Eleven years old.
"I'm starting to think you're making a habit of this." Tessa said, sighing to her nemesis William Herondale, who graciously held up a hand to help her to her feet.
Tessa willingly took it, for sometimes Will actually had feelings.
Now was not one of those times, Tessa thought, as Will let go of her hand and Tessa fell again, much to Will's amusement and to her annoyance.
"You have a very bad habit of blocking the goal." Will told her, as Tessa got to her feet. On her own.
Thankfully, Tessa hadn't scraped any part of her from her fall, meaning that it wasn't that obvious Will had thrown the ball at her head- again.
Tessa sighed. It was one of the days that Jem wasn't in, so it was one of the days Will was feeling exceptionally horrible, for his moods were always sour the days Jem wasn't around.
Tessa went to stalk off but a hand snaked around her wrist and pulled her back. Will held out the book to her.
"You dropped this when you fell." He told her, still having not let go of her wrist.
"When you threw the ball at me." Tessa said crossly, attempting to get the book from him.
Will, annoyingly, was one of the few people taller than her, meaning he was easily able to hold the book out of Tessa's reach. "When you blocked the goal." He corrected, glancing at the title. "You're re-reading Harry Potter?" He asked her, raising an eyebrow.
Tessa took his distraction at reading the blurb to grab it from him and succeeded.
"Are you shocked that some of us aren't on picture books?" She snapped. "And for your information, I haven't read it before." She told him.
"You had it ages ago." He told her, unfazed by her earlier comment.
Tessa rolled his eyes. "It's in a series, this is the sixth book." She told him.
He suddenly smirked. "Oh, I loved that one. Dumbledore dies in the end."
Tessa's mouth dropped open. "What?"
His smirk broadened. "I know, I didn't see it coming either."
Tessa's eyes narrowed. "That's not what I meant. Why would you say something like that?"
His smirk was still there. "Because I read them ages ago."
"And what are you reading now, if you're so smart?"
He shrugged. "The castle of Otranto."
Tessa's mouth dropped again. That was a classic. She'd tried reading them and had given up halfway.
This did nothing to shrink his ego. "Are you shocked that some of us aren't on children's books?" He asked, looking straight to the book in Tessa's hands.
Tessa wrenched her wrist from Will's grasp and stalked off, but she was secretly surprised. There was more to Will Herondale than she'd thought- his eyes had lit up at the mention of books like Tessa's had.
