Arnold Carey
April 15, 2011 9:35 AM
Practicing by Arnold Carey
He wouldn’t admit he was nervous about the Championship, so when his brother asked why he was spending so much time, even for him, outside lately, Arnold had evasively cited his ability to think better while he was flying. It wasn’t untrue, but he suspected Arthur knew he was sort of lying anyway. He’d long since accepted that Arthur was always going to know anything Arnold really didn’t want him to.Having, as much by luck as design, found a time when both he and the Pitch were available, though, he wasn’t going to waste it. He had plenty of Potions homework to complete, but he knew he’d get it done eventually. He always got everything done before he had to, and he had the back of his mind certainty that if it ever really looked like he wouldn’t, his brother would step in and fix it. Plus, he really did think better after he’d had some exercise, so he was really making it less likely that any of that would happen. Or something like that, anyway. He thought it was good enough, if Arthur called him on it, to justify his position, so he filed it away under things that weren’t immediately relevant right beside the homework in question and took his broom out.
The air felt cooler than he found comfortable, an effect that only increased when he first started flying, but he knew that wouldn’t last too long. Even on a fast broom, just the physical effort involved in staying on and moving at will would warm him up pretty quickly. Once he was in the air, he turned toward what, at the first game, had been the Aladren goals, briefly considered going the other way instead, and then stuck with his original course, increasing his altitude as he went.
Once he reached the goals, he wove in and out of them a little, testing how close he could cut it without colliding with something, before flying down the full length of the Pitch, watching the grass and lines beneath him blur as they moved past. The effect almost reminded him of watching the sea from a high distance. Reaching the Teppenpaw end, he suddenly flew as close to straight up as he could, wove through those goal posts a little, then took an even steeper dive toward the ground, nearly touching it before beginning to climb again. Working on getting total control over his broom at any height and speed was important, especially when he was going up against Miss Stephenson.
A few months ago, she would have been the only one on the Crotalus team – or, really, after he’d beaten Kate Bauer, the school – who worried him. Now, though, he was just plain worried. The Crotalus Chasers were relentless and experienced, and while their Beaters should have both been left in the dust by Edmond in the first minute, Edmond….Edmond wasn’t right anymore. Arnold wasn’t entirely sure what had happened, Arthur said he didn’t really know what had happened and Arnold believed him because of how frustrated he seemed about it, but something had, something with first Georgia and then Virginia, and once Edmond and his sister had come back to school two days later than everyone else because of a funeral they had to attend, Arnold had recognized the look the team’s primary Beater had straight away. That was how Aunt Gigi looked when she took too much nerve potion and then Uncle Donnie and her kids upset her so much that it stopped working, so she just went and sat quietly while chaos reigned and she didn’t even seem to notice.
It didn’t mean the game was lost, though. Preston was at least as good as Calhoun and Lucore, and Arnold was pretty sure Miss Stephenson didn’t allow them to hit Bludgers at her for real on a recreational basis, so he also had more experience with going after Seekers. If he could do that, Arnold could catch the Snitch, and then they’d have it.
If.
At least he had a better broom. She was a fifth year, and had been playing the position a lot longer than he had, but he was sure, after seeing her in the Crotalus-Pecari game, that he had a better broom. Grandfather said Mother took being careful about money to the point of being a miser because of her background, but since his parents had decided three sons was really one too many anyway and stopped after Anthony was born, he and his brothers had always been the envy of their cousins for having their own brooms, and pretty good ones that suited them well. Not custom models – the idea that the position might get him one was one of the reasons Arnold wanted to be Quidditch captain someday – but all something better than what Miss Stephenson had. If he and Preston could both be crazy people for the Championship day, that might be enough for Aladren to win again. And Arnold really wanted to win again.
Imagining he saw another Seeker ahead of him, he sped up and angled forward as though to cut someone off, pulling the tail of his broom around to avoid colliding with the imaginary opponent. It was easier here than it would be in a real game, with other people flying around and Bludgers in play, so he tried to imagine he heard a Bludger whistling behind him and had to both dodge it and try to lead it toward the rival Seeker. Before he could finish trying out the first strategy that occurred to him, though, a turn let him see that he was no longer alone. Too far up to be sure who he was looking at, he stopped, not wanting to risk offering up critical information to the enemy without even realizing he was dealing with the enemy.
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Arnold Carey
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