In my defence at this pathetic snippet, I was at a first aid duty from 7am to 5pm. It's not a great defence, though.
SO BEHIND.
Feeling distinctly uncertain, Hilary pushed gently at the muddy grass with her tiptoes. She rose a few inches then sank down again, bouncing twice.
"Oh wow!" She tried to catch Mariah's eye, to share the sudden feeling of gleeful excitement that her tiny hop had unexpectedly caused. "Did you see that?!"
Mariah was floating about a foot above the ground with a look of utmost concentration on her face. After a long second during which Hilary's excitement began to wither at being ignored, Mariah gave her a distracted grin, nodded, and then carefully leaned forwards so that she started flying forwards absolutely parallel to the ground, inching along at a snail's pace. Watching her cautious progress made the fire of excitement in Hilary's stomach flicker even lower. She started to lean forwards like Mariah, carefully, cautiously. But then:
"Come on, you slowpokes!" Tyson shouted as he zoomed far above them and the teacher gave him a warning about speed and height rules that Hilary, for once, hadn't listened to the first time because part of her had never believed that she would be able to fly.
Well, she could. She would. With a surge of adrenaline that made her fingers tingle, she kicked off the ground as hard as she could. The broom lurched upwards at surprising speed. She let out an embarrassing loud yelp and instinctively crouched forwards.
Unfrtunately this was exactly the wrong thing to do, since it made the broom speed up. She could hear people shouting at her, but couldn't hear their words over the sound of wind rushing in her ears. All that she could think was "Don't look down!" and "Don't let go!".
Suddenly the broom's frantic upward trajectory halted, so smoothly that Hilary only noticed when the world went quiet again. She could hear Julia yelling at Tyson, blaming him, but she didn't pay it much attention. Cautiously she opened eyes that she didn't remember closing. The teacher was hovering in front of her, wand out. The sight of a teacher when she had so clearly misbehaved sent a stab of fright and horror into Hilary's stomach which was far worse than her reaction to realising she was hurtling uncontrollably into the sky. She was in trouble.
But after a couple of blinks, dislodging wind-irritated tears, she could see that the teacher looked more amused than anything else.
"Do you want to continue?" she asked.
Hilary took stock of herself. She was cold and shaky and her stomach hurt from shock and she wasn't sure that her legs could actually handle solid ground right now … but the idea that she was flying still thrilled her. Carefully, one by one, she unlocked her hands from around the broom and flexed them until the stiffness went away.
"Yes, I do."
All opinions welcome!
xIlbx
