Oliver Evans is The Prodigy of the Heart (Book One)

Chapter Thirteen: Liquid Luck

"Um, that's okay. I need to go to the courtyard and meet Mallory for a study session. You're free to come with if you'd like."

"Yeah, yeah!" I said excitedly "Let's go do that instead. Not much else to do here, anyway. Nothing to see at the lake that we can't see in the courtyard."

Trent and I walked outside to the courtyard. Mallory was seated under a tree, with her textbooks lying in the grass in front of her. She looked up at us as we approached and smiled "Glad to see you two. Come, sit down."

"I think that I'll stand. I need to move my knees a lot during the day to keep the blood flowing." I kicked my legs up behind me "Can almost reach my head, I can."

Mallory shot me a concerned glare "You feeling alright, Oliver?"

"Never better! We finished our first OWLs. I think that I nailed it." my voice started to shake "You know, I have a really really good feeling about going to the pitch and flying around for a bit. Yeah. I'm gonna go do that."

Trent and Mallory both raised their eyebrows. She leaned over to whisper into Trent's ear, "Do you think we should go with him?" he nodded. They both stood up, grabbing Mallory's books and went with me out of the courtyard and down to the training grounds. They stayed a ways back from where I was energetically skipping down the path.

The training grounds were a gorgeous shade of light green. The rain had washed away the rest of the snow and left behind a fresh, lush field. My shoes made squeaking noises underneath me with each step I took. I stepped up to the broom shed and opened the latch, a bunch of moths flew out and fluttered into my face. Smiling, I reached in and grabbed the first brooms my hands touched.

"Okay," I said, mounting the broom. "Watch this."

Trent and Mallory sighed as I kicked off from the ground and flew high up into the air. The wind blew through my hair and made my robes flow out to the sides. I gripped the broom tightly as I went in for a dive. I dove straight down to the ground, pulling the broom upwards before colliding with the field. The air was so light and calming, the sun beamed down and surrounded me in a warm glow.

"That's good mate, can you come back down now?" Trent shouted up at me as I performed more trick moves in the air

"Not yet," I called down "it's amazing up here!"

"Are you quite sure he's okay?" Mallory asked Trent as he sat down in the wet grass

"I don't know this time."

As I descended, Mallory's facial expression changed from worry to suspicion. When I was back on the ground, she came over to me and looked into my eyes. "Oliver, did you drink something odd today?"

"No, Mallory. What would I drink that was odd?" I spun my broom around, throwing it in the air and catching it with my other hand "How cool was that?"

She lowered her eyes to my arms, which were swinging back and forth by my sides. "You're acting very similar to someone who's taken liquid luck."

I shook my head rapidly from side to side "Nope."

"Oliver, I'm not stupid." she motioned for Trent to go to my other side "Hold still." She and Trent both grabbed my arms; Mallory felt around my pockets, stopping when she felt the bottle. She reached in and grabbed it, holding it up to my face "What is this, Oliver?"

"Nothing. It's nothing. I don't even know where it came from." I said nervously

"It's liquid luck, I can tell by its colour." she said, swishing around the potion inside

"Mallory, I can explain."

"You had liquid luck and you didn't tell me?" Trent said, offended "I was sitting back there throwing out bogus answers for half the questions."