Gag me with a spoon.
Dinner is hellicious.
I don’t know who writes the stories in the bathroom stall, with the Valley Girl Violet pen, but they tell rumors much better than the Sarah’n’Becki’n’Melody crew that Rose associates with.
Allegedly, Laura Wells Did The Deed with Aaron Crew at a end-of-summer-partay. And then Blammo! Her eggo was preggo. She was planning on getting a hasty abortion, but one trip to the doctor informed her of her temporarily bum ovaries. It didn’t matter, apparently, because Aaron was planning on flaking out on her anyways.
In fact, I tell these gossip tales better than the Pops and Valley-Violet-Girl. I should start my own chain on a bathroom wall, a metal notebook for people to refer to…with a Leg Warmer Orange pen?
Wait, no, I could not. Orange is so out, no one would read it. Just like how red lips were bigger than Cassie Locken’s thighs and now you may as well eat sand and sea salt than wear it in public. No, Nude and Just Blossomed Hibiscus Pink are bad now, totally legit.
Just like how Jason Perri’s cuteness is totally legit now that he cut his hair and everyone realized that he didn’t grow his hair out just because he had funky ears; in fact, his ears are perfectly socially acceptable.
“What’s really socially unacceptable is what Leanne Menard was wearing last weekend on her date with Brain Pilt. When did horizontal stripes come back into fashion?” Sarah gabs.
Melody swerves, “I did see Larry Wells’s (i.e, ¼ of the boy band I’ve created The Spells) girlfriend carrying a bag with stripes…”
Becki scoffed. “Melody, that bag had vertical stripes.”
“So? Maybe Leanne thought she could bring them back like that.” Becki and Melody had some long standing argument going on, like Becki took Melody’s Poprocks back in second grade. Or at least, that’s what their argument amounted to.
On another note, when did boy bands come back? That’s kicking old school, from like, the 90’s.
“What did you say?”
Sarah’s eyes burned through my forehead and figuratively speaking, right through my skull.
“Uh…just that their were a lot of boy bands in the 1990’s and then after that…there weren’t…as many. And then all of a sudden, The Spells…come out and everyone just, uh loves them. Was all I was saying.”
Sarah nodded, her laser eyes burning a hole between my eyes. “I see.” She looked to Rose, then back at me. “Do you like them?”
I’d rather bag my face than listen to them.
“Um, no, not really.”
“Huh.”
“Did you guys see the Mallots vs. Puddlemere match in July? Isn’t Ryan Gerry just so cute?” Melody tried fruitlessly to cover up.
Becki started contributing, and the conversation turned into a complete guy-swooning match.
Quidditch players, actors, models, even the odd muggle football or movie star.
Personally, I believed Brendon Urie’s magnificent body was totally smoking. Swoon. Fangirl. Swoon some more.
Anyways, I need to concoct an epic escape plan.
(a.) spontaneously unassemble my molecules and then reassemble them in an alternate location (i.e. my dorm) using only the sheer power of my mind
(b.) catch the Great Hall on fire
(c.) food fight
Or I could just say I see one of my friends waiting for me, because every night after dinner we go and smoke crack with the house elves in the kitchens.
No, that’s too suspicious. I don’t even have one friend.
“Rose, I’ve gotta go. I need to get my Charms essay started.”
Rose looked up, a genuine smile that seemed half apologetic and half please-don’t-hate-me-because-of-my-bitchy-friends. I gave her an it’s-cool-I-know-you’re-not-a-bitch-so-its-all-good grin. “Alright, but could I borrow your Transfiguration notes? I want to catch up some tonight.”
“Sure.” I yanked a notebook out of my bag and tossed it to the bench where I had been sitting and booked it.
My body sighed in relief as I skipped to the Ravenclaw common room. The eagle knocker asked it’s question before I even let go of it.
“What’s the meaning of life?”
“Not death.”
“Well reasoned, but cheeky.”
My eyes rolled. “Yeah, yeah, gotcha.”
My boots thudded heavily on the blue carpet as I ran to my dorm room. I dumped my bag’s contents onto my bedspread, grabbing my notebook. It was more than a notebook, less than a diary. More like a journal I suppose. I wrote my thoughts in it, of people and places and things. Mostly people. I was close to finishing my short paragraph on Professor Longbottom, about halfway through my notebook. I flipped through the white pages and realized that I either decided to decode my thoughts into Transfiguration notes or I had given Rose my journal.
Well sh-
erlock Holmes.
It’s okay. It’s alright. Rose is way too nice to just read my journal after she sees it isn’t Transfig notes. She’ll give it back to me tomorrow in the library and then she’ll struggle more with wand waving and it’ll be all good.
I laid back, straight back onto a quill which jabbed me in the back.
Rose’s PoV, as of now.
I had the feeling that Rae didn’t enjoy dinner as much I as I had hoped, but she couldn’t be completely damaged from my friends, could she?
Oh well. I’m sure Madam Pomfrey has a potion for that too.
I followed up Melody to the common room, Becki and Sarah staying behind so Sarah could convince Becki to ask out her crush. I had Rae’s notebook in my arms, hugging it to my chest as Melody said the password and we climbed through the portrait hole. Melody went upstairs to shower whilst I settled on a loveseat to study.
I pulled open the notebook, seeing Rae’s messy handwriting scrawled over the page, but it wasn’t telling any Transfiguration secrets.
It read:
Melody Jacobs?
What secrets lurk in those suede boots she clunks around in?
Is her dad a cop, an auror?
Is her mother a dangerous criminal, on the run from the law, a woman steaming with Catwoman-ish beauty?
Or is she just another wannabe who suffers from envy of 7th year Katrina’s Hills charm?
Prone to Investigation
I thought back to Melody’s boots, the ones her sister had ordered specially from Milan for her 15th birthday and how much they resembled the coveted Katrina’s. I hadn’t given much thought to them, I wasn’t a tall boot person. Evidently Rae did. Funny, I didn’t think she was much of a fashion girl.
I kept turning pages and there would be more messy accounts of different people, Slytherins and Gryffindors and Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs alike. Even some teachers. She was actually really funny, in writing. I wonder if she always has these thoughts and why she doesn’t ever let them out.
She didn’t really badmouth people, just questioned why they did idiotic things. She didn’t write about everybody, I didn’t see my name in it, but when I finally decided to close it after one more page (well, it wasn’t mine to read but my curiosity was a bit too alluring), when the name Al Potter jumped out at me from a page. Obviously, she had many things to say about him.
Albus Potter
Allegedly great, the Al Potter, kin of Harry and Ginny Potter is a knobly, prickly, twat. Confirmed today, when he charmed the pants off (literally) of Heather Blushlings, 4th year, in front of the entire staff and students. The girl is still recovering from the incident. Yet still, girls fan girl over him like he’s James Potter, who at least had the sense to charm people in private, so that their humiliations will only last for all eternity in their minds, instead of in many people’s heads for the next lifetime. Well, perhaps he and his brother are on the same page. Anyways, I cannot stand him. I don’t really think I could, after he hit 13, lowered his voice, and dropped his *hem hem*. He just has an air of not trying at anything and just expects life to come easy to him. Normally, this would cause life to hit harder than a Hungarian Horntail but miraculously, life gently cushions Albus Potter. Plus, he doesn’t have people thinking he’s a snob because he’s nice. Nice to everyone (well, everyone that could help him gain). I suppose I just don’t understand-why does everything seem easy for everyone else but me?
“Hey Rose, Whatcha reading?” Speak of the devil. He grabbed the notebook out of m hands, the page with his name written in spikey block letters across the page. “Notes again…?” His eyes quickly saw his name. “Or not, I suppose.”
He stood up and thrust the book in my face. “Who the fuck wrote this?”
Rae’s PoV
I got up early, like every other day and trotted down to breakfast. I commenced with eating, grateful for the absence of human company, vaguely wondering about my journal. Normally, this is my peak writing time, early in the morning with the ceiling reflecting the sky glowing outside.
I heard the doors slam, but kept my head tilted, staring up at the sun. Then someone grabbed my arm and pulled me toward them.
A pretty angry looking Al Potter, with messy hair was holding my notebook and jabbing it around the air. “Where did you get these rumors about me?! How could you think I’m a prick?! You don’t even know me!”
Damn.