Mistakes. on Aladren Commons

Geoffrey Layne

May 04, 2009 11:56 AM

Aladren Quidditch Sign-Ups by Geoffrey Layne

If Anne was up-to-date with events at Sonora, Geoff now had a very good reason to avoid Anne as assiduously as Anne had been avoiding him. Though he pinned the Quidditch captain's badge right next to the Head Boy's badge on his robes every morning, it took him until the third day of the semester to realize he was actually supposed to put up the tryout sheet in the common room. This, he was sure, would be grounds for attention in Anne-land, and not the good kind.

With the thought of being chased around with his own bat on his mind to encourage him, he scrawled out a tryouts notice while eating his lunch. Because he was an overachiever with the common sense of a gnat, he'd elected to continue taking Ancient Runes independently, which was even harder than the real class had been, and his schedule was already packed to the brim. A few more weeks, and he might even have to go so far as to invest in a day planner.

The notice went up after dinner. He could only hope it was not doomed to remain perpetually blank.

Aladren Quidditch

Tryouts for this year's Aladren Hawks will occur next Saturday. If you're interested in getting or taking back any position on the team, sign your name, year, and what position you want on this sheet.

Because of school rules, tryouts are only open to students in second year and above. Sorry, first years.

- Geoffrey Layne, Captain

Beneath this were a series of lines. On the first line was Geoff's sign-up:

Geoffrey Layne, Year 7, Beater

Subthreads:

Thinking about it by Daniel Nash II

Mistakes. by Paul Tarwater

Nervously re-applying by Jera Valson

For the House by Thomas Fitzgerald

16 Geoffrey Layne Aladren Quidditch Sign-Ups 72 Geoffrey Layne 1 5

Daniel Nash II

May 08, 2009 10:08 AM

Thinking about it by Daniel Nash II

Daniel was not terribly interested in Quidditch. It was there, he occasionally went to the games (but only if Aladren was playing) and it did have the advantage of being a topic that Holly despised, so that gave it an appeal it otherwise wouldn't have. While under normal circumstances, Daniel would never have considered playing on the House team, there were a few facts that altered that decision.

Firstly, it would make Holly huff at him. That was always fun.

Secondly, he was fairly sure his House was going to be short players. He'd heard they'd had enough trouble filling the roster last year and that was before the old captain graduated. At minimum, one second year was going to have to volunteer, and he wasn't sure if any of his yearmates would rise to the occasion. Juri maybe. He doubted Euna, Taylor, or Quentin would.

He doubted the new Captain would take Quentin, even if he did volunteer and the team was short without him.

And thirdly, flying lessons hadn't been awful, and he kind of liked both heights and high speeds. Broom dives were even better than biking down hills.

So Danny took his quill out and put his name down below the Captain's:

Daniel Nash, Year 2, If needed, wherever (no experience)

1 Daniel Nash II Thinking about it 130 Daniel Nash II 0 5

Paul Tarwater

May 12, 2009 11:45 AM

Mistakes. by Paul Tarwater

After last year, Paul Tarwater highly doubted that he would be allowed to have any major seat on the team. He doubted Layne would trust him with a Beaters bat, and he really doubted that people would hold back their laughter seeing the boy that hit the stupid Quaffle instead of the stupid Bludger so stupidly. As it was, though, Paul was still a sucker for things being normal. And things were far from normal, as they had started going off track a few years ago. But he was stubborn, determined to pull himself back on track. Maybe sleep a little more, if he could manage, stop shaking so much, stop being so afraid of every shadow.

Speaking of which, what was that? His eyes flicked and his arms tensed, Lussni yowled softly in his arms as Paul pulled the odd cat's patch of fur. The old man only had one left, and Paul murmured an apology to his cat, seeing that the "feared enemy" was only some new student stumbling around. He had a lot of work to do on himself, really. Paul pushed the black from his eyes and looked at the Quidditch board. He was just fooling himself with all this, really, there was no way that this would pull him back into normality. The apocalypse was already set to happen soon, as Paul kept blaming everything on any sort of "end of the world" he had read about.

Paul Tarwater. Sixth Year. Beater~~if you'll keep me~~.

But Aladren needed people. That was his reasoning. And if they needed people, they may need him. No, that was doubtful. He was just fooling himself here, this stupid game didn't need him at all. Normal wasn't going to happen. But as it went in the boy's mind, he was stubborn, set on not changing. And there it lay, Paul hoisted Lussni up in his arms. "You're getting fat," he told the cat, walking away from the board, pretending like he hadn't just put his name up there for the world to see.

0 Paul Tarwater Mistakes. 0 Paul Tarwater 0 5

Jera Valson

May 15, 2009 1:45 PM

Nervously re-applying by Jera Valson

While she hadn't hated being on the Quidditch team last year, Jera had felt bad that she'd ended up playing Seeker - the position that Delany wanted, and Jera had only signed up because Delany had asked her to. Plus it had taken up a lot of free time, and Anne had been quite scary, most of the time.

Yet parts of it had been fun. Jera knew she wasn't making any friends by never catching the Snitch, but she had never claimed to be good at it, and the other Seekers had all been far more experienced that she was. Nevertheless, she thought she had flown okay, improving over the year, and it hadn't been bad enough to put her off. She knew that Aladren was always short of players, so as someone with experience of playing on the team she felt it was only fair for her to sign up. Besides, playing Crotalus wouldn't be nearly so scary with professor O'Leary as its Head.

Finally convincing herself that there was no harm in signing up - she might not even make it through the try-outs, anyway - Jera added her name to the short list.

Jera Valson, 2nd year, Seeker or Chaser

0 Jera Valson Nervously re-applying 112 Jera Valson 0 5

Thomas Fitzgerald

May 31, 2009 6:32 PM

For the House by Thomas Fitzgerald

Quidditch wasn't something Thomas thought much about. He'd play the odd pick-up game with his cousins over the summer holidays, but during the school year, his focus was on his grades. Those were the things his parents and, much, much, much more importantly, his grandfather were interested in, and they were the ones who paid his allowance and tuition. Besides, Anne Wright, the captain since before Thomas even came to Sonora Academy, was nuts. Everyone knew that.

Now, however, she was gone and had apparently taken all the desire the people of Aladren might have once had to join up with the House team with her. And while he wasn't like Gray or Geoffrey - one of those sorts who went out of their way, so to speak, to be Aladrens publicly - he did have a little House pride to worry about. So, once it was very definitely starting to look like no one else would, Thomas decided his name would make a decent addition to the list. At any rate, the worst that could happen was other part-time players all coming out of the woodwork at once and taking the spot from him.

Thomas Fitzgerald, Fourth Year, Chaser

0 Thomas Fitzgerald For the House 109 Thomas Fitzgerald 0 5