora.

When she had finished her plate of mixed bean salad and mackerel, Cecily headed out of the Hall to gather a last breath of fresh air before settling into her dormitory and admitting defeat to the term restarting. Out in the corridor, nowhere near the Crotalus commons (or Aladren, as far as she knew), Cecily saw Laurie with Ian Grimm, of all people. She was hesitant in approaching her friend because that boy was too peculiar to be dealt with right now. Then Ian looked like he was about to leave, so Cecily walked primly to Laurie. Ignoring her friend's greeting, Cecily said, "Why are you talking to Ian Grimm?" her voice was more incredulous than curious or derisive, but still in her usual understated fashion.

0 Cecily Smythe Post-holiday catch-up 122 Cecily Smythe 0 5

Paul

August 21, 2009 1:30 PM

That should seem pretty normal by now by Paul

Paul had already spoken up about potions, standing there feeling very embarrassed about actually speaking up. Well, no, not about just speaking out, but being the second person to speak up, the person who had spoken up after Saul Pierce. If there was any way to retract his voice from that moment, Paul Tarwater would spend his life looking for it. And he gulped, face paling as he took an uneasy step backwards.

However, to his surprise, Josh Santoro’s voice came up next, and Paul felt his face scrunch into confusion for a moment before masking again. When it came to Josh Santoro, well, Paul didn’t know what to think. Danae Dupree was Paul’s friend (probably Paul’s only friend), and this was her “betrothed” or whatever. The girl had expressed her concerns to him around the end of last year, and Paul had struggled in playing the comforting shoulder. But he did remember her concerns, about her friendship with this boy, and divorce, children, a few major things.

Worry about Danae aside, Paul knew nothing about Josh Santoro. And so his was only a thin dislike, as the boy had never actually offended Paul in anyway. Paul gave the boy a clear, visible nod, though he couldn’t say his voice was as clear, “Yeah. Okay. Sounds good. We can.” Short, cut sentences that ended in Paul looking away, back to surveying the room in his nervous paranoia. Looking at the next person who spoke.

Before he noticed it was Elly Eriksson and promptly looked away, hiding his tightened lips and rolling his eyes at the ground. Yes, of course she would go with Saul, though he was a little more puzzled when she offered up taking something else as well. No, he shouldn’t bother himself with any of that, Paul’s fear of change was forcing him to look at everything, expecting some terrible shift. No, don’t bother with Elly too, just thankful that he didn’t have her in his “group”. Josh he betted he could deal with, hopefully with as little closeness as possible.

0 Paul That should seem pretty normal by now 0 Paul 0 5

Lila St. Martin

August 31, 2009 8:37 PM

Downright dull. by Lila St. Martin

Midterm had been an unqualified disaster. Even with RATS on the way and classes and, she was sure, seventy-five percent of the school hating her, she was almost glad to return for the second half of her seventh year at Sonora. At least she didn't have to deal with her parents giving her odd looks - as if she had suddenly turned into another person - all the time, as they'd been doing since that stupid ball.

She was debating herself over whether or not she should eat a salad when the Headmistress started tapping her goblet to get the room's attention. Grateful for the distraction, she looked up - and almost immediately felt her mouth draw down in distaste.

She'd known that there was going to be a bonfire this year, but she hadn't heard anything about camping out. The idea was not one she had a lot of contact with, but she had a vague picture of Muggles sleeping on the ground. Lila was not a Muggle, and she was not poor. She should not sleep on the ground. Maybe Daddy was worried enough about her to put in an objection if she asked him to...Surely it wasn't good for her health to go outdoors for very long at a time. Mama never allowed it.

Oh. Right. That was about her complexion, not her health. Freckles were so unattractive.

Then, however, came an announcement that completely pushed the idea of sleeping on the ground out of her head. Guests for the ceremonies? International ones?

Lila sat up straighter, beginning to think very fast and to all but shut the Headmistress' voice out. This could either be very, very good...or very, very bad. On one hand, no one from this international place would know about that play or anything else, and the delegation might well contain one or two suitable husband candidates. That would be very good. A bonfire, however, was not the best opportunity in the world to show off her real talents or her manners, and she had no idea how she was expected to put up with the other prefects without snapping at someone. That, especially in front of a husband candidate, would be very bad.

Plus, if she didn't keep an eye on people, someone might be inspired to put on a revival of The Play to show the strangers, and then she'd have to kill someone. Murder was, as a rule, considered even less appropriate for a well-bred young lady than freckles.

She almost missed the part where she and the other prefects were to stay behind, but had just enough luck on her side - she heard the last bit, and was able to figure out the rest when she saw the others, all of whom she was now much, much more familiar with than she liked, remaining behind as well for a secondary meeting.

Lila wasn't sure if this meeting made it better or worse. A positive was that there was no room whatsoever for The Play to rear its ugly head again, but...The last time she'd been in charge of entertaining a large group of students, it had been a forty-broom pile-up. Lila didn't have another year to rebuild her lasting legacy at the school. If it all went wrong this time, that was it. Besides, Powell had very clearly lost touch with her inner Crotalus if she could get within a million miles of imagining any of the things she'd just suggested to be fun. By the sounds of it, there wasn't even going to be a formal component to this.

Saul, of course, was the first to volunteer for something. Leave it to the Pecaris to pick the activity that held the greatest liklihood of injury, lawsuits, and a bad image of the school. An obstacle course was out of the question for her - she'd probably get lost during the final walkthrough before the other students arrived and end up being pulled, hair ruined, from a bog by an unpleasant stranger three or four hours later. That left...academia. It took effort not to wrinkle her nose.

Looking over her...teammates didn't help her in that effort at all. Jose had been part of The Play, and she wasn't even sure of the other guy's name, just that he was one of their Aladren prefects (a major mark against him; Lila had little love for Aladrens), a prefect by default, and a bit strange from the vague impression she'd gotten of him. They were an excellent team, all right. At least they were both younger; while they would like her no more than her own year did, it would at least be dislike tempered with a little awe.

Doing her best to look commanding and falling just slightly short of the mark, she tried to sweep over toward Jose. The effect was slightly spoiled when her foot slid a little off her shoe in mid-sweep, but she recovered nicely. "I'll also work with you," she said, forcing her facial muscles into a reasonable facsimile of a smile. "We Crotali always need to stick together."

16 Lila St. Martin Downright dull. 80 Lila St. Martin 0 5

Josiah

September 02, 2009 5:23 PM

Heh, when is Sonora ever <i>normal</i>? by Josiah

Josiah usually ate with gusto like any other teenage boy who was… well a teenager. However after coming back from Christmas break, which went pleasant enough, he came back to news like this. Rocky Mountain International. Here. His stomach was a yo-yo all feast. Plummeting at the thought of his fiancée, Chrysi Silverleaf, being here. Then it would rise again at the thought of Hyana being here. Then when he thought of the four people together, him, his cousin, his fiancée and his sort of ex girlfriend, his stomach plummeted again. Last time they were together… it just wasn’t a pretty story. But then he thought of all the pretty girls from RMI he could meet and his spirits lifted. Needless to say his heaped plate of food did not get even a minor dent put into it.

So he didn’t have to wait very long before going over to the other prefects and the two head kids. He gave Elly a little jaunty wave when she joined the crowd. Josiah listened to the headmistress with interest. Well he could definitely help run an event! He did charms club, after all. Well did. He hadn’t done a meeting this year either and wasn’t sure if he would. However this sounded like fun. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to do.

However the potions and obstacle course filled up fast. He decided that the course would be a Pecari thing. As for potions, well his usually ended up melting through his cauldron and besides him and Paul… well they weren’t even close to speaking terms let alone getting along so that was out of the question. Why was that guy always so anti social? The one time they communicated he made Elly cry. So potions was out of the question. So there was the team broom race left.

“I can man the broom races… and if there’s like time or someone else wants the broom race I could do some charms work. I’m a fair hand at charms. I could do like I did in charms where I could have competitions to see who does charms best? I don’t know either way works.” He spoke up.

Gosh, what if Alexis or Chrysi told him mom about him doing something with brooms? His mother did not approve of sports. Dignified gentlemen did not play quidditch, plus she felt that if a spot where muggleborns were let in, it wasn’t a good thing. But Josiah had been sneaking his way into quidditch anyway, so he figured that a broom race would be considered less of a ‘sin’ than quidditch. Why did all RMI students have to come? If Chrysi and Alexis got together… Josiah would hate to think of that. Josiah sighed, paying attention to the rest of the discussion.

0 Josiah Heh, when is Sonora ever <i>normal</i>? 0 Josiah 0 5

Geoffrey Layne

September 07, 2009 10:30 PM

'Normal' is a relative term. by Geoffrey Layne

On his first day back at Sonora, Geoff's mind couldn't have been further from schoolwork. Instead, it was fully devoted to Anne Wright.

He had almost convinced himself he was done with her when, on the day after Christmas, she'd gotten in touch with him at last. Sort of. There had been no call, nor anything the average person could read as a real explanation, but there had been a present. A mirror-covered book full of middling to bad poetry and a few excellent essays had come enclosed with a three-word-long note in her handwriting. After he'd examined the thing and noticed the themes and words (there were clear references to things he recognized, and all the really happy poems were about Quidditch), he'd come to the conclusion that she'd written it all herself.

Geoff hadn't responded, or told anyone about it. Even Lena didn't know, as far as he knew; he'd hidden it whenever he wasn't looking at it. He wasn't sure what to make of it at all, and that was why it was starting to obsess him. Geoff didn't like not having all the answers. He was going over, for the tenth or so time, reasons why Anne might have been inspired to make her little gesture now when Powell called everyone's attention to her.

The idea of a visiting school was almost enough to make him forget about Anne for a minute. He thought he might've once heard of the place, but had no details; his family had been at Sonora for generations, and though his mother had been a little overenthusiastic in her suggestion that he should go to Hogwarts instead and Lavinia's 'problem' had thrown most of their father's plans off-kilter, no serious inquiry into another school for him and his sisters had ever been really made. Might be interesting to see how students from another school differed from Sonorans.

As the prefects gathered after the meal, it occurred to him that it was a real pity Helena wasn't here. She was exactly the type for this kind of thing: super-responsible, driven, and, in his opinion, scarily well-organized. Maybe he'd put his share of the work off on her; she'd probably like doing it, and it wouldn't distract him from his RATS.

Three groups. His immediate attraction was, of course, for the academic group, but his companions were enough to make him think twice about that. Paul was weird, Lila was dumb, and Josh Santoro...Well, he had no idea what was going on, Helena was too vague, but he had the oddest impression the guy was fooling around with his sister. He wasn't going to do anything about that (if she could pull it off, it would be a brilliant match for her, and she'd kill him if he was the reason she didn't get it), but neither was he going to put himself in a situation where he might have to find out if his theory of sixth-year Crotalus relations was right.

Since the obstacle course didn't appeal, either, that left the broom event. Well, as odd as it still seemed to think, he was a Quidditch captain. It made sense. Sort of. He nodded after Josiah - his sister had made him learn all the prefects' names - spoke up about brooms.

"I'll go along with the broom group," he said. "It makes sense to have at least one Quidditch captain in that." A glance toward the academic group, however, was warranted and unavoidable. He was an Aladren, and while his life was made simpler by going along with his dad's plan for his political career, he had secretly wanted to be a Potions researcher since he was six. "If y'all need help with anything, though, I'm available." He grinned. "It's not like I have anything else to do."

16 Geoffrey Layne 'Normal' is a relative term. 72 Geoffrey Layne 0 5