Just a Game
Chapter One
“Oh, there he goes again,” muttered fourteen-year-old, Semour Dawson, as Andrew Cartwright, popular sophomore and redhead, jogged past with the rest of the varsity basketball team in the lunchroom, letting out a team ‘howl’ in preparation for their upcoming basketball game. It was a cacophony of dog-like yowls and yips, none authentic. The team was to play Berkshire School that Friday afternoon.
Jessica Mason sighed, watching that tall, red-haired and freckled boyfriend of hers running with the ‘pack’ in yellow and black with a little more gusto than usual. She adjusted her glasses in wonder at him. Most of the time Andy hung out with her, and six other boys who were considered freaks and geeks by Middleton High School standards. He had been the leader of their pack until basketball season started up. Now he was all jock. Though she didn’t exactly hate it, she didn’t like it much either. His head was almost always on the game, and nothing else.
“Don’t worry. Andy has always been particularly bothersome during basketball season,” replied Peter McCabe, her dark haired, mildly kooky, hockey and soccer fanatic friend who also had a predilection for shrunken heads and voodoo dolls. “He’ll turn human again when soccer season starts up.”
Daniel Smith and James Peterson snickered, hunching over their lunches with smirks at Peter who became his own kind of obsessive when soccer season hit.
Both in glasses, one brown-haired, skinny with pimples, the other chubby with thick foamy dishwater blonde hair, Daniel and James were rarely seen apart. A duo many at Middleton High found disconcerting, especially since they were often engaged in private jokes that no one outside their cluster of six boys and one gal could understand.
The basketball team charged around the lunchroom once more, leading in a team chant, the yellow and black flag of the Timberwolf fluttering ‘gloriously’ behind them.
Peering over a newspaper he had been reading with odd intensity, Eddie White frowned then sighed. He was a relatively nondescript bespeckled boy of fifteen, who at first glance was forgettable. On a second glance, if a person bothered to glance again, he was unnerving. “He’s gonna be like that for three months at least.”
“I’d make that four,” Semour muttered. The youngest of them all, the only freshman among all the sophomores, was a pale, wiry, light-blond haired boy who didn’t look as strong as he truly was. None of them did, actually. Yet all five boys at the table could have given the basketball team a run for their money, so to speak, if it came to a real battle.
Eddie flicked the newspaper with a snap and continued to read the article.
“What’s so interesting in there, Sir Strength Heart?” Daniel asked, peering over Eddie’s shoulder into the gray and white pages with a frown, using the peculiar nickname they had for Eddie. “Bullying in South Hadley again? What?”
Lowering it, Eddie frowned. “No. I’m just trying to do what Mr. Carlton Jones said we ought to be doing—looking for magical phenomena that needs fixing.”
“And you think it will be reported in the newspaper?” James asked, peering over at it also. Most of the articles were about corporate theft, the economy, gas prices, or politics.
Sighing loud, Eddie let his eyes flicker to Andy again. The redhead was now laughing incredibly loud with his jock friends, Mark, David, and Darryl—three boys who had bullied most of them on a regular basis the last semester. They had wised up since. “One of us has got to be doing something. Our ‘fearless leader’ is too preoccupied right now. And it has been over a month since we confronted the town’s witches.”
The group peered together towards the cluster of girls that were in Junior League who were scowling right back at them. Marta Lindon and Robin Talbot were especially glaring at Jessica while Sylvia Lewis rolled her eyes with a defined snort at her half-brother Daniel. Daniel twitched, scrunching up his shoulders in a shudder. The only other thing that ever made him shiver like that was the toothy grin of a dragon. One had clawed him years ago (in another world), and he had never forgotten it.
“Yeah…” Jessica murmured, turning her eyes back to the newspaper, then Eddie. “So, you have volunteered to keep an eye out for stuff the Holy Seven is supposed to do, or save, or resolve, or whatever?”
Eddie rolled his eyes with a nod.
Grunting to himself, James leaned back, his eyes scanning an article about a stray ‘sleuth of bears’ somewhere near Sheffield. “I still don’t get what it is the Seven is supposed to do exactly.”
“Agreed,” Semour chimed in.
“No kidding,” Peter added, his eyes flickering to the other people staring at them from across the lunchroom. Most of their classmates tried not to watch their group. Though whenever their conversation got animated, it was hard for them not to look. And it was not surprising, since all six of them, plus Andy, had once been victims of one of Middleton Village’s most notorious curses. The eight of them (counting Michael Toms who had moved back to California as quickly as possible) had once been trapped by a magical book that took them to an altogether different world. Of course the group of eight merely told everyone a fanatical cult had kidnapped them.
Eddie sighed. “He said, as I recall, that we are supposed to protect the lives of the innocent.”
“Which is about as vague as you can get if you are looking for specifics,” Daniel cut in. He then poked Eddie in the chest. “Does this mean we are to become advocates for political refugees? Join the police force? Find a cure for cancer? Or run around with our swords hunting down monsters like that SRA organization Mr. Jones belonged to?”
“I think we shouldn’t do anything hasty,” Semour replied in an aged, grandfatherly sort of way, even though he was physically younger than them all. He often talked like he was old enough to be their grandfather, and he had every right to. In the magical world they had been trapped in, he had lived to his late eighties. “Monster hunting… Pfft. That Supernatural Regulators Association looks suspicious. That ID card he had did not look like anything official from the U.S. government. A union card really….”
“Are there even monsters in our world anyway?” James asked with an eyebrow-raised glance to Eddie.
Daniel shrugged. “He said he’d met vampires, demons, and werewolves. Who knows? I don’t think he lied.”
Jessica frowned. If there really were monsters in their world, she wondered how they kept hidden. Then again, with a peek back at the Junior League girls who were still glaring daggers at her—who needed monsters when human beings were bad enough? The Middleton Village witches did not seem likely to leave them alone for long. With a glance to the long scar they had cut into her arm during winter break, barely healed, Jessica knew they were up to no good.
“What I don’t get is how we are supposedly chosen by God,” Peter snapped. He pawed his chest front irritably as he said, “I don’t feel particularly holy. Do you?”
All six shook their heads. Jessica frowned, her eyes flickering back to Andy who was having a grand old time with his pals at his old lunch table. They were howling again, pitchy. She stuck a finger in her ear. “I feel particularly inexperienced.”
Hearing her, Semour tilted his head thoughtfully, opening his mouth with an idea. But Eddie beat him to it.
“Chosen One,” Eddie said, using their embarrassing nickname for her, another brought from the other world, “We can train you.”
Nodding, Semour grinned. “Exactly what I was thinking.” He then looked to Peter who sighed with a heavy slump against the table, watching Andy fist-thump on his group’s tabletop with hardly a glance back at them. The teams’ cheers continued on like an aboriginal drum chant. “You and Peter both need training.”
“We… What?” Peter turned around to stare at Semour.
Semour squared his shoulders as a man who had seen a lot of battle—which he had in a lifetime out of that world—and nodded. “You two both need training. Sword training. You were stuck as a zombie and Jessica never had time to learn. It is about time you did.”
Smirking wryly, Peter asked, “And you’re just the person to do it, I suppose?”
Nodding sharply, Semour met his gaze. “Of course.”
Peter tried not to snort, smothering a grin also.
But Daniel, James, and Eddie shared looks with shrugs between them.
“He did teach us,” Daniel said.
“He’s really good,” James chimed in.
“Red could do no better,” Eddie added, using their nickname for Andy—who wasn’t called Red because of his hair color, but for a different reason.
Peter cringed, his memory of their time in the other world reminding him that Semour ‘Sir Cooly’ Dawson, was a skilled swordsman. And for that matter, he could have been a victim of his deadly blade had they not found a cure for those that had been zombified.
With a sigh, Jessica replied with a nod to the threesome, “Yeah, but I can hardly lift the sword I have. And Peter doesn’t even own one. Besides, do you actually think the witches will stand by while we practice sword fighting?”
The boys frowned together. She had a point.
Andy slid into the bench right next to her, grinning madly before pecking Jessica on the cheek. He smiled at the others. “Hey, guys. What’s up?”
Startled, Jessica turned to look at him.
“Hi, Red,” Daniel replied, smirking.
“Glad to see you could join us,” Eddie said, his smile stiff.
Semour rolled his eyes and Peter sighed aloud.
“I got it.” James pointed to Jessica. “How about we start a medieval club? There’s jousting, sword fighting, archery, heraldry, costuming, role playing, lots of eating, and renaissance fairs we can go to. We can maybe link up with the Society for Creative Anachronism. What do you say?”
Jessica just blinked at him.
So did Andy. It was so out of the blue for him. And his mind, to be frank, was still on basketball. He was only there to touch base. “Okaaaaay….”
“No, that’s a great idea,” Daniel said, rising. He looked to Semour. “Undercover sword training. And we get to wear our armor.”
Andy leaned to Jessica’s ear and whispered, “What brought this on?”
She whispered back, “You were howling too much. It drove them mad.”
He turned to her with a frown, not sure if she was being serious. Jessica had a manner that was often facetious whenever she thought the goings-on of Middleton Village were ridiculously stupid. It came from being raised in California by her business-minded mother and her card-trick, magician con-man father. Her parents were now divorced and her father had no clue where she and her mother were. Andy often thought this made her a little too cynical.
“Uh,” Peter lifted his hand, looking to James. “Ok, that’s great, but I don’t know anything about starting a club, do you? And it is in the middle of the year. Will they even let us?”
They shared a frown among them. The school’s faculty was keeping a close eye on them because of the whole ‘cult kidnapping them’ thing. Not true, of course. But the townsfolk did not comprehend the idea of portals to other worlds, and the seven of them did not want to even attempt to explain it. Each of them imagined getting locked up in a lunatic asylum as the result.
Finally Jessica sighed to herself and nodded. “Ok. I know a fair bit about starting clubs.”
Their faces brightened, though Andy still remained puzzled.
“If this school is anything like my last one,” Jessica said, “it shouldn’t take much.”
“The Chosen One saves us again,” James said, grinning.
They all turned to her.
She rolled her eyes at James, lifting her hands to caution them. The others waited anxiously, though Andy leaned back.
“Ok, ok. Before we begin,” she said, making eye contact with each one of them, “first know we have to make a club charter, including by-laws, a purpose, and all that. Then we have to get a teacher to sponsor us. That will be the hard part. Without sponsorship from the faculty, there will be no way we can hold the club here at the school—which is what we want.”
“It is?” Andy asked, still confused.
All the other boys nodded to him, including Peter who realized this really was the best way to prepare against the witches of Middleton Village.
“It is,” James said.
“Red,” Semour said, with a nod to Jessica and Peter also, “We need to start training, and we need a cover. Medieval Club will give us that cover so we can train the Chosen One and the Zombie here in combat.”
Andy exhaled, his expression going blank as he stared off into space. Crestfallen, really. Obviously he didn’t want to think about how they had challenged the witches during winter break.
“Combat…” he uttered with dismay.
“We’re the new Holy Seven, remember?” Semour added, more pointedly. “We have to train.”
“In case you forgot,” Eddie injected with bite.
Andy cringed, setting a hand to his head. “Ok. Ok. Sorry.”
“I mean, you got the Ankh,” Eddie continued.
Rising, Andy hissed in a low whisper, “I know. For pity’s sake, Sir Strength Heart, I know. But what are we supposed to do exactly? That old man gave us the vaguest instructions.”
Daniel nodded, tossing out his hand. “See. What I said.”
Eddie scowled at Daniel, folding up the newspaper. “Fine. But at least I am looking.”
With a petulant look back, Daniel tugged the newspaper Eddie was holding and spread it out flat on the lunch table. James and Peter quickly pulled their lunches off, while Semour moaned, his sandwich covered without any way of reaching it. Then with a nod to Andy, Daniel said with another glare at Eddie, “Alright. All of us are here now. Red, do you see anything unusual that needs Holy Seven assistance in this newspaper? Sir Strength Heart has been scouring it, and I know Sir Iron Fist has been looking over his shoulder.”
James shrugged, glancing at the page again, his eyes now flickering on the article about unusual weather in Cheshire. Hurricane-like whirlwinds had torn up the Hoosac Valley High School gym a week ago and were now storming over the snowy shores of the Cheshire Reservoir.
His eyes gazing over the writing, Andy leaned in with distracted interest. It was hard to focus. The basketball team was already breaking into chants again. He was itching to join them.
Glancing over his shoulder, Andy cringed. He straightened up apologetically. “Look. I don’t know what it is I am supposed to find here. Ok? Besides, I don’t want to go around searching for trouble right now. Waiting for the witches of this town to strike is plenty.”
Daniel lifted his eyebrows in an I-told-you-so sort of way to Eddie who snatched his newspaper and folded it up, creasing it tightly.
“Look,” Andy said, meeting Eddie’s gaze, then the rest, “Sooner or later trouble is going to find us, most likely sooner. So, I agree. Let’s train up! Great idea. Medieval Club, hooray! But right now, I kind of like being a teenager again. And I’m sorry you think I’m obsessing about basketball—but this used to be my thing before we got all snatched up by that magic book, and I want some of that back!”
Andy’s face was now turning a faint shade of red. Indignation swelled within him. “I’m fifteen, for pity’s sake! We are in high school! Not fighting a sorcerer—”
“You are not taking this seriously!” Eddie snapped, rising. “Remember what the witches did to Sir Long Shanks?”
Everyone in the cafeteria stared, including the basketball team. They quit their cheers.
“Eddie…” Jessica slowly rose, with warning in her voice. Her eyes flickering to the witches in Junior League who were smirking with relish that they finally had proof the seven teens were nervous. Indication of fear was always good news to them.
“Or did to your girlfriend?” Eddie’s voice now held bite unusual to it, though it had lowered to a hush. He had never called Jessica Andy’s girlfriend before. They always referred to her as the Chosen One, though they were starting to call her by her given name, finally. There was jealousy in his voice that Jessica had never detected before.
“That’s enough,” Daniel hissed in Eddie’s ear, glancing to the eavesdropping witches also. Sylvia’s smirk wickedly curled at the corners.
“You are only thinking of yourself!” Eddie slapped Andy in the face with the newspaper then stormed off.
Everyone watched Eddie shove the cafeteria door open then slam it behind him. The cafeteria was dead silent.
His friends stared.
Daniel let out a low whistle once the sounds of lunch conversation resumed again. And it took a bit for them to start up, like pulling on the cord of a lawnmower that needed parts replaced.
“He sounds stressed,” James murmured in a low voice.
“No,” Semour said, rising. “Scared.”
He then looked to Andy who wobbled as if the wad of newspapers had been wrapped around a steel crowbar. He was completely stunned.
“Red? Perhaps you ought to at least pretend for Sir Strength Heart’s sake that you care about your comrades during basketball season.”
With a twitch, Andy’s gaze snapped onto Semour. He frowned darkly. “I care, Sir Cooly. Just because I am not stressing out over what Carlton Jones said to us Christmas break does not mean I don’t care.”
“But it seems that way to Sir Stren—”
“Oh for pity’s sake!” Andy shouted up at the ceiling. “Can’t I enjoy life for at least a couple of months? Call me selfish, but I’m tired of being the leader of our little army. You were all knights long before I was. You take over. I need a break from all this!”
Then he stormed off.
But he did not join his basketball pals as his friends had secretly feared, though Andy was inclined to. He marched in the direction of the gym, perhaps to burn off steam practicing layups. Jessica watched him exit the cafeteria with a frown. He didn’t often get peevish like this, so when he did, it worried her.
Peter leaned in towards Semour’s ear. “Real smart. And for the record, this year Andy had been mild with all his basketball hoop-de-rah.”
“This is him mild?” Semour’s jaw popped open in a stare.
Daniel slapped his forehead, moaning. “Holy heavens, he’s right. When Howie Deacon was here he was utterly manic with basketball.”
Jessica had heard a thousand stories about Howard Deacon the III, a.k.a. ‘Howie’, who had been Andy’s best friend up until eighth grade. Around then Howie’s parents had gotten divorced. Her mother had mentioned that the divorce was an unpleasant breakup her employer was still struggling to get over, as he still loved the woman. The son and heir to Deacon Enterprises got shipped out to a New York boarding school not long after, so Jessica never got to meet him. But Howie was famous at the school for being an all-around nice guy. And if it weren’t for stories adults told about him and Andy together being a pair of hellions, she would have believed them. She could only imagine what a pair of mischief-bound boys obsessed with basketball would be like during basketball season.
“So,” Peter said, “Cut him some slack. When Howie was here, Andy would have pegged you with the basketball, given you an Indian burn, and twisted your arm until you said uncle if you said anything against the game.”
James scratched his forehead sheepishly, nodding. “Yeah. I usually avoided them in junior high around this time of the year. AB and Howie were basketball fanatics. Ate, slept, and breathed it.”
“The best double-team ever,” one of the passing varsity basketball players said, heading towards the gym also. He smirked at Jessica.
“A B?” Jessica ducked away from a player who had reached out to tug on her hair.
The entire team migrated together as a pack would, all of them casting the five of them smirks for riling Andy up so bad. The argument had been mild entertainment, but they had a game to prepare for.
Peter nodded with a shrug, ducking away also. “Andrew Bartholomew. Come on. You must have heard his old nickname once or twice. ABC? Howie always called him AB.”
“When did he start going by Andy?” Jessica asked, curious.
“When Howie moved,” Peter said. “Andy sort of lost the will to play around when his partner in crime was gone.”
“And the game suffered,” another classmate strolled by, putting his two cents.
They looked up and saw it was Milton Coombe, Peter’s cousin and a hellion in his own right, though Milton was more of an idiot bully than a mischief maker. Milton said, “You wanna know why Cartwright is so obsessed about basketball?”
“No,” Semour replied, and gathered up his lunch.
Milton flicked the back of Semour’s head. Though when the others jumped up, he realized he shouldn’t have. The large boy backed away, smirking at them with his hands up—a pretense to a brave retreat.
“Without Deacon and Cartwright doing their double-team, Middleton Village basketball has sucked. Old ABC is trying to redeem himself—especially after being stuck with you geeks!”
Daniel and James lurched after him, but neither boy was large enough to take Milton down with just their fists. And they didn’t dare bring their swords to school. Not yet anyway.
“Howie Deacon was cool,” Mary Pransford strolled by, smirking at them also. Mary was the girl all the other girls copied and followed. She was also Milton’s girlfriend. And neither James nor Daniel would do anything to her. It was a knight’s code.
Jessica sighed, wondering.
Semour rolled his eyes, groaning once Mary had gone far enough away. “Howie Deacon was a jerk who loved to pour molasses into mailboxes and let air out of tires. It is good he is gone. I hope he went to a reformatory.”
“Did he ever shove anyone in a locker?” Jessica asked, glad the subject had changed a little.
Narrowing his gaze on her, Semour frowned. Milton had shoved him in a locker twice before the seven of them teamed up, and he hated being reminded.
“No. But he was over-the-top insane when he was playing basketball.”
But Semour didn’t say it. Someone else did.
They all turned to look at who had cut into their conversation this time. It was Eddie. He was back. His face was red, but it was more of a blush. “Did Red storm off?”
They all nodded.
“With the team?” He said it acidly.
They shook their heads.
Exhaling loudly, Eddie nodded. “I overheard the shouting. I think we need to take our conversations to more private places.”
“You mean arguments,” Daniel said dryly.
Rolling his eyes, Eddie nodded.
“Why’d you come back?” James asked.
Eddie blushed more sheepishly. Reaching under the lunch bench, he lifted up a backpack. “I forgot this.”
Jessica chuckled, resting a hand against her forehead.
Eddie gathered up the newspaper also, stuffing it under his arm. As he did, the others collected the remains of their lunches and packed most of what they had up. They did it in awkward silence. What could they say? They hadn’t argued like that, ever. It was frightening, actually. Could the Seven be divided so easily? The witches were certainly watching with eagerness in hope.
“So…” James drew in a breath with a shifty glance at all of them. “Medieval Club. Is that still on?”
They lifted their eyes to one another then nodded together.
“We can draft the charter and set the by-laws this afternoon,” Jessica said. Then glancing to Eddie, she added, “While we cheer on our basketball team when they play the Berkshire Bears.”
Eddie frowned. Yet he nodded, sighing.
As soon as the final class finished, Jessica and the rest of their classmates gathered near the doors of the school gym for the coming game. She found Peter with Daniel and Semour at the end of the group going in. But as they pressed in further, they found the hallway full of confused and unhappy classmates. The gym doors were open, but the visitors’ side was entirely empty. Not even a team sat on the opposing bench.
Jessica jogged in, pushing past bubbly blonde Amy Paige in her yellow and black cheer costume as the girl was giving a perfect impression of a ‘brainless Berkshire Bear’ in preparation for this cheer they had been practicing. Amy stuck out her foot to trip Jessica, but missed. Pixie-cut, Megan Dalane jumped out of Jessica’s way, twitching as the basketball team howled together inside the open space. She flinched on the sight of Jessica who would have shoved her out of her path because Megan was one of the witches who had harmed her during winter break. The boys were right on Jessica’s heels, though Jessica didn’t know it.
They stumbled into the gym together, staring at the confused spectators who were slowing walking up the home stands with eyes on the visitors’ empty side. The coach was talking emphatically on his cell phone with complete bewilderment, tossing out his hands like an Italian. He was pacing.
As for the team, they were running through drills. Andy looked particularly intent on his dribbling and passing, practically dedicated to become a Harlem Globetrotter with his footwork and handling.
“Hey!” Jessica jogged to the edge of the court. “What happened? Where is the game? The other team?”
Andy and the others turned, some shrugging though many were peevish. Andy strolled from them, tucking the ball he was handling under his arm, and said, “Cancelled. Are you happy now?”
Jessica stepped back, her mouth opening to protest.
He immediately flushed, already ashamed for taking his anger out on her. “Look, sorry. I…”
“Cancelled?” Daniel jogged up, equally puzzled as Jessica. “But why?”
Darryl from the team turned with a nod and said, “Berkshire never showed up. Coach has been calling them all afternoon.”
Andy nodded irritably. “That’s right. No shows.”
“I want to play a game!” one of his teammates shouted.
“Yeah!” the others chorused, raising their arms with howls.
Trotting back to his teammates, Andy nodded, passing the ball he had.
The rest of the seven jogged in by then. Each one looked around at the half-empty gym. The cheerleaders had clustered together on one side, eyeing the six of them with disgust, though only three of the girls were actually witches from Junior League. The rest just thought they were nerds.
Strolling in the remainder of the way, Eddie looked around and snorted. “Cancelled?”
“Ironic,” Semour murmured, rocking on his heels. He stuffed his hands into his pockets.
Andy cast back a glare. “Don’t even start.”
“That’s the second forfeit this month,” David from the team said.
“Fine!” the coach shouted at his cell phone. “We’ll reschedule. Winning by forfeit is disgraceful anyway! But you’d better be there!”
The rest of the drills stopped. Each one of the Middleton Timberwolves varsity basketball team quit dribbling and passing. Their eyes turned to their coach.
“The second?” Daniel murmured, glancing to James.
Nodding, David from the team hissed, “First, the Hornets then the Bears.”
James lifted a finger. “Would that be a sleuth of bears?”
They all looked at him like he was nuts. Andy made a face and dribbled his ball again, going in for a layup.
Shrugging, James said to the others, “That’s what you call a group of bears. I read it in the paper today.”
Eddie frowned, his eyes flickering to the few witches in the gym. Semour followed his gaze. “You don’t think…?”
“You’re kidding.” Daniel snorted, following their gaze also. Then he shook his head. “The Middleton Village witches have better things to do than sabotage a basketball team.”
“What?” Jessica turned to him.
But the varsity team also heard him. Some of them laughed. Andy stiffened, though. Marching quickly over, he hissed, “What do you mean by that, Swift?”
As one who was always quicker on the uptake as everyone else, Daniel (known as Swift to his six pals) said, “Nothing. It’s just what Sir Strength Heart and Sir Cooly were thinking—I’m sure. That the witches may have sabotaged your opponents so our team can win. But they’d never do that.”
“Why?” Andy asked, as obviously the game was that serious to him. Surely sabotage could be in the schemes of the Middleton Village witches, he believed.
“Because,” Daniel said, sighing tiredly with a glance to Sylvia and her cluster who were looking just as dismayed there wasn’t a game as the rest of them. “Basketball is not their prime concern. It is, in the end, only a game.”
The entire varsity team turned with murderous looks on Daniel. Seeing their looks, especially Andy’s, he took a step back. Swift or not, he was still socially inept.
“Run right now before I strangle you,” Andy hissed through his teeth.
And Daniel did, yipping. He burst out the side door into the January snow, skidding coatless towards the parking lot. James jogged after him, going backwards first before turning around to follow his friend at full speed.
Eddie and Semour both frowned. They walked slower, but they were leaving too.
“It really does bring the worst out in you,” Eddie muttered, going.
Only Jessica lingered.
She folded her arms with a frown.
“What?” Andy turned to her, lifting up his arms in exasperation.
Shaking her head slowly, she walked in the direction her other friends. “You. You really are acting like you are fifteen years old.”
Nothing could have struck him harder.
And no one else understood what she meant.
But Andy did.
And he had no defense for it.
For a man who had lived almost to his thirties in a magical world, led the others to victory against ferocious knights, dwarves, elves, sorcerers and dragons, a hero in his own right—he finally understood that he had regressed into an infantile jerk.
Positively Medieval
Chapter Two
“I’m sorry.” Andy was begging, following Jessica as she marched down the school hall after the first hour class that Monday. She wouldn’t speak to him the entire weekend—making her mother very happy, but Andy entirely miserable. “I didn’t mean to say it like that.”
Glaring at him, Jessica snapped, “You didn’t mean to say it like that, but you did mean to threaten Daniel? What is wrong with you?”
“He dissed the game,” Andy said.
“It’s just a game!” Jessica replied emphatically and marched on.
He stiffened. Then he followed. “It isn’t just anything. Don’t use the word just. Ok? It matters to me. But for what it’s worth, I’m sorry I threatened Swift. Ok?”
“Say that to him!” Jessica hissed, glaring at him.
He pulled back and sighed. “Ok. I will.”
“When?” Jessica put her hands sharply onto her hips.
Sighing, Andy hung his head, his shoulders sagging. “Today. Ok?”
“At our club meeting?” Jessica asked.
Andy lifted his head, raising one eyebrow. “You got a faculty sponsor already?”
To that, she cringed, ducking her head. “Not yet. But we’re working on it.”
“Working on it, how?” He leaned back from her, for once glad their conversation was off basketball.
Shrugging, she said, “Oh, Peter, James, and Daniel are taking care of it. You’ll see.”
What the three boys did was sneak into the teachers’ lounge during study hall, bringing their drawn-up charter with them. They had drafted it and the by-laws Saturday at James’s house. It was the first time most of them had been at James’s place, though Daniel spent a lot of his time there when he wasn’t at home. James’s room had been filled with Boy Scout trophies and medals. His arrow of light hung over his window. All of his merit badges hung on a sash on the corner of his closet door. His varsity scout uniform was hanging in the closet, neatly pressed. Currently he was working on his Eagle. Semour, Eddie, and Jessica were duly impressed. Peter only rolled his eyes, as he had been in scouting with James and considered this James’s obsession. Currently, though, staring at the teachers while sweatily clutching the drafted charter in their hands, he had wished James had been an expert salesman, as none of them knew how to promote the club to the faculty.
“And what are you boys up to?” Mrs. Flynn, the freshman English teacher, peered over her coffee at the trio, raising one eyebrow.
Daniel drew in a breath and squared his shoulders, gesturing to the others over his shoulder to just follow him. He placed the charter onto her desk and said, “We’reheretostartaclubandweneedasponsor.”
She blinked, staring at his sweaty brow. “Can you say that slower?”
James poked Daniel in the back then nudged him over. “Sorry, Dan’s a little…excited. It’s just, we have an idea for a really great club.”
The teacher leaned back, her eyes going glassy with skepticism as the other teachers around them chuckled. The boys didn’t know all those that were in the room. Most of the teachers there taught the upperclassmen advanced science, or auto shop.
Mr. Alcock, who was a serious-minded cigarette smoker that wore ‘the patch’ prominently on his neck during class hours but still reeked of nicotine, chuckled and said, “Really great, huh? I take it isn’t a speech club.”
“Or a debate club,” chuckled Mrs. Kidby whom Peter knew was a witch, though not a prominent member of the Ladies Aid Society. She was a frumpy sort of woman with mousy brown hair, thin legs, arms, and neck, but a chunky middle. She wore lots of colorful beading, almost to the degree of Mardi Gras.
Peter squared his shoulders and said, “No. It is a medieval club. We all have an interest, and James here is working towards his Eagle, as am I. And we think the formation of this club will also give us the opportunity to improve the town park, as we need space for club activities and such.”
James lifted his eyebrows as Peter had never expressed an interest in scouting beyond making obscenely murderous knots and playing with fire. This thing about improving the park came out of nowhere.
Pointing to the charter, Peter said, “We were thinking of enrolling with the SCA—”
“SRA?” Mrs. Kidby bristled, yet tried to hide her alarm.
“S.C.A.,” Daniel cut in, his eyes taking in the teacher’s reaction with an understanding glance to Peter who nodded. “The Society for Creative Anachronism.”
“Oh,” Mrs. Kidby relaxed, though not much. S.R.A. was short for the Supernatural Regulators Association. And they didn’t just hunt monsters either. They also went after witches. Legally, of course. Mrs. Kidby’s uneasiness revealed to the three boys how seriously that prospect frightened her.
Peter continued as if not interrupted. “We intend to hold tournaments, feasts, costuming—”
“Costuming?” Jumped up Ms. Swaddon who taught Home Economics. She rushed over to the look at the club charter. “And feasts did you say?”
All three boys stepped back. The teacher was eagerly eying the document they had drawn up, her frizzy ash blond hair fluffing about her shoulders and pointy chin.
Mr. Hoffe also meandered over, pretending not to be interested. But as plain as the big mole on the right side of his forehead, he was salivating for a chance to get involved.
“Would this, perchance, include role-play?” he asked.
Peter cringed, but James nodded.
“Yes.”
Mr. Hoffe was the drama ‘coach’, as he liked to be called. The man always wore putrid argyle sweaters with clashing ties of pea green. He almost always wore green. Most kids avoided his class, as Middleton High Theater was considered ultra geeky. Even the seven avoided it.
But then Miss Woolrich inched over with Mr. Hopwood. They taught AP[1] History and Civics, respectively.
“Interesting,” Miss Woolrich said with a thrumming murmur in her throat. She met Daniel’s gaze and asked, “And how do you intend to manage this club, if you are aiming for accuracy? You know there were no presidents in the medieval era.”
James grinned, nodding. He pointed to a specific spot on the charter. “We’ll have a king, and lords.”
“And serfs as well, I suppose,” she said, her eyes caressing the page.
Peter and Daniel shrugged.
“And knights, right?” Mrs. Kidby cut in.
All three nodded sharply to her. “Of course.”
Mr. Hopwood said, “And what if one of the lords wished to depose the king? Do you have a stipulation for that? You must have rules for succession.”
Daniel grinned with a look to James. “Of course we do. Here.”
And he pointed to a spot in the by-laws.
All the teachers leaned in, scouring the list of succession procedures which the six teens had spelled out as clearly as possible. After reading it in its entirety, they all leaned back, amazed.
“And how many members do you have to start up this club?” Miss Woolrich asked, genuinely interested now.
Peter shared a look with the other two boys. Peeking at the witch carefully, they said, “Seven.”
Mrs. Kidby flinched.
“But we plan to get more once it’s started,” he quickly added.
“At least twenty,” James said.
“Or more,” Daniel added.
All the teachers grinned, leaning over the charter again, hunger in their eyes.
The lunchroom was in the throes of its usual gossiping chatter when Daniel raced in with James. Clenching his fists in the air once inside the doorway they shouted, “We’ve got it!”
Very few saw what exactly he got, though they watched him run up to the table where Eddie was reading from the newspaper again. This time he pored over the section on deaths. Eddie was looking increasingly grim. Peter strolled in after them, hands in pockets, incredibly pleased with himself.
Peter’s eyes flickered to the paper in Eddie’s hands. “Any particularly bad news?”
Sighing loudly, Eddie replied, “If you mean obviously supernatural—no.” He then folded up the paper. “Just the usual accidents and ailments. So, you got the club a sponsor?”
All three boys nodded with intensifying grins. James plucked the club charter from Daniel’s hands and slapped it on the table. “Fully sponsored! Five teachers are sponsoring us! Five!”
Eddie lurched forward to read the names, startled at their luck.
“Coach Cluff wanted to join them, but we said no,” Peter added, his pleasure with the events swelling so that his face was entirely glowing with pride.
James leaned in with a whisper. “He wanted to head sword fighting and archery. Not happening. But we said he could participate. But really…us learning to sword fight from him?”
“That’s laughable,” Daniel agreed.
Heads had turned. Some ears perked up.
Eddie snorted, his mood improving. Coach Cluff was head of track and field. He also taught golf. Outside of school, he was a scoutmaster, but one of those pathetic kinds that always lost a kid every time he led a hike somewhere. He wasn’t what they would have considered ‘outdoorsy’ either. An urban scout.
“Now,” James said, sitting next to Eddie with a conspiratorial huddle, “We need to pick a first meeting date, draw up some fliers… and, by the way, our zombie volunteered us all to clean up Middleton Park for more separate-from-school activities, like a fighting lawn.”
“Oh!” Eddie brightened up, not so much at the prospect at having to clear out a few acres of tangled weeds and shrubbery from a creepy, haunted-sort-of, public park, but at the increasing autonomy they would get from having such a place to really practice in. Things were rolling out nicely.
Jessica strolled to the table about then with her lunch bag. “What’s up? Did you get the club sponsored?”
More ears perked. Several heads turned.
“Yep!” Daniel grinned then shoved the charter her way. He then glanced towards the cafeteria line, thinking about getting some food. His stomach had been rumbling.
She read the signed teachers’ names, noticing the added names below the required two. Her eyes widened on two of them. Looking up to Daniel then to James, both of whom were already turning from the table to get lunch, she then said to Peter who was opening his lunch sack, “Miss Woolrich? Isn’t she, like, Teacher-of-the-Year or something?”
Grinning, Peter nodded.
Then her eyes flickered to one name. She poked it. “Who is Ms. Swaddon?”
“Home Ec. She was the first one to volunteer,” Daniel said. He then hopped up. “I’m hungry. See you in a bit.”
Jessica tilted her head in thought as he walked off with James to the lunch line. She nodded to herself. Of course. A Home Economics teacher would be dying for an opportunity to prove her class wasn’t an outdated elective. Medieval cooking and costuming were right up her alley. It was perfect really, as they needed someone to lend them authenticity. And with Miss Woolrich along with Mr. Hopwood, they would also get respect.
“But who is Mrs. Kidby?” Jessica asked.
Peter’s expression grew dark, his triumph shrinking an inch. He leaned in to her ear. “A witch.”
She drew in a sharp breath. Eddie stared in horror.
“We just couldn’t shake her,” Peter continued, sighing. “She insisted that, as an English teacher, she had to be part of Medieval Club. I don’t get her rationale, but the other teachers totally bought it.”
“That sucks,” Eddie said.
“No kidding,” Jessica murmured.
“Medieval Club? You are starting a medieval club?” a freshman jogged over, crossing the invisible barrier that had kept the seven ‘weirdoes’ from the rest of the ‘normal’ school. A short, dark haired boy, barely hitting five feet, his voice was still in the cracking stage; he was grinning with irrepressible hope. They didn’t exactly know who he was.
“Yes?” Jessica replied slowly, glancing to Peter then Eddie.
Peter shrugged. “Sure.”
The boy leaned in, sort of bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet. “Like with jousting, and swordfights and banquets and kings and knights and jesters and the whole lot?”
“Even haggis if you want it,” Peter replied with a patronizing snort.
Eddie chuckled.
“No way,” another boy said. Junior. Gigantic. On the football team. They also didn’t know his name. Then again, they had avoided him so they never had the opportunity.
“For real?” A girl rose, staring at them. Sophomore. Chunky. Wore braces, had purple streaks in her hair, and a tattoo of a skull on the back of her neck just underneath her stubby pigtails. Her name was Mishelle. She was very adamant on the spelling.
Peter snatched up the charter, rolling the thing into a tube and shoving it inside his jacket, just in case. “Yeah. Why?”
As a horde of Mongols—juniors, sophomores, freshmen, and seniors rose, surrounding them eagerly. James and Daniel were emerging from the food line by then, both with trays in hand. Seeing the crowd, they rushed over, elbowing their way through before the circle enclosed Jessica, Peter, and Eddie entirely.
“So when is the first meeting?” “Are we going to get to wear costumes?” “Do we get to wear armor?” “I want a sword! Will we get to have swords?” “Who is the club president?”
The last question was asked by a senior who towered over Peter with his hands on his hips, the cogs in his head turning with designs for power. Daniel and James shared another look then shoved their lunches under the table where they wouldn’t get stepped on. Then they hopped up on the defense. Unfortunately none of them were armed or could legally use the weapons they owned. The use of broadswords in school was looked down upon, even in self-defense.
“Hold it! Hold it!” Daniel raised his arms in what appeared to all the upperclassmen as surrender.
“I vote for Timothy Sergeant!” called out another upperclassman, who happened to be student council secretary, yet whose name they also did not know. Though it was all right for Jessica to not know so many people, it was bothering Eddie, Daniel, and James considerably.
“Here! Here!” chimed in senior, Georgia Abbot. Georgia had been Homecoming queen two years in a row. They definitely knew her. She strutted around campus in trendy clothes that made Mary Pransford look like an amateur.
“I second the motion!” someone else shouted. “You moron.”
Georgia scowled at whoever said that.
Peter rolled his eyes to Jessica who returned the look to Eddie and the others.
Daniel blew out a high-pitched whistle between two fingers. “I SAID HOLD IT! That’s not how it goes!”
But the others ignored him, all chanting and cheering for Timothy, who was this tall, suave sort of senior. He was also the son of a prominent town businessman, richly dressed, on the student council, and a member of the varsity soccer team. He grinned politically, with arms in the air, basking in the love of his constituents.
“Medieval Club has a KING!” Daniel shouted.
Everyone hushed a mite, hearing that.
But then the roar of their classmates surged up again. “Timothy Sergeant for King!”
“YOU DON’T ELECT KINGS!” James protested.
Jessica rolled her eyes, wondering if she would see knights running around on invisible horses with people behind them making clopping noises with coconut halves. It would punctuate the ironic turn of events perfectly.[2]
Peter shook his head, clenching his brow with a swelling headache. Eddie stared at the ceiling, muttering under his breath.
Around then, Semour strolled in.
With his usual table surrounded by what looked like a mob, his heart jumped and he broke into a run towards it. But then he heard the crowd talking excitedly about Medieval Club, he realized what had happened.
He had to elbow his way to their table, looking first to Jessica, then to Eddie, James, and Daniel who were sitting there with in-the-headlights stares of panic on their faces. He said in a loud cracking voice, “When did we become so popular?”
Automatically, the roar of their classmates’ exultation lulled into an almost horrified hush. All of them stared at Semour, reminded with revulsion that he was a geek, and so were the others whose club they had ultimately commandeered.
Timothy stepped forward first, extending his open hand to Peter. “Hand it over.”
Peter blinked up at him with almost perfectly feigned surprise. “Hand over what?”
Rolling his eyes, Timothy reached into Peter’s jacket to take out the club charter. Clenching the charter to his chest, Peter squirmed with a duck under the table, inadvertently kicking over James’s and Daniel’s lunches in his escape. He emerged on the other side, his arms folded tightly across his chest.
“Give me the club charter,” Timothy said as tired as a father with a two-year-old child in a temper tantrum, his hand still out. “I am king.”
“No, you’re not.” Jessica stomped up to him.
With natural derision expressed in a snort, Timothy stared back down at her using all the ill-regard any resident of Middleton Village had for the outsider. “I am. They chose me. I am king.”
Jessica shook her head. “Doesn’t matter. I helped draft that club charter, and the by-laws are perfectly clear. The first king is Peter. And—”
“Peter?”
But the incredulous cry came from Milton Coombe, not Timothy. The ox-shaped sophomore boy shoved his way to the front of the crowd giving a minor deferring nod to Timothy. Milton always though he was better than the company, even seniors. Of course, as captain of the ice hockey team, that was expected.
Jessica and the other five scowled at him. None of the seven liked Milton in the least—though right now he was their least problem. “That’s right! Peter McCabe. King.”
“Bah!” Milton turned with a laugh that a few joined in.
But not all of those around them shared his incredulity. A few listened with increased interest, beginning with the freshman boy who had started the onslaught.
“What do you mean he is king? None of us got to vote on it.”
She met the eager freshman’s gaze and repeated what Daniel had shouted earlier, almost with a cockney accent, “You don’t elect kings.”
Daniel nodded, grinning. “Kings are—”
“Forget this.” Timothy rolled his eyes with a huff and shoved Jessica out of the way to get to Peter. “Give me the club charter. We’re changing it.”
A basketball cannonballed through the crowd, hitting the lunch table top with a loud bang.
Everyone jumped, and Timothy turned to see who threw it, his eyes narrowing sharply.
Andrew Cartwright pushed through the rest of his classmates to get to Jessica, his eyes glaring daggers at Timothy while he made sure she wasn’t hurt. “What is going on here?”
Timothy lifted his chin and his chest, bristling. “Stay out of this Cartwright. This doesn’t concern you.”
It may be noted that while Timothy was on the soccer team, he was not the MVP. And though he was tall, he did not make the basketball team. Andrew had bested him in both. Being bested by a sophomore was not something a senior usually liked. And though Andy was generally popular, Timothy wasn’t one of his fans.
“Actually, it does,” Andy said. He then ducked down to where Peter had weaseled through the grips of five persons. He stuck his hand out for the charter, which Peter easily handed over with a sigh. The paper was crinkled, smashed, and he had to unroll it, which gave the document drafted on brown shopping bag paper authenticity—but made it difficult to read. Andy’s eyes skimmed it. Then he said, “I’m one of King Peter’s knights. I just never got around to signing the thing.”
Peter grinned, straightening up.
Eddie lifted his chin, now feeling incredibly forgiving. This was the ‘Red’ he knew. The others walked around the lunch table to ‘have his back’, so to speak, though really without swords they were the ones who needed his protection as he was physically the largest as well as the only one liked by the rest of the school body.
“It says here,” Andy read, “That the first king will be one of the club founders, chosen by the founders, to set precedent for future kings. The king may choose a successor, or if desired, a lord may challenge him to a…”
Andy let his voice trail off, his eyes turning to Eddie, James, Daniel, and Semour who had been fellow knights with him in that other world.
“Are you nuts?” He shook the charter at them. The thing coiled back into a crunched tube.
“We were going for authenticity,” James said with a shrug.
Andy rolled his eyes.
Timothy grabbed at it and read the rest for himself, aloud. “A lord may challenge him to a duel and take the kingship for himself.” He popped his head up from the page, and he declared, looking triumphantly at Peter, “I challenge you to a duel!”
Jessica snatched the charter back with a scowl. “You have to be a member of the club first! Then a lord.”
Frowning at her, Timothy reached for the charter. She held it to her chest, backing away. He would have grabbed for it had Andy not been there. Both boys glared at one another, eye to eye, before Timothy backed off. Though Andy was a sophomore and Timothy was a senior, everyone knew Andy could hold his own in a fight.
“Why all the rules?” Timothy hung his shoulders with a demonstrative eye-roll. “Let’s get this done and over with. You know I’m going to end up king anyway.”
All seven friends let their mouths thin into unamused and even more serious bents to their smiles.
Semour said, gently taking the charter from Jessica, “All the rules are so the club will function. As for you becoming king, don’t be so certain about that. The duel between lord and king also has rules. Any breaking of them and you can be ousted from the club.”
“Besides,” Peter said, dusting his knees off. Cafeteria gunk had gotten on them during his escape—so really he had to scrape. “Positions of High Chancellor, duke, lord, knight, and all other things might end up more interesting.”
“More interesting?” Timothy repeated with disgust and disbelief.
Yet the titles did pique the interest of the others listening. And seeing this, Jessica nodded to Peter. Then she climbed onto the lunch table. Reaching into her jacket pocket for the deck of playing cards she often shuffled during study hall underneath her desk when she got bored, her fingers nimbly claimed a few.
“Look,” Jessica said in her stage voice to them all, “There are lots of different things we can do in this club. The meeting will be held tomorrow in…” she looked down to the boys who had gone to get the teachers’ signatures. Daniel mouthed a location. She shrugged and finished, “The drama room.”
Several of their classmates cringed.
“If you really want to join,” she continued with growing strength in her voice, “You have to brave the unknown.”
With a flick of prestidigitation, a card ‘magically’ appeared at the tips of her fingers.
“Oooh!” escaped from several without meaning to. Most drew in breaths.
Jessica decided to awe them more. Card tricks were easy. Impressing them was hard.
“I’m the club’s magician,” Jessica said, skillfully fingering the cards so that they seemed to appear and disappear at will, different images and suits showing up. She even did a fan display as Daniel hissed up, “Wizard!”
She said, “We need a tax collector.” She showed a suit of diamonds, fanning the cards with a flick of her wrist. Then she closed it again. “Which is the medieval term for club treasurer—chosen by the faculty.”
She had to add that last bit in case someone had hopes of pilfering the cash box of club funds. A few slyly hopeful
Impressum
Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 17.04.2017
ISBN: 978-3-7438-5717-9
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