Retaliation! on Elective Hall

Laura Keaton

April 24, 2005 3:04 PM

Retaliation! by Laura Keaton

Laura noticed that Asher had suddenly looked down at her leg, and then leaned over to pick something up. Retrieving
a balled up piece of parchment, Asher looked back up suspiciously.

"Laura, did you see who threw this?"

Laura had a sneaking suspicion that it had something to do with those two boys who had been staring, but before she could answer Asher had thrust the crumpled piece of parchment at her, before starting to scan the classroom for the perpetrators. Pressing the creases flat again, on her desk, Laura examined the parchment. Most thrown items, she had learned, either contained a rude message or depiction of the victim. However, this piece of parchment was not rude or vulgar, but simply the crinkled version of the pre-test. Laura tried to decipher the name at the top, but got little else other than the fact that the first name of their mystery assailant started with an ‘R.’

"Nevermind Laura, I know who threw it: Earl Valentine,"

Laura followed Asher’s glare to the two boys she had noticed earlier. One, apparently, was Earl Valentine, while the other Laura assumed to be the R-boy to whom the paper belonged.

With a plop, Asher slapped several sheets of parchment onto Laura’s desk and told her to start making ammunition for retaliation. Laura looked down at the paper, over to Asher, and then back to the boys, who were lining up paper balls on their desks. Indeed, it did look like an attack was imminent. Laura, however, wasn’t sure a war was such a great idea. Oh, it would be fun, and competitive, but she absolutely knew that Professor Dione would not think it fun at all, especially since it would be disrupting her class. Laura’s mind see-sawed over the dilemma: risk loosing points and possibly detention on the first day of class, or have fun pelting boys with paper. It was a tough decision, but Laura finally decided that, at least while Dione was still busy looking over pre-tests, guerilla style warfare would be well worth the risk.

Laura pulled her back pack up onto her lap, pushing it under her desk. She started crunching the parchment into baseball sized balls, and then dropping them into the open bag. That way, Dione couldn’t see their ammunition store, enabling them to toss the paper at the boys whenever the professor wasn’t looking.

Once Laura has stuffed a dozen future missiles into her bag, she turned to Asher. “You aim for who you want, but I’m going to take out their weapon collection.” After so many water balloon battles with her Muggle cousins, Laura had learned the first rule of playful warfare- take out your enemy’s ammunition if at all possible.

Pulling out one of her newly created paper balls, Laura bounced it on her right palm a few times to get the weight. These were a lot lighter than the baseballs she was used to throwing around. Checking to make sure Dione still had her back turned, checking a student’s pretest, Laura took aim and fired. A satisfied smirk crossed her face when her ball landed amid the one boy’s paper ball pile, scattering half of them onto the floor.
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0 Laura Keaton Retaliation! 0 Laura Keaton 0 5

Earl

April 24, 2005 3:43 PM

Retaliating against the retaliation by Earl

Earl was still busy trying to form his ammunition when a paper ball flew out of nowhere, landing right in the center of his ammo pile and knocking a good portion to the floor. He picked up the parchment and glanced over to Asher and her friend. Oh, it was on now. Wow...that sounmded stupid even in his head. He shook the thought out and started concentrating on the enemy.

He saw the friend- he still couldn't remember her name- stashing paper balls into her backpack that was cleverly hidden under the desk. She was tricky, she was.

Earl picked up one of his remaining ammo, checked to see that Dione was looking away, and lunged it at the girl. This time it was a direct hit: square on the shoulder. Earl smiled to himself before turning to Robbie.

"You can join in any time, here."\n\n

0 Earl Retaliating against the retaliation 0 Earl 0 5

Briony O'Leary

May 03, 2007 9:42 PM

All you need is a little 'Common Sense' by Briony O'Leary

Entering the classroom, Briony was relieved to see a seat along the outer edges. It wasn't that she minded class, she actually enjoyed learning the material. It was the possibility of being called on that she didn't like. She was afraid that she would have the wrong answer and then be made to look foolish in front of her classmates, many of whom she didn't know well even though she was already a third year. She didn't know if it was her introverted personality or the scary professor that she called dad that caused the result.

She put her bag down next to her desk and pulled out her parchment and quill. Often, she had to put them back, but she liked to be prepared just in case, which today, she was, since they were taking notes. She jotted down the notes until the unfortunate happened. They were to form groups. She should have been used to it by now, but she still disliked it, mostly because she didn't have a set group of friends to work with. Glancing around the room, she hoped someone would want to partner with her. Maybe if she was already working, someone would come over.

Giving a small sigh from shiny lips, Briony made her way over to the collection of books. Picking one that looked interesting, she went back to her seat. Flipping through it, she came across an article about a pamphlet called Common Sense by Thomas Paine. Reading through, it sounded like what the professor might have been talking about. According to the book, this document openly challenged the authority of the British government by asking for the independence of the American people from them. Writing it down, she tried to avoid sneaking a peak around the room to see if anyone wasn't in a group yet. She didn't want to be the only person working on her own.

0 Briony O'Leary All you need is a little 'Common Sense' 75 Briony O'Leary 0 5

Connor Pierce

May 04, 2007 11:25 PM

Whether or not I have any is debatable. by Connor Pierce

Connor took one good look at Professor Williams' robes and made a beeline for one of his usual seats in the back. The original reason for developing that habit - avoiding Carey girls - didn't apply in Muggle Studies, but he had an idea that he didn't want to be in a prominent position on a day where his teacher showed up dressed like a posterchild for the United Nations. He was Muggleborn, sure, but he didn't know much about Muggle politics. His elementary school had never gotten much past 'Congress makes laws', as far as he could remember, and he figured Williams would want them to give her a bit more than that.

When the note-taking session began, he wrote everything on the board down as quickly as possible, not processing much of it. It was rare for him to get anything straight off of the bat, so it didn't really matter; going over everything again had been inevitable, anyway. He was lucky and could, if he applied himself, get through with acceptable grades, but academia wasn't his strongest point. Whether or not he had one at all was debatable, but thinking about that made him think about graduating and figuring out which world to settle in and everything, and none of that was much fun to think about.

Groups, especially in this class, were very rarely much fun for Connor. He knew people by sight, but there weren't that many people he'd talked to even in his own year. Outside of it, he knew...Well, 'no one' was a bit extreme, since there had been a few episodes of speaking to Pecaris in different years and there was no forgetting Morgaine, but he was, for the most part, safe in calling himself a borderline recluse from wider society. Since the only person he knew at all in this class was Betty Wright, though, introducing himself to it was looking like a viable option. He liked Anne fine and had never had any quarrel with her, but the girl had scared him when they were first years and hadn't stopped since.

He watched people as they began stirring around and noticed a girl, he thought younger than him, with hair close to the same color as his Aunt Roseanna's working on her own. There was usually at least one more leftover in arrangements like this. Well, here was to hoping she wasn't antisocial and/or gifted with a redheaded temper to match his aunt's. Getting up from his desk, he walked over to hers.

"You got a partner yet?" he asked, then recognized her. The relatives of staff members sort of stuck out in any school, and in one as small as Sonora, with a staff member like the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor in question...well, he didn't know her name, but she was O'Leary's daughter. It was too late, though, to do much besides hope that had very little to do with the price of beans. Since his mother had, sort of, taught him manners, he added, "I'm Connor." If she wanted to know his surname or House, she could ask.

0 Connor Pierce Whether or not I have any is debatable. 68 Connor Pierce 0 5

Briony

May 05, 2007 12:52 AM

I think it's to be contested with anyone by Briony

With relief that someone else needed a partner, she looked up at a handsome boy, who looked a bit older than her. She was scared that she would be the only person in the class without a group, which would have simply been awful, because then everyone would probably think there was something wrong with her. She really hated not being more outgoing like some of the other kids. She had many good qualities to offer in a friendship, but they wouldn't do her any good if she never made any!

Trying to be friendly, she smiled at the boy, "Maybe, if you want to be? I'm Briony."

She dropped the last name, partly, because he didn't include his and partly, because everyone that heard the last name O'Leary thought of her dad. She often wondered if that was why people stayed away from her. As far as she knew, she had good hygiene and wasn't awful looking. At least, she hoped she wasn't horribly unattractive.

Being a teenager was certainly difficult. She had never thought about such things before, but now she couldn't seem to stop, especially wondering what boys thought about what she saw in the mirror. Was her hair to red, her skin to fair? Oh, how she wished she were prettier! Oh, well, now was no the time to think of such things.

"I was just working on this article," she said, as she showed him the page in the book. "Do you have ideas?"

0 Briony I think it's to be contested with anyone 0 Briony 0 5