Just a bit of a family disagreement.... on Cascade Hall

The Umland Brothers

February 28, 2017 1:54 PM

Just a bit of a family disagreement.... by The Umland Brothers

There were disadvantages to being a prefect, and being expected to be useful during the first hours of a new school year was one of them. John could not imagine much, short of being shot and found out by his family again, that sounded less pleasant than hanging out in the Gardens with the first years, so he had muttered something to Xavier about taking a post in a common area and promptly gone to the Owlery to compose himself.

Coming back here was a mistake.

The normality of it all – the utter sameness of everything he saw getting off the wagon – had hit him like a truck falling from a clear blue sky. The world had turned upside-down, almost everything he had spent most of his life, now, trying to conceal was out in the open now, he had lost his family because of it, he felt utterly alone and adrift in the world, and yet here he was, wearing the same green robes and badges he had worn last year, just as though nothing at all had happened. He knew that was the only way, that his thoughts were based in emotion rather than fact even if they were not an exercise in self-pity on top of everything else, but he couldn’t make the thoughts go away.

“Get it together,” he told himself sternly. An owl hooted its agreement with this proposition.

John took out a bit of parchment, scribbled Aislinn - Tea at four? John, sent that out with an owl, and reasoned that the Cascade Hall was not just a place which presumably held a substance he felt in dire need of. It was a fact that the Cascade Hall probably had tea in it and that John desperately needed to drink some, but it was also a fact that it was a common area. It was probably also a fact that much of the staff was there, but this did not mean it was not a place he could go while still technically keeping his word to Xavier. Maybe he still did feel a nagging sense of dereliction of duty, a sense that he was not doing what was Right – but emotions were not relevant, and he would give a galleon for access to the Irish Breakfast right now.

Luckily, for them and for him, none of the staff made any immediate efforts to stop him from making himself a cup. He inhaled in relief as the hot water hit the teabag, then forced his thoughts onto anything other than all the times Mom or Julian had brought him tea when he was ill or nervous or busy or just because one of them was having some and thought of it.

He’d go back to the Owlery when it finished steeping, he decided. He wasn’t ready to deal with Jax or Aislinn or Emmy-Lou or anyone yet, so that ruled out watching over the other Aladrens, at least for a few minutes, and the Owlery was another common area. The birds had seemed suspicious of him when he was a first year, as though they somehow knew he was fascinated by how magic had contributed to their skills, but they mostly liked him now. He could pull himself together there before presumably having tea with Aislinn at four, it wouldn’t be too bad, having tea with her and talking about something interesting, and it wouldn’t be so long before the Feast that remembering to be attentive and polite for the duration of the occasion would be an impossibility….

Thinking about this, and trying to ignore the side-loops running that involved Mom and Julian and tea and what he had done and what had come of it the last time he had talked about magical theory with a girl unless one counted arguing with Joanie about whether or not Muggle blood would have killed him and whether or not Joanie wanted to kill him right now and whether she was crazy enough to track him down across a continent to get the job done if she did (probably she was, he concluded), John almost missed footsteps behind him. Almost. He turned a little too quickly, sloshing his tea, but he didn’t notice the bit which splashed onto the drinks table as he recognized the person behind him.

* * * * * * * *

If he had been asked to wager the outcome of a dollar on whether or not John would come back to school, Joe would have had to tell the asker that he thought that one was going to go to the judges. All the way from Calgary, in one vehicle and then another, he had been able to think about little else. The family had not talked much about John since they had received a note informing them he was on the other side of the continent and a border, but alive and with a roof over his head, but he knew everyone had been thinking about him near-constantly and just before Joe had gotten on the wagon, his mother had asked him to wait and had gone to the van to get a suitcase he hadn’t seen before.

"Give this to your brother when you see him,” she’d instructed him. ”It’s some sweaters and a scarf and a new coat and gloves for when it gets cold – he has his umbrella, he took that with him, I suppose it’s still good. I put a rain hat in there too anyway.”

For one moment, Joe had understood why Julian was at least as angry with John as she was worried about him. He had wanted to yell at Mom and John in almost equal measure for a moment, but had kept his mouth shut. The rest of them had to hang together now or Joe thought they would all lose what was left of their right minds. He had taken the suitcase along and wondered if it would have a recipient to the point where he almost felt sick by the time the wagon landed in Arizona.

He scanned the prefects around the Gardens for his brother, then checked the library, but John appeared neither among the Orientation supervisors or in his usual haunt. Could he really not be here at all? Could John have really just…left school? Disturbed, Joe wandered down to the Cascade Hall – and froze almost as soon as he opened the door. The person’s back was to him, so he supposed he couldn’t be really sure – but he was sure. There, as though nothing at all had happened, stood John.

Feeling almost in a trance, he approached the table where his brother seemed to be making tea. He stopped behind him, opened his mouth, and still did not know what to say when John turned around rather quickly. He looked as startled to see Joe as Joe was to see him, which for a moment was almost funny – what was wrong with them? Of course the other one was here, this was their school – but the impulse to laugh passed quickly as they stared at each other, both apparently at a loss.

The staring contest ended when John put his teacup down. He was tapping his fingers restlessly, a sure sign of nerves. “I think I saw a couple of bags of lapsang souchong in the mix,” he said finally.

Later, Joe would think this had perhaps been a tentative overture. An invitation to talk, maybe, or to sit quietly and see if the usual camaraderie would fall back into place between them. In the moment, though, Joe did not think of that. In the moment, something inside him, something which had been slowly wound tighter and tighter every day since July, suddenly snapped.

“You son of a -----,” he shouted, and took a swing at his brother. John dodged it and Joe staggered before turning and starting to try again before something or someone impeded his progress.

16 The Umland Brothers Just a bit of a family disagreement.... 0 The Umland Brothers 1 5

Headmaster Brockert

March 14, 2017 12:40 PM

Not anymore by Headmaster Brockert

Mortimer had been in his office working on preparations for the new year when he decided he needed a break. To stretch his legs. While he'd never been fond of exercise and thought sports were about as ridiculous-and as inane a topic-as one could get, he had to admit he was getting to be what a Muggle would consider old and what for a wizard was more accurately called middle age. It was probably a good idea to keep in shape.

Also, admittedly, he was slightly bored. The administrative tasks were the most...well, not fun exactly, nobody thought that about administrative tasks, but they were the parts that didn't force him to interact with people, therefore making them the best parts. Yet, there wasn't a lot for him to do at this point-it wasn't as if he had any intention of writing an actual speech- so Mortimer was basically sitting in his office, drinking scotch and making models of medieval torture devices and old fashioned execution methods such as the guillotine-some of which he had life size models of at home complete with descriptions of what each one did. He even kept an actual life size authentic choke pear in his office. The choke pear was a device that was inserted into the mouth-or other parts of-the victim and expanded by screws. The tips of each part of the device were spiked, causing ripping and cutting.

Not that he had any intention of actually using the pear on anyone. It was just a fascinating bit of history. Everyone had their interests. Some people made model brooms, he preferred model torture devices. Besides, even if Mortimer did feel the inclination to use it on a mouthy student, it wasn't really in his best interests do so. He liked being Headmaster and the power and importance that went with it. He also liked not being in prison.

Still, if any student other than Emerald-Emerald already knew about his interests-ever entered his office, the decor might at least scare them enough into knowing that they didn't want to come back. They didn't know he wouldn't use the pear.

Fortunately, most students at Sonora didn't see the inside of his office. Either they were an unusually peaceful and well-behaved bunch or the rest of the staff was exceedingly good at disciplining them before they got to a point where he had to deal with it. More likely the latter.

Or maybe they were scared of him and that's why they behaved. Mortimer would like that.

He strolled into the Cascade Hall. There were students there, but as usual he paid them little mind. At least that was until one uttered a word that he couldn't condone students using-or at least couldn't appear to condone them using even though he truly couldn't care less. However, perhaps he could have pretended not to hear had the boy not stumbled into him as well. This meant Mortimer could not ignore the situation. Drat.

The boy,whose name Mortimer didn't know of course,seemed to be less than pleased with John Umland,whose name he only knew because Mr. Umland was a prefect. He noted with some surprise that the younger boy happened to be a Teppenpaw. Mortimer would have thought that only a Pecari would be ~~stupid~~ bold enough to strike someone much older. "Boys! In my office! Now!"

It didn't really matter that the older boy hadn't done anything that Mortimer had seen. For all he knew, the younger one had been provoked. Still, he couldn't exactly condone violence either. He was just going to have to hear both sides of the story, whether he was really wanted to or not.

OOC-The description of a choke pear comes from The Book of Bizzarre Lists

11 Headmaster Brockert Not anymore 6 Headmaster Brockert 0 5

The Umlands

March 14, 2017 4:01 PM

Well, this got out of hand quickly. by The Umlands

John reached for his wand – still unfamiliar, he missed his old one, but he had practiced enough over the summer that he expected he could manage; the new one was not so temperamental as the old – as soon as he realized Joe was determined to hit him, but something else got in his brother’s rather disorganized path before he could. John would have considered this unfortunate in any case, but it got even worse when John realized what the interfering object was. He automatically grabbed the back of Joe’s shirt and tried to pull his brother back so he could place himself between Joe and said object, but his brother (though his expression clearly showed he knew he had just landed himself in deep organic matter) shrugged him off with an angry “get off me.”

“Well done, Joe,” said John under his breath when the object, commonly identified as a ‘Headmaster Brockert,’ demanded they accompany him to his office.

John had never observed the headmaster’s office before, so upon entering it, he momentarily forgot about what they were there for so he could evaluate it. It was generally interesting to see other people’s work spaces, see what books and personal effects they chose to display, and Brockert’s was no exception to this rule. He did not cease his scrutiny when he remembered a second later why he was there, as an office could also tell him a lot about a person.

What he saw indicated to him that Brockert was very possibly the last thing John would have expected him to be – possibly at least some degree of a kindred spirit. The models indicated either that he wanted to creep them out (something John did when he wanted or needed someone to go away) or that he just found historical forms of violence interesting. John didn’t find them appealing as such, but he had, as a boy, learned everything he could about medieval weapons and means of waging war just in case he ever went on an extended visit to the countryside and ended up spending a decade or so as co-ruler of a quasi-medieval alternate dimension inside some storage furniture. John had always assumed that most everyone viewed this as a perfectly reasonable use of time at age eight, but Joanie said it was really one of the reasons the other children had always considered him weird.

Either way, he saw no reason to try to fake being disturbed or indifferent, so he looked around with open curiosity and approached one model to look it over more closely. “Interesting,” he said. “Did these come with the office, or are you a collector?”

“Oh, for God’s sake, John,” snapped Joe, looking and sounding disgusted. John, annoyed, pinched the spaces just below his eyebrows and then opened his fingers further to rub his temples.

“That’s his’s way of saying he’s sorry he bumped into you…sir,” said John impatiently, not bothering to try to sound polite. Joanie said he sounded as arrogant as a time-displaced nineteenth century imperial commander with a hyphenated surname giving Parliament a speech on the need to manage the inferior classes when he didn’t go out of his way not to. This manner of speech tended to annoy adults, which would distract this one from Joe. “If you don’t mind, we’ll go somewhere and – now that he’s sorry, we’ll discuss our disagreement in a more civilized way.”

“Discuss our disagreement?” snapped Joe. “You nearly die and then you disappear in the middle of the night – “

“ – It was five in the morning – “

“And send us a two line note from the other side of the continent and now we’re going to discuss our disagreement?”

“Joe,” said John between his teeth. “Shut up.”

“Mom and Paul and Julian have been going crazy because of you,” said Joe, ignoring this very good advice. “And me, and Dad, and Steve, and – everyone. We didn’t – we didn’t even know – “ Joe rubbed his eyes, too, in a near-mirror of John’s earlier gesture. “Mom sent you some sweaters and a hat for winter,” he added, now just irritably rather than enraged. “Remind me to give them to you later.”

“I’ll do that,” said John. He looked at the headmaster. “Can we go now?” he asked.

16 The Umlands Well, this got out of hand quickly. 0 The Umlands 0 5

Headmaster Brockert

April 05, 2017 12:55 PM

It certainly did. by Headmaster Brockert

Mortimer couldn't help but warm slightly at Mr. Umland's enthusiasm for his torture instruments, not thinking for a second that it was anything but an innocent academic interest like his own. The idea that people were interested in such things because they were evil and sociopathic was kind of an offensive one. Often when one heard about a serial killer or dark wizard of some sort the media would comment about he (or occasionally she) collected something macabre. He collected things that were macabre and while Mortimer was not the warm friendly sort in the least, he wasn't a terrible person and he certainly wasn't interested in killing anyone. Not really , anyway.

Besides, obviously there was interest in these sorts of things as they were made in the first place! They weren't made exclusively for him-okay, the model kits were special orders and it took a lot of time and money to find authentic torture devices-and a bunch sick weirdos. In fact, Mr. Umland's enthusiasm was proof of that. Mortimer didn't know him well, as he was a student that wasn't Mortimer's grandchild (or the grandchild of one of his brothers), so it was possible that he could have been a sick weirdo, but he was going to give the boy the benefit of the doubt.

Anyway, it was the other one who had exhibited violence. And he was in Teppenpaw which made it extra surprising. Mortimer, being part of a huge pureblood family, obviously had Teppenpaw relatives, and he couldn't picture any of them doing anything the least bit violent. Especially Owen. The thought of Owen doing anything violent was mildly hilarious. How this boy had gotten put there, Mortimer was unsure.

The two of them were now devolving into squabbling. It was irritating but it was giving him some idea of what was going on and now he knew who the younger boy was especially once the elder Mr. Umland identified the Teppenpaw as Joe. Mortimer had a feeling he wasn't going to forget.

He held up his hand. "Boys! One at a time!" He pointed to John. "You first."

11 Headmaster Brockert It certainly did. 6 Headmaster Brockert 0 5

Joe and John

April 24, 2017 8:00 PM

Neither of us is really helping get it back in hand, are we? by Joe and John

Most of Joe’s brain was still caught up in a confusing whirl of anger toward his brother and dread about the immediate future, but enough was still functioning that there had been an element of strategy in his decision to snap at John about the bit of their summer which had included John nearly dying. Playing that card seemed like the only thing that might possibly stand the slightest possible chance of getting them both out of trouble. It wasn’t much of a chance, Brockert not being known for his possession of human emotions, but it was the best chance they had, and while Joe still really wanted to hit his brother, he didn’t want to get John arrested or himself stuck in detention for the rest of his life.

John, however, was not cooperating with Joe’s efforts to blurt their way out of trouble. When Brockert pointed at him and demanded he explain their situation first, John looked at the old man with open annoyance.

“He already told you,” said John, pointing at Joe. “I did something that worried him. He gets angry when I do that. I left home early this year, so he didn’t get a chance to hit me there, so he gave it a try here.” John rubbed his temple. “Now he’s going to give me sweaters. My mother sent them. She – doesn’t get angry when I worry her. Anyway. It’s done now, so there’s no reason to stay here any longer when we all have things to do.”

16 Joe and John Neither of us is really helping get it back in hand, are we? 329 Joe and John 0 5

Headmaster Brockert

May 06, 2017 1:27 PM

You are not. by Headmaster Brockert

Okay, this was precisely why Mortimer didn't like dealing with the students himself and instead,preferred to pawn them off on another staff member. Teenagers could be such utter twits. Just as he was finding John Umland to be an almost agreeable sort unlike his violent younger brother, the boy had to turn petulant on him.

"Well,I would prefer to hear it in a more coherent manner." Mortimer replied, not bothering to suppress a sneer. Well, technically, he didn't care to hear it at all, but given that he'd been unable to avoid the situation, he was stuck.Besides, Mortimer had to hear both sides of the story to see if John warranted punishment as well. Honestly, he was beginning to not blame Joe a bit for wanting punch his older brother. At the moment he kind of wished he could do the same. But he was the Headmaster and he could get in deep trouble for assaulting a student.

Mortimer now fixed his attention on Joe."So all he did was worry you and that warranted a violent attempt?" In all his years, he'd never heard of such a ridiculous reason to hit someone and as someone with three brothers-and a sister- of his own and five sons, he certainly had come across plenty of instances of brother on brother violence. Then again, the younger boy was a Teppenpaw after all. Figures it would be something like that that brought one to violence.

Of course, even if Joe had tried hitting John for a valid reason such as being annoying, Mortimer still couldn't appear to condone such a thing.

He had to say though that he was relieved that Mrs. Umland didn't use the same methods as her younger son. A teenage boy in need of anger management-and had their potential counselor not left at the very last moment, he'd be sentenced to it-was one thing, an abusive parent was quite another. As in a level of involvement he did not want.

11 Headmaster Brockert You are not. 6 Headmaster Brockert 0 5

Joe and John

May 06, 2017 2:57 PM

We suspected as much, but thanks for confirming. by Joe and John

Now that the headmaster put it that way, Joe supposed it did sound pretty stupid. He had included the details while trying to yell their collective way out of trouble, but apparently Brockert only listened to things said directly to him in a calm manner. Which, admittedly, was an understandable policy – just not one which was very convenient for Joe right now. This was why Joe didn’t like male Aladrens. The girls were all right – actually, he liked Aladren girls very much - but the dudes simply did not work the way other people did, which made them much harder to maneuver.

“He worried Mom and our sister, too,” said Joe, hoping to appeal to the patriarchy he assumed someone named Brockert firmly believed in. It was unchivalrous to upset women, and Mom and Julian were both currently very, very upset. There was also Joanie, whom he had gathered wished to kick his brother in a particularly undiplomatic manner while giving him her full and unedited opinion of his leaving her to deal with Mom and Julian with only Joe for help, but Joe wasn’t going to talk about her right now. “Mom’s a mess. All she wants to do is say novenas and light candles over him. Our priest thinks she ought to see a doctor.”

John looked miserable, and Joe almost - almost - felt bad. Joe tried not to listen to Julian when she claimed that Mom loved John more than she did either of them, but he couldn’t deny that his sister was right about John virtually worshiping Mom. He’d been freaked out by their biological mother’s presence in their kitchen from the start when Sam had dropped in on them a couple of years ago, but he hadn’t completely flipped his biscuits and come close to setting the house on fire until Sam had referred to herself as his mother. Joe knew he had just been unnecessarily – and worse, unproductively – cruel, and he knew it was very wrong to derive a sick sort of satisfaction from knowing it had had the intended result. He decided not to look at his brother anymore right now.

“You see, sir – he nearly died,” he said again, pointing at John in case Brockert had missed this crucial detail earlier. “And then as soon as we’re all pretty sure he’s not going to do that, we wake up one morning and he’s run off and there’s just a note on the kitchen table telling us not to worry, that he’s just going to take a bus to the other side of the continent!” Joe bit the inside of his mouth and counted to five to allow his voice to go back down instead of rising any further in indignation.

“I sent another one when I got there,” objected John.

Joe decided just to look at Brockert with an expression that hopefully conveyed you see what I have to deal with? It seemed like the most effective response he could make just now.

16 Joe and John We suspected as much, but thanks for confirming. 329 Joe and John 0 5