Zan: Wow, Fifteen already? You sure are fast! Usually after a two-chapter delivery, you sit like a slob!
Nez: No, I just have had some extra help!
Zan: From who?
Nez: -beaming- Frank!
giant homicidal bunny from Donnie Darko appears-
Zan: Eeeik! -hides-
Nez: I am not owning HP, the Darko movie or most other things in here.
Frank: -stares-
Chapter Fifteen: Bowling For Quizzes
It was the day after the spiffy hockey game and James and Remus were beat. They were allowed to sleep in, for there was no school due to a teacher in-service and being the teenagers they were, the guys slept in.
"Wake up!" Nehszriah growled, kicking James and Remus in the sides as they lay passed out in the basement. "Appointments to uphold! People to meet!" The boxer short-clad Remus stood straight up and glared at Nehszriah.
"Sleep need now," he muttered in a low, not-awake voice.
"Fine, be that way," Nehszriah growled. She took out her wand and literally lit a fire beneath Remus and James so they would get moving. Chuckling slightly, Nehszriah went upstairs and waited for her time-traveling buddies to return.
"Nez-chan, are you burning those two again? Do you remember what happened the last time?" Zanbato yelled in a scolding voice from inside the kitchen.
"No, Zan-kun!" she replied quickly, spraying air freshener from the tip of her wand to be sure her brother did not snitch on her.
Remus and James emerged not too much later, the flames put out and in their bookish and preppy outfits and ready to be dragged off.
"Where could you possibly be taking us?" James moaned, still keeping his eyes shut.
"Just shut up for a second will you?" Nehszriah grumbled as she went over to get the ringing telephone. Slightly frustrated, she picked the phone up and answered in a congenial voice: "Hello, this is Hazeem's Fried Fish Taco Stand! Just kidding..."
"Help me!" Sirius cried. He sounded in deep distress and like he was being rushed.
"Okay man, you're on speaker-phone," Nehszriah said indifferently. She clicked him on and his voice filled the room.
"Help! Fish-chan captured me and I don't know where I am!"
"Sirius!" James and Remus yelled, running over to the telephone.
"Do you have an idea to where you are?" Remus asked.
"That hearse-Greek-place that Fish's step-dad runs..."
"Herfamiffapolous...?" the unimpressed Nehszriah said.
"Yes! That's it! Really scary over here, I'll tell ya!"
"How is it scary Padfoot?"
"Well Prongs, Toran's here and won't admit to having been trapped in the television with me, Fish-chan's sister is hanging all over me and I think I am being stalked by Carl-kun!"
"Fish's new boyfriend?" Nehszriah laughed.
"Yeah! I catch him out of the corner of my eye all the time!"
"Hey Nehszriah," Remus asked. "Where is Herfamiffapolous?"
"The Pyrenees, of course. Wait, was it the Alps? No... the Urals..."
"She's useless..." Remus moaned.
"Oops, sorry Sirius, we have to go!" Nehszriah said. She clicked off the speaker-phone and after dodging a few hexes from Remus and James, who really wanted to help out their friend, strolled off towards Glenview, two Maraurders in tow.
"Nehszriah, why are we going to school?" James whined as they turned the corner to walk down the main street. There was still snow everywhere and most of it had turned into the disgusting oily slush they had to trudge through when they crossed intersections.
"Well, there is a school thing I really want to go to that is today," Nehszriah said. She walked into the school parking lot and over to a gaggle of about eight teens, some of whom James and Remus recognized from in the hallways at school.
"Hey Nez," a boy with a frozen slush drink in his hand said. "Wanna go bug Wally in his meetings?"
"Sure!" Nehszriah agreed happily. She and the boy then disappeared, leaving the Maraurders to a group full of strangers who barely noticed their presence. There was a certain sense of electricity in the air that animated the teens.
"Alright, so it is going to be Josh doing all the riding until Steve gets back, right?" a boy with curly brown hair said.
"What about the two Nehszriah brought?" a tall, slim boy with glasses asked.
"Sure, why not. I really do not want to ride all that much anyways," another tall boy with blonde hair muttered.
"I think you are all crazy," a short blonde girl with glasses and curly hair said. The other three girls shook their heads in accord.
"So then," the tall and thin boy said, turning to James and Remus. "How's about it? Want to join us for a bit of pre-game fun?"
"Um, sure," Remus said nervously.
Now, the tall boy then introduced himself as Andrew. The boy with curly brown hair was introduced as Jake and the other boy left was called Josh. Jake went over to a SUV parked all alone in the parking lot and hopped in. He drove up to the rest of the group and rolled down the window.
"All right," he said. "Hop on."
James went to go open the back driver's side door. His hand was almost at the handle when Josh picked him up by the coat collar and put him down by the trunk.
"Climb on the back," Josh said. James and Remus were a bit perplexed to why, but they climbed on anyways. Holding onto the ski rack, they clung for dear life as Jake sped off and started to do donuts in the icy parking lot.
"Gah!" Remus cried. He wailed all throughout the horrific ordeal, yet James next to him seemed to be having the time of his life.
"This is almost as good as Quidditch!" he cried out as Jake did one final spin job in the lot. He then parked the car, helped James peel the petrified Remus from the roof and then they walked over to the rest of the group.
"Our International SUV Rodeo Champion is..." Andrew announced. "Hey, what's your name again?"
"James Potter."
"James Potter! Tell me, how was it?" Andrew asked in a mock interview fashion.
"It was freaking awesome!" James said enthusiastically.
"What was freaking awesome?" asked Nehszriah. James turned around to see her, the boy Steve from before and a new boy with glasses standing right behind him.
"Eeeik! How long have you been there?"
"Long enough."
Now, everyone was curious to where Nehszriah, Steve and the other boy they called George had gone. They prodded and poked until they got out enough to assume they had been stuck in a dark room together, Steve wanting to play Marco Polo and George and Nehszriah not very happy. Very soon, a teacher called Wally came out to wait with the teens and they all boarded a SouthGlen bus over to another school, that was definitely not SouthGlen or even Glen-on-the-Shore.
"Respect and Responsibility!" Jake, Steve and Nehszriah cried out randomly, reading the posters plastered over the walls. Everyone was shepherded over to a table with dry bagels and pop and once everyone finished their snack, Nehszriah dragged James and Remus out into the hallway.
"Look for an Indian-looking boy wearing nice clothes and glasses," she said.
"Nehszriah, what is going on here?" James asked.
"Deepak! Hey man! Over here!" Nehszriah yelled, completely ignoring James. She jumped and waved as if to get someone's attention. Sure enough, a young man came over, dressed in a nice suit, wearing eyeglasses and resembling someone who did indeed come from India.
"Hey Nez! Where is Jake and Andrew?" Deepak asked in a very American voice.
"Here we are!" Jake said happily. He, Andrew, Nehszriah and Deepak then proceeded to play a game of hacky-sack. The Maraurders were not familiar with the activity of kicking a small bean bag around at one another, so they watched in in a bored fashion. Soon, the scraggly man that was Wally the Coach came out into the hall and called the teens in. Once in, Deepak took a seat over on one side of the room in a desk that had a buzzer and a nameplate for him and Andrew, George, Nehszriah and a short girl named Catie all sat down on the other side, each desk set up with a buzzer with light and a name tag. There was one spot open next to George that had a buzzer and the vacancies on Deepak's side were filled with kids that James and Remus had never seen before.
"Hey, do you want to play?" Wally asked James.
"No thanks, Remus might be willing to though," James snickered. Remus, who really was not paying attention, quickly got suckered into sitting in the space next to George. He felt so silly, having no name tag and barely a clue to what was going on. He remembered what Nehszriah had told him on the bus. This game was called "Quizbowl" and it was a whole lot like a big game of team trivia. Once the old lady who was reading the questions went through a buzzer check, the game began.
"What," she began. "Is the standard equation for a quadratic line?"
Andrew buzzed in.
"ax2 + bx + c 0"
"Correct. Points to Glenview. In which city does the book The Jungle..."
The lady did not even finish reading the question and Deepak buzzed in.
"The Jungle takes place in Chicago," he said. Remus could tell that Deepak had beaten Nehszriah to the question, for a storm cloud figuratively loomed over her head.
"Correct. Points to Calhoun. Who is, in Greek mythology, the daughter of Menalaus and his wife Helen?"
Remus knew it! He quickly buzzed in and lit up the buzzer on his desk.
"Hermione," he said triumphantly. He beamed with joy as the lady gave the points to Glenview.
The rest of the game went over well. Deepak and his classmates from Calhoun High ended up beating Glenview, but it was alright, for nobody seemed to mind. Glenview eventually moved onto another room where they played another game (beating their new opponent) and after that, climbed aboard the bus and went home. It would be nightfall before Nehszriah, James and Remus got back to Nehszriah's house, but they still had fun, laughing and joking about their fun time and the guys still marveling at how Deepak could play hacky-sack in dress shoes when they could barely in trainers.
Okay kiddies! Now it is time for everyone's favorite author...s to give the...
Annual Five Chapter Review Reply!
Fufu: So, did you like it? I know you liked the Jones bit. All hail Big Brother!
Zeraf: Arigato, my constant reviewer!
Fish-chan: Please try to refrain with the telling me of how to post chapters. Danke. I am really glad you like the chapters though.
Carl-kun: Stop being sarcastic in reviews. Also, proper grammar would be nice.
Luke: I miss my cupcake.
Toran: Hello my random yellow-coated buddy! I know you did not really pop up here, but oh well...
Ureth: I am so glad I bring you so much boredom-killing joy during Algebra when you read this.
Kush: I like cheese.