Nic Sawyer
February 08, 2011 10:15 AM
Catching Air without a Broom by Nic Sawyer
Like most of the school, Nic had come for the inauguration of Sonora's newest room. He'd glanced over the pamphlet and then headed back to his dorm in Crotalus right after the mini-speech was done (there had been far too many people to enjoy the place at that time) and flipped through the information on the room one more time. That was when he noticed that the Sport room wasn't just for Quidditch players.It would let him skateboard.
He wrote home immediately to request his board. Mom had pretty much figured out the whole owl system, but he expected Dad would be the one to send the package this time since it was larger and bulkier than the simple letters Mom generally sent.
Sure enough, when the school owl returned, it had a wrapped up skateboard with Nic's name written in his Dad's handwriting on it. Inside, was his shimmery black board with the dark blue wheels and a letter from Dad.
The letter was short, which was good, or Nic might not have bothered to read it. Dad said only, Hello, Nickie, which made him wince because what if Sam saw the letter - or worse, Rachel? He glanced around to make sure nobody was reading over his shoulder. Glad you're looking forward to the school's new room. The bird will make it back to you with your board with no problems. It won't even get wet, so you don't need to worry about warping, kid. Anyway, be careful, and don't go boarding on Tuesday the 18th, because you'll fall and sprain your wrist if you do. Okay, have a good week, Dad
Once he finished reading it, Nic crumpled it up and threw it in the Crotalus fireplace, double-checked the calendar to make sure it wasn't Tuesday the 18th (he'd long since learned to just accept advice like that) and headed down to the new MARS room.
Sure enough, there was skating ramp in the sporty room. Nic allowed a smile into his expression and said the only appropriate word for the occasion. "Excellent."
He dropped the board down to the ground, placed one foot firmly atop it, and then pushed off. This was going to be good. He hit the ramp at a good speed and started with a simple 180. He nailed it easy, and came back up the other side with more speed. Just another 180 again, to get a feel for the ramp and to remember what he was doing. It had already been a few weeks since he did this last.
On the sixth pass he started getting fancy. On the tenth he realized he had an audience, and skidded out to a stop as soon as he safely could. He kicked the skateboard up into his hand and asked, "Did you want a turn on the ramp?"
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Catching Air without a Broom
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Sophie Jamison
February 08, 2011 4:42 PM
Mind if I watch? by Sophie Jamison
Sonora had a new room. Sonora had a new room. Sonora had a new room. Sonora had a new room. Sonora had a new room. Sonora had a new room. Sonora had a new room. Sonora had a new room. Sonora had a new room.Sophie was very pumped about this. It wasn’t even just one room! It was, like, a bajillion rooms! Okay, so there were five, but that was still a lot! New things were pretty rare for the Pecari, and this new MARS thing excited her. The instant she could, she had to chatter to someone about it!
She opted to write to Liz, her colorful cousin. The letter told nothing of details, just that there was a new room with a bunch of cool new things. In fact, she probably used the word “new” about eighty times. Not long after, Pegasus had returned with her reply, which was short and sweet, just the way Liz liked to be.
Cool.
That was the entire letter. No
Bored and having nothing to do, she decided to go explore the MARS room(s). Upon arrival, she was faced by the five doors and tried to decide which to go in. Actually, she tried to remember which was which and, not recalling, just took a guess and picked one.
It seemed the one she picked was the sports room, and a skateboard ramp thing was before her. Her blue eyes caught the motion of a boarder and instantly began to follow back and forth. Not long after, however, said boarder noticed her and stopped. “Did you want a turn on the ramp?”
A giggle escaped her; Sophie often giggled instead of blushing, and she felt very embarrassed by the fact that she had been pretty much staring at the boy. “Oh, no, that was just-… I mean, you were-… How do you do that?!” She had failed in an attempt to compliment the boy’s boarding, and instead turned it into a question about how it was done.
“Oh!” Sophie exclaimed, remembering her manners. “I’m Sophie Jamison.” She had given up on the whole pureblood introductions things. Even if the boy was a pureblood, he probably had better things to do than contact her family and tattle on her lack of formality. “What’s your name?” she imposed with a tilt of her blonde head. “You’re a great boarder. Gute Arbeit, gut gemacht.” There. The compliment came out, even if part of it was in German.
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Sophie Jamison
Mind if I watch?
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Nic
February 14, 2011 10:07 AM
A spectator then. by Nic
He was kind of glad when the girl sort of stuttered somewhat unintelligibly and yet somehow managed to get across that she had no intention of taking the ramp away from him. Good. He was just starting to get into a groove and he didn't really want to share already. Then she went and introduced herself, though the German or whatever language that was that followed was unexpected and made the encounter a little more interesting than just some spectator introducing herself."Nic," he returned, because not giving her his name would be rude at this point since she'd gone and specifically asked for it. He assumed, though, that the question about how he 'did that' was rhetorical and he was not obligated to explain the mechanics of skate-boarding. He wasn't entirely sure that he could, anyway, beyond the obvious answer of 'practice'.
"You can watch," he offered, feeling generous since she obviously knew a language that was neither English, Spanish nor even French, which was something Nic apparently found surprisingly fascinating. Being from Florida, Spanish was nothing special, and being half-Canadian made French less than unique (even if the Sawyers were from further west than Quebec and he'd only visited his grandparents a handful of times), and obviously English was boring, but this Sophie Jamison who didn't even look particularly foreign spoke something he'd only heard on old World War Two shows. From the bad guys.
Which made him inexplicably predisposed to like her.
Nic decided not to think about it too much and got on his board again. He told himself that he was not trying to impress the blond little German girl when he started doing some of his best tricks for her.
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Nic
A spectator then.
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Sophie
February 23, 2011 10:54 AM
Excellent! by Sophie
Sophie grinned when the boy introduced himself as Nic. Duh. She was pretty sure she had seen him in class the year before. Nic Sawyer. How on Earth could she forget someone so exceptionally… vertical? Nic was, like, super-tall, and Sophie was… on the opposite end of the spectrum. The height difference amused her.He told her she could watch, and she nodded to express her gratitude. Just where she stood, she promptly seated herself on the floor to watch. Her blue eyes were wide with aw at Nic’s awesome techniques on the board. She had lived in California, so she had seen boarding before, but not up close. And not this much talent. Most of the Californians she had met were admittedly wannabes. Nic was an alreadyam.
The graceful element she saw in the boarding was really what caught her attention; the clumsy blonde had no hopes of ever being that coordinated. As in ever. Whatever though, because her two future careers didn’t need graceful. Quidditch just needed the mindset and the physical strength and ability. As for potioneering, she just needed her wits. Sophie had those to spare. Kind of.
She admired Nic for his ability, knowing that if she herself tried to skateboard, she’d probably fall on her face. Of course, it would much less of a fall for her than Nic, but it would probably still sting, and Sophie was somewhat struggling with independence. If she fell, no one would pick her back up and dust her off. The twelve year old was still adjusting to the newfound freedom and maturity that had come with her first year, and now as a second year, it felt twice as hard not to get homesick and long for the past days of her fleeting youth.
“That’s really cool,” she commented as he practically flew by. “Where did you learn to do that?” Of course, to answer he would have to stop, but she kind of didn’t want to see the skating end. It was too awesome. “Was it hard? I mean, you make it look so easy…” Her blue eyes blinked as she waited for the knowledge to be transferred to her through sound.
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Sophie
Excellent!
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Nic
February 25, 2011 12:01 PM
It's all right. by Nic
Nic was showing off a little. He wasn't quite sure why - beyond that she knew German, which was somehow a Big Deal though he couldn't even explain to himself what that was all about - and she seemed to be appreciating it which only made him push himself harder. Maybe it was just that this was Sonora and skateboarding was a Nic Thing and few people at Sonora ever got to see Nic doing Nic Things.So he was kind of glad when she started asking questions because he was fast running out of good tricks and he was getting exhausted from the effort besides. He wondered what horrible thing would await him if he came on Tuesday the 18th if he was starting to shake dangerously now. Sophie again? Someone who actually knew how to board and they got into a heated competition where he pushed much to hard?
Rachel?
That last possibility almost made it worth going on Tuesday the 18th, except that Dad promised a sprained wrist and he'd rather not hurt himself in front of her.
Or in front of Sophie, so it was probably for the best to stop for a little bit regardless of whether or not she wanted to talk about boarding. Fortunately, she did, so it looked like he was acquiescing to her request instead of stopping because he was about to collapse.
Sitting down on the skateboard, making it look casually comfortable instead of like his legs wouldn't support him for much longer, Nic tried to answer her questions.
"I'm from Miami," he said. "There's a ramp set up in my neighborhood. If you can't skateboard it, you get beat up, so you learn to skateboard." It did not occur to him that there might be anything odd in that. "Got some scrapes at first, but that just makes you want to figure it out quicker. Been skateboarding a few years now. Started when I was, I don't know, eight?"
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It's all right.
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