August 1, 2009
7:30 am

The idyllic Scottish summer's day (a rather rare occurrence) had a storm front move in. The sun blocked by a black, billowing, rolling cloud, crackles of lightening with echoing thunder. Just the one cloud, a fierce storm condensed to one purple whiff of condensation. Another lightning strike, this one almost arcing free of the cloud to race to the ground.

"Mace Steinbeck!" yelled the pilot, "Let go of that lever or I'll kick you outta the bridge. With a packet of Drooble's as an afterthought."

"Sorry," Mace grinned sheepishly where he assisted with the controls. A lever flipped. "Okay, cleared for decent."

The storm cloud softened, brightened, giving way to white mists that faded.

And the beast lowered from the fog.

It could be mistaken for a massive dragon, but not even a Leviathan was as large or an Ukrainian Ironbelly as metallic. Even with magic flexing metal wings and tensing claws, the beast was not of the living. The bow of the airship, a snarling face a cross between a Swedish Shortsnout and another certain stuffed reptile, housed the controls where the crew and Mace looked out at the castle and lake underneath, getting ever closer. Stretching back along the body of the mechanical monster, under the wings, was the glass of the observation deck where students aligned to peer below.

As the Dragodirigible lowered, an even more massive expanse followed it, a swelled orb like squashed (American) football. It wasn't all filled with inert gases, the space available for rooms, inner workings, and a small stadium. Like a floating hotel, Mace thought.

"Ok, we going to land this thing on the roof?" Mace asked, pointing to where the Great Hall sat in the Hogwarts floor-plan. The incredulous stare was the same as his fiddling with the weather controls earlier. "Only joking."

"Get everyone ready to land, then check to make sure the landing gear is working properly."

"Right o," Mace said, slinging his broom over his shoulder and walking to the observation deck. Speaking self importantly he said "Welcome to Hogwarts and Hogsmeade, ladies and gents. We're still at nosebleed hight but descending rapidly, so pop those ears and don't drop anything you don't want to loose."

Jimmy had taken a well-deserved nap over the course of their flight, but as they drew near the grounds he switched fairly suddenly into Mr. Hart mode. He had taken to stalking the craft, knocking baseball caps off of the heads of snoozing kids and interrupting makeout sessions with furious hand gestures.

"Hey, numbnuts!" he barked at a freshman who was lollygagging around looking out the back windows. "Get your crap and get your ass back in your seat before I put your lights out!" As the shrimp scuttled away, Jimmy folded his arms and squinted back up the aisle. Steinbeck, as usual, was getting his nose into whatever bizarre business he could, and couldn't help but grin a little as he heard the pilot holler the boy's name.

Steinbeck was a good kid. He was a little bit of a space case, and certainly tended to flake out on practices, but he was really clever and his heart was always in the right place. As much as Jimmy had hollered at Mace until he was red in the face, he had never come close to kicking him off the team. He was an asset, and besides that, Jimmy liked having a couple wild cards on the team to keep the captains on their toes.

The boy in question had begun announcing their final descent, so Jimmy paced around again and started barking commands to kids who were not preparing their luggage with the speed that the coach would have liked.

Travel was an inconvenient thing, for half-giants. Well, many things were inconvenient really - clothes shopping, food bills, and low ceilings ranked high on the list - but traveling could be especially so, and Davey's worries about deep vein thrombosis didn't help things. Luckily, for this trip at least, Tayrn had managed to claim a row of benches near the center of the Dragodirigible, leaning back against the wall and window while her legs stretched over the two accompanying seats. Her feet still stuck out into the aisle when she stretched too much, but other than that it was perfectly comfortable. She could even keep her bag right under the seat where she could reach it.

As they descended over the Scottish village, Taryn spun a mini basketball absently to give her hands something to do while her eyes scanned the treeline of the steadily increasing forest. There were supposed to be amazing creatures out there - venemous tentacula, thestrals, unicorns, things you never got to see at home, and beings like centaurs to boot! - and, though she didn't see any of them yet, she was already bursting with excitement.

"Welcome to Hogwarts and Hogsmeade, ladies and gents. We're still at nosebleed hight but descending rapidly, so pop those ears and don't drop anything you don't want to loose."

"Finally," Taryn said with a groan, stretching her long limbs. A freshman in the opposite bench let out a small shriek as her space was briefly invaded by a huge basketball shoe, and Taryn laughed. "Chill out, hun, I ain't gonna hurt you." Noticing that Mr. Hart was heading their way, she quickly stowed the basketball in her bag and retracted her limbs back into the bench, giving the sports head a cheeky grin as he passed. "'Bout time, huh Jim? Too much more time cramped in here and we're all liable to lose it."

It would surprise no one that instead of being seated comfortably in the interior of the Dragodirigible, Headmaster Ferreole LeBeau was nestled on top of the monstrosity,  where he had expressly forbidden everyone else to be. He had clumped his way up there, muttering and grumbling about loud, rowdy hooligans and needing some peace and the fact that if the staff couldn't handle them without him then they should all be fired. Despite his rumblings, though, his true purpose for selecting his chosen location had become clear the minute someone dared stick so much as a pinky outside the window of the observation deck, and it had been abruptly hexed back inside, accompanied by a butter-and-gravel threat from above that the next one was getting hacked off and fed to Muffy. Muffy, of course, being the man's affectionate nickname for the monstrosity they were riding.

Sure, there was a forcefield, but he was taking no chances.

He had actually been quite productive up here, finishing off quite the considerable amount of paperwork—the day he couldn't keep himself and his papers dry in a stormcloud was the day he snapped his own wand in two—while all the while keeping an eagle eye on his students' unwary limbs. It wouldn't do for his staff to know he was doing paperwork of course, so occasionally, the sounds of bangs, explosions, and the occasional Italian opera drifted below during the journey.

And now, on this final leg of the journey, Ferreole stood on top of the monstrous contraption, his roaring about equal with that of the storm as he stood, legs braced and knobbly stick raised like a sword, whipping his wand here and there, redirecting the lightning away from his students, and to where it would provide a most spectacular display backlighting their landing. Satisfied, his spellwork would continue the diversions without monitoring, he flashed his paperwork away to somewhere no one would ever find it and paused, lowering his stick to stare at the expanse before him.

Salem's best would face trials that none of their predecessors had even dreamed of. His hands, aged and old, ran over the smooth wood of the piece of driftwood that had become his cane, and he was quiet for a moment, in this isolation. He had no doubt the foreign students would look on his and think they were rough, rowdy, undisciplined, over-emotive fools. And they'd be right. A smile pulled on dark lips as Ferreole cackled to himself in a low rumble. Oh yes, they'd be very right. Because his students had the kind of heart that made them more than a match for those across the ocean. His pack of independent, loud-mouthed fools were going to dazzle the whole damn world, and he couldn't wait to watch them do it. Hogwarts, Beauxbatons and Durmstrang  wouldn't know what hit them.

Sniffling once, Ferreole regained himself from his fond musings as he heard shouts before. The broad, mischieviously calculating smile vanished, replaced by a foul scowl that was belied by the amused gleam in his dark eyes.

With a crack as loud as any clap of thunder, Ferreole appeared below decks in a flashy poof of purple smoke that caused at least one younger student to squawk and scramble out of the way.

"STEINBECK," came the discontented roar, "Jou store dat twig afore jou kill someone, jou." He waved his wand again, and the broom was yanked abruptly upwards, zooming unerringly for storage. Salem's Headmaster stood at the front of the observation deck, both hands upon his knobbly stick as he scowled furiously at the brood scattered around. His dark eyes passed over all of them individually, and when he was done, he scoffed and threw a hand in the air in utter disgust, a deep, rumbling harrumph accentuating his displeasure. He pivoted on his peg leg to turn his back to his students, but wasn't quite fast enough to hide the misty wetness at the corners of his eyes, and the proud, choked sniffle.

"Jou gon' land dis boat or play bluebird, jou?" He bellowed at the pilot, who winced, but made an appeasing hand motion as Ferreole pivoted back to his staff and students, just in time to catch the tail end of Taryn's comment.

Without any warning, he burst into the raucous, hysterical hyena cackle of a laugh that was equal parts warm and just utterly crazy. "Too late, ma petit. Too late. HAH!" He brought his knobbly stick down with a loud crash to emphasize his point, narrowed his eyes at everyone with an abrupt glower, and with one final harrumph, disappeared with another crack, back to his post on the top of the beast. He didn't trust the pilot to land them all safely—the young fellow had a shifty look about him. Couldn't be trusted. Hrmph.


Perhaps somewhat incongruously, wrapped around the very tip of the prow of the observation deck in some horrible parody of a figurehead, was a very large, over-sized stuffed crocogator. He certainly hadn't been there when the journey started—Ferreole had most assuredly locked the creature in a chest and tossed the chest in the basement of his office, and then stood there for several minutes, as though contemplating setting it on fire—but he was there now, tail wrapped around the prow, body sticking up like a petrified stick, and wearing a hula skirt and sunglasses. Clearly, he was ready for an extended vacation

As always chaos abounded around the Salem Lot. Odessa,watched as everyone hustled and Coach Hart barked orders. She was dragging her feet - mostly because one of them was asleep, but also because Tracy made a really comfortable back rest. She couldn't remember when exactly she'd turned lengthwise in their row and leaned her back against his shoulder but she'd been in the first half of The Rum Diary and she was almost finished (also she might have nodded off at some point). It was under the pretense of "just a few more pages" that kept her in her seat rather than gathering her luggage. It was harder to focus now that everyone (including her leaning post) was hustling about, or trying to. Then there was the crackling smoke cloud that signaled their much adored Headmaster coming in from the cold so to speak. Odie might have willfully ignored Hart or pleaded with Mrs. Valdaine for a few more moments but one just did not argue with Ferreole LeBeau, not even Odessa on her worst days.

Stretching as she slowly forced herself to stand she winced and half hopped on one foot, "Pins and tingles, pins and tingles," there was a mild whine to her voice as she turned green eyes toward Tracy, pointing a finger in the general direction of his smiling face, "Don't smirk at me. You know I have the circulation of a ninety year old," she tried to look scowly but couldn't quite manage it. She'd blame it on the altitude but really she was just excited. It was contradictory to her general nature to get excited about things (especially things that didn't involve geeky theater things) but the idea of Scotland just below them, that they'd be here for so long she almost couldn't see the end of it, that it would be during her very last year in school - not even Odie could talk herself out of being excited. Leaning over Tracy she let her eyes linger on the clouds for a moment before Headmaster LeBeau's voice cracked through any sort of philosophical thought she might have been having.

Tossing her book into her messenger bag she twisted her hair into a bun and threw a look to Taryn, "At least you can stand up, doesn't Beauxbatons ride in carriages? Lord can you imagine? Then both my legs would be asleep and Tracy'd have to carry me around...you know on second thought it doesn't sound so bad," she grinned at the dark skin boy, sort of bouncing on the balls of her feet. She'd been alright when the idea of landing seemed a million years away but now that they were right down to the wire she was antsy to get the hell out of the Dragodirigible and back on solid ground. As much as she loved flying (broom or horseback) she liked feeling in control. Also, perhaps more importantly, neither of those were enclosed spaces and before she'd been alright but with everyone moving and talking the Senior suddenly felt extremely claustrophobic, as though the cabin was shrinking with their slow decent - even though it wasn't and she was crazy. Fiddling with the strap of her bag, she caught Coach Hart's eye and wrinkled her nose asking (for the first time the whole trip) "Are we there yeeeeeeet"?

Sam wasn't generally a terribly skittish person. Only a few things in his life really frightened him- one was Odie Eisley, whose voice just sent shivers up his spine the way he felt when he touched his fingernails to a piece of chalk. He felt the familiar sensation as she talked to Tracy. The other, oddly enough, was foreigners.

Poor Sam was a bit of a xenophobe, as ashamed as he was of it- a good Christian, he supposed, should love all people equally. But it was a shortcoming he couldn't shake, although he wasn't sure of the origins of his phobia. Maybe it had more to do with the way he was raised than with his actual beliefs; spending most of one's life in a society as closed as the one he had grown up in was sure to reduce one's tolerance to outsiders.

It wasn't really the people themselves he was afraid of, it was more the idea that they would take one look at him and laugh in his face. Which wasn't really that far fetched of a concept.

It was with that in mind that Sam had ordered a picture book intended for American wizarding children to teach them about Hogwarts. He was huddled in his seat, the brim of his hat pushed back so that it cast a black halo around his head, flicking through the pages rapidly, watching the bright and friendly characters waving from dungeons and towers.

His shirt, a collared and starched pale purple travesty, felt constricting and hot, pressed tightly against his toned chest and abdomen by suspenders that seemed built for someone half his size. The book was not very educational (big surprise) and he rued the day that he had wasted a perfectly good five dollar bill on it. Even if the pictures did move.

As he began to be able to make buildings out much more clearly, his dread increased exponentially. It was the feeling he'd experienced once at Knoebels, buckled into his first-ever rollercoaster, climbing to the top of the track. It was something like "I would give anything to go back and re-think this decision."

Coach Hart blew through the area and knocked Sam's hat off, hollering something about the boy having to "run a comb through his goddamn hair."

Although he usually obeyed the wishes of his elders earnestly, the second Hart walked out of eyeshot Sam pulled the hat back on his head with hot, sick-feeling resentment. Few people at Salem gave him a hard time about his hat, as it had religious connotation, and even Hart generally made no comment on it, as Sam didn't wear it to play sports in.

Most people realized that it was tantamount to a security blanket for poor Sam Lambright, who now sat tapping his feet anxiously and staring with wide eyes out the window.

To say he was simply excited about it all would’ve been a really bad understatement. Actually, he was positively ecstatic.

The Tetra-Wizard Tournament! Formerly known as the Triwizard Tournament, the world-famous competition had solely consisted of what were widely regarded as the three best schools in Europe—Durmstrang, Beauxbatons, and Hogwarts. It had consisted of three dangerous tasks and a Champion from each, all for the sake of gold and glory. This year, though, would be different, Tracy was sure of; though they hadn’t been given exact details, the tournament’s most significant change—the inclusion of a fourth party, Salem—promised that most likely other changes had followed. Quite naturally the boy had looked up as much as he could, guessed as many possibilities that were possible or he could think of. This would be Salem’s first time participating, and he was as loyal to his school as much as the next person.

. . .Which was Odessa Eisley, true, but Tracy knew as well—no, better than anyone that appearances, no matter how grumpy they first appeared, were deceiving. For all her sarcasm and sort of depressing cynicism, he knew that his friend loved their school fiercely and would do her best on its behalf.

Admittedly, it was a lot of faith. But Tracy had nothing if not that, and he had more than enough to put in everyone else.

Affecting that thick drawl he’d had so long ago, he grinned, “I di’nt say nuthin’,” hands held up in a gesture that radiated pure innocence. “Though. . .”

He eyed her slyly. “Your circulation prob’ly wouldn’t be so bad if you came back to the team y’know—kidding, kidding!” the boy added hastily, when it looked like she was about to hit him. The grin, of course, came back full force when she let herself be distracted by the view the window offered. With her attention temporarily diverted, Tracy went back to packing his things, stuffing those few items he’d taken out of his own bag back inside, and laughed at her ribbing; he wasn’t annoyed in the least. If anything, her excitement only warmed him and added to his own. “Don’t I do that enough?”

When Ferreole graced them all with his presence, just barely did he manage to tamp down the grin.

Once he was satisfied that all this things had been safely stored away, he too stood up and stretched, all six-foot-six of himself stretching like a mile of smiles and muscle. While Odie went off to bug Coach, he started going through the aisles (being one of the few who were actually allowed to), all Mister Class President as he glanced over everyone else. Quietly he murmured to those who hadn’t been paying attention to pack up with a hushed sort of grin until he reached the front where Mace still stood.

“You heard the man,” Tracy tossed them all a grin as he cheerfully clapped the other boy on the shoulder. “Last call t’ get your stuff ready—no one’s gonna be runnin’ back inside t’ get anythin’ until the end of th’ day, y’ hear? Remember what we’re here for, guys!”

Unable to bite back that smile at all, he cupped his hands around his mouth and bellowed, “What’re we here for?”

Those who were getting swept up in the excitement replied, “VICTORY!” and before they all knew it the deck had erupted into cheers.

Tracy smiled almost foolishly at them all. School spirit—they had it.

Mace had dodged through his fellows best he could when the Headmaster decidedly showed up out of nowhere. "STEINBECK." The effect was starting to get lost on Mace, seemed the Headmaster couldn't go more than a month without singling him out. Maybe because he also volunteered on the flight crew, which practically made him a staff member. Or it might be that time a Decoy Detanator he set off to surprise the Phoenix Hall kids blasted a preserved shark from its hanging in an oceanography display, and ever since it fell in the hole in the floor (an even longer story explained that bit of interior remodeling) it was rumored to back up the pipes and pop out of toilets. Well anyways, at least you couldn't fire a student.

Mace didn't register the loss of broom until he patted his shoulder then looked and realized that it was missing. "Pilot wanted me to inspect the landing gear, scout the landing site, you know." All resonable renovations to the flight crew's saftey plan. Crashing into the village wouldn't look too good. They're tried pre-landing inspections via bungee cord before the last guy that did it may as well have been splinched for the way his limbs had to be brought back together in the hospital bay.

It turned out the Headmaster wasn't around to listen to reason. Mace blinked. He wondered just how much of his explanation had been said to nobody in particular. He shrugged, ready to retrieve his broom and try again.

Class Prez himself Tracey Jones lead the passengers in a rally cry. “What’re we here for?”

Mace joined in yelling "VICTORY!" before adding "And quality Zonko's products."

Yolanda couldn't help but laugh in delight, flashing her strikingly white teeth in the process. Trust Tracy Jones to stir up the troops. Walking her own rounds of the aisles, also checking to make sure the students were getting ready to disembark, she ambled past Mace Steinbeck, and gave him an appraising sort of look. 'Not too many Zonko's products, Mace,' she told him in that warm Texan drawl of hers. 'We don't want to have to be worried about sneezing powder and whoopee cushions as well as your growing army of Pygmy Puffs.'

'And Odie,' she added, appearing at Odessa Eisley's shoulder when a mock-stern look on her face, 'we get there when we get there! Don't you make us turn this blimp around.' She winked at the girl, but couldn't resist moving towards the windows to see how close to the ground they were getting. Skimming along on the water beneath them, she spotted a splendid ship; that must be the Durmstrang delegation.

Anticipation bubbling up in the pit of her stomach just as if she herself were one of the students, Yolanda started on her way back to her own place to double-check her belongings were safely packed away. Catching sight of the look on Sam Lambright's face on her way there, though, gave her pause. 'Y'okay, Sam?' she asked gently. 'Y'know, they won't bite. And the students from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, for a lot of them this'll be their first time in the UK too. So they'll be in the same boat as us-- and that's a literal boat, in the case of the Durmstrangs,' she added with amusement, gesturing out of the window to where they were leaving the Durmstrang ship behind them.

Now his head and ears were ringing. Bennett couldn't help but join in the cheers anyway; there was something to be said for getting swept up in heroic chest-thumping. He certainly felt better about this whole thing for a few moments. Then he went back to wanting to go home.

"Yeah," he said, as the sound died away. He was tired - it'd been hard to sleep on the trip, with his stomach doing flips - and he couldn't stop the yawns or the desire to stretch his entire body at once. He tried with his shoulders and felt a lot better after he popped his back and neck loudly.

He looked over at Yolanda as she spoke, tilting his head in consideration - and with a slight smirk.  "Yeah, but they don't speak English natively. We've go'tae leggup on 'em, lads," he said, chiming in with an offensively bad Scots accent. "We just, ya know. Cuss more than the Brits do." Which they probably weren't allowed to do. "Though maybe the Durmstrang kids cuss a lot too. How would you tell?"

"An' just what's so great about Zonkos?" Taryn asked, leaning over to hear Steinbeck's response. She'd slipped from her row of chairs to the floor and was now sitting cross-legged in one of the aisles. Sitting straight-backed, her head now stayed about the same height as the rest of the Junior class. "What've they got that Sammy's hasn't got? Besides your Puffs."

Samnag's Shenanigans was Taryn's preferred mail-order service for jokes and pranks, not to mention the sponsor (and primarily supplier) of the biggest wizarding Fourth-of-July show on the east coast. They did not, however, sell Pigmy Puffs, for which everyone who knew Steinbeck was enormously grateful.

"We just, ya know. Cuss more than the Brits do."

Taryn grinned, leaning back on her long arms to look at Bennett Bishop upside-down. "I dunno 'bout that," she said, purposefully drawling the vowels to match the intensity of his bad Scottish accent. "My step-dad watches a lot of British TV, and he says they cuss like nobody's business. It's just that they cuss in different ways, with words like 'bugger' and 'bloody' and stuff. We'll have to study up."

Jimmy gave Odie an exasperated look and put his hands on his hips, nodding sarcastically. "Oh, so that's the game we're playin'? Is that what we're doin'? Look at you, you're not even ready to go yet. What do you care? Knucklehead." He said the last word not with annoyance but with the type of warm comfortability that comes only from a very good understanding of each other.

He gave Tracy a hearty clap on the back and then took a quick seat. The whole goings-on reminded him oddly of his time in the military- the aircraft approaching its final descent, the troops rallying, the one weirdly religious kid getting freaked out in the corner, and the charismatic leader of men steeling the nerves of his stewardship. Jimmy was intensely glad for the fact that Tracy had come. He knew it hadn't been an easy decision for the boy, who was taking on twice as much work as everyone else by having to delegate all sorts of responsibility back home for his class presidency. But those kids needed Tracy Jones. Tracy was the Saturday detention of this trip. Without him, the ragtag Breakfast Club of Salem students would hold together about as well as oil and water.

Jimmy pointed a semi-serious finger at his upperclassmen, holding the gazes of his athletes. "Look, you guys. Those kids down there?" he turned the same finger downwards, to point out a window to their destination. "Are gonna try and intimidate you with their fancy uniforms and their spooky European accents and their old money and traditionalism and what have you. But I guarantee you, under all their velvet and coverup, they're gross, awkward teenagers just like the rest of you. I can promise you there ain't one among 'em doesn't wake up in the morning with a face like a damn oil slick. Even those big... Godless communist Russkie kids with the jaws and sideburns like Wolverine still get little weird patches of whiteheads near the corners of their mouths that they have to hide from... the Swiss Miss girl, or whatever the hell Russian girls look like. Okay?"

He listened to Taryn with a wry smirk on his face. Looking over his shoulder once to see if LeBeau was behind him, he leaned forward. "Hey, I'm all for lettin' your mouths run on this trip. Let 'em judge us. You guys ever seen that movie White Men Can't Jump? Y'know? With-- anyway, it's a pretty basic principle of hustlin' people..."

He heard someone approach behind him and pretended to be lounging casually, although as always he looked entirely suspicious.

"Not too many Zonko's products, Mace," said Ms. Valdaine. "We don't want to have to be worried about sneezing powder and whoopee cushions as well as your growing army of Pygmy Puffs."

"Won't launch them on us, teach," Mace said in all honesty. Everyone on the blimp was off the hook in his eyes. Though if the Durmstrang and Beauxbatons students were as uptight as he heard, they could do with a little knocking off the pedestal to get back down to earth. The point would be to make it not too obvious.

"An' just what's so great about Zonkos?" Taryn asked. "What've they got that Sammy's hasn't got? Besides your Puffs."

Even though she was sitting, Mace found he had to tilt his head upwards a bit to see her face. "Well, it's kinda the first great joke shop in a way, even before Samnag's and Weasley's. And if you hear the comments the Weasley's made, it was a big influence on them. Also the first spot to sell the Dungbomb." Proof in many ways that not only the muggle Americans built anew based off of things from England. His mother Charlotte had talked about the antics cousin Margaret got in after Zonko's purchases when the cousins were school age on opposite sides of the Pond.

Yolanda raised an eyebrow at Mace, wondering what the implications were for any Zonko's products the prankster might buy if the members of the Salem delegation weren't his targets. It didn't take much wondering. She gave a soft but exasperated sigh; she loved her students and her school to bits, but she couldn't help but worry that some of the more elite schools might look down on Salem. As renowned an institute as it was, it was still a newcomer both in comparison to the other schools' histories, and in terms of the Tetrawizard Tournament. Of course she didn't want anyone to have to renounce their individuality; that was one of the things that made Salem, in her opinion, the best school in the world. But that wasn't to say they wouldn't need to watch their manners.

It was with this in mind that she left Mace to educate Taryn on joke shop history, and turned instead with a pointed look to the coach. 'Jimmy,' she said sternly, crossing her arms. She couldn't quite keep the twinkle of amusement out of her eye though. Trust Jimmy Hart to 'set an example' for the kids. 'You ain't encouraging our fine, upstanding student body to cuss out the competition, are you honey? 'Cause I can betcha our beloved headmaster is just itchin' to fire someone before we set this boat down.' There were times when Yolanda dearly wished she could 'fire' staff when she felt like it, but that honour did have to go to Ferreole LeBeau.

"Tracy Ezekiel Jones, do not think that just because we are headed for forgien soil means I will heistate to strangle you if you start on that whole Odie you should join the team again. Odie quit being a lazy bum. Odie your butt wouldn't be so big if you spent more time in the air. I do not want to hear it," she gave him her best sassy face but, admittedly, the last two were things she thought not things Tracy had or would ever, say. Actually she was pretty sure Tracy had never looked at her butt - though you had to be careful with the sweet seeming ones. They could be very sneaky. Their friendship was as vexing for her as it was confusing for everyone else. They were a fairly mismatched pair (on the surface at least), Tracy with all his school spirit and being the golden boy, Odie with her penchant for smoking half a pack when  stressed and using visceral sarcasm to skewer (most) people who encroached on her mental space.

Tracy was like a big happy Labrador while Odie was like...something with venom and fangs. Still, she had an admitted soft spot for her fellow senior. She had the same sort of soft spot for Mrs. Valdaine & their Headmaster. The affinity she felt for Jimmy Hart was more akin to what you'd feel for an older brother with a filthy mouth who had a habit of hauling you off a broom to wrestle (well, without the wrestling so much if you were a girl). He didn't even garner withering looks anymore (save when he brought up Quadpot and why she needed to be back on the team), she didn't like to admit it but she had settled herself into a nice makeshift family at Salem - and it just so happened that most of the best parts of home had followed her across the pond. Sure she could have done with less Mace Steinbeck or Louise Parker but a year without Trace, or Migs, or Mrs. V's gentle teasing and Headmaster LeBeau's general kooker-y? Forget about it, the world being normal would be too weird.

"Check your eyes Hart, my gear's good to go; and you wonder why I think you need someone else to coordinate your defensive plays. Blind as a bat and not yet forty! Mrs. Valdaine there has got to be something you can do for that poor man. Losing his eyesight at his age; with all that coaching left to do in his contract and without me or Tracy around next year to keep him in line," she shook her head and clicked her tongue, feigning sympathy but unable to kill the mirth crinkling at the corner of her eyes. Twisting a long strand of dark hair around her finger she couldn't keep the nervous energy out of her muscles. She felt the need to bounce and Odie was, succinctly & emphatically not a bouncy sort of person. She even found herself giving more than a slow sarcastic clap with Tracy's rally cry and almost wanting to pat Lambright on the head. You could call Odie almost anything, but sheltered wasn't one of them. She had thus never understood the basis appeal in a religious sect that shunned outsider knowledge. It had to be rough for him... not that she cared or anything.