Chapter 6 – The Gobstone Club
The weeks past like crazy. Susie loved the school, she couldn't stop explore the many hallways and secret passageways. The first Saturday in October, Susie came down the stairs to the Arctos common room, she saw a small group of students looking at the notice board, and she walked over to them to see what they were looking at. When she reached the notice board, she saw a piece of parchment that had been put up.
Gobstone Club starts new season
Want to get involved in our Gobstone club, well then this is your chance. We're looking for new members and of course the old members are welcome to return for our new season of the gobstone club. The Arctos Gobstone Club will during the year play tournaments against the other houses, so help Arctos get the Gobstone Cup second year in a row. Sign up below if you wish to attend. First meeting will be next Saturday.
Stefan Felicis
Team Captain
Susie read the note through several times, this could be something for her, she didn't know what gobstones was, but it could be fun to see if it was something for her.
"Now he's at it again," a voice said behind Susie. She turned around and saw Amara standing behind her, reading the gobstone note.
"Well they won't see me this year that's for sure," she groaned.
"You've been on the gobstone team?" Susie asked Amara.
"Yeah, tried it out last year, wasn't anything for me, but unfortunately I couldn't just leave the team, so I had to find a way to get out, so I thought up a plan, so I could get kicked out," Amara said, "and it worked, Stefan threw me off the team after I had hurt a Cygneus student during a match, I had thrown gobstones after him, Felix didn't want that so he threw me out," Amara said. Then she turned around and walked out of the common room. Susie stood back, glancing between the door where Amara disappeared through and the gobstone note. She took the quill that hang by a thread near the note and wrote her name on it.
"Ah splendid," a voice said after she had written her name. Susie turned around again and saw a third year student standing right next to her.
"Stefan is the name, Gobstone Captain for the Arctos team," he said and stretched his hand so she could shake it. She took the hand and shook it.
"Hi, Susie Blue," Susie said.
"Nice to meet you, well don't be late on Saturday, we start right after breakfast," he said before he disappeared as well. Susie decided that some breakfast would be good, so she went down to the Ice Hall.
She found Colette and Christina sitting at the Arctos table. She sat down next to Christina.
"Morning," Christina said when she saw Susie.
"Morning, where's Nita?" Susie asked, she hadn't seen her this morning.
"She went down to the owl tower, had a letter to send I think," Colette said just before she took a bite of her toast.
"Have you seen the note about the gobstone club?" Susie asked.
"Yeah, but it's nothing for me," Christina said and took another piece of toast.
"I've written myself down for the club," Susie said, looking really exited.
"Cool, I might do the same, I've thought of joining a club of some sort," Colette said.
"I think I'll settle with the charms club," Christina said and took a sip of her orange juice.
"Morning," a girl's voice said. The three girls looked up and saw Nita who had arrived.
"Morning Nita," the girls said.
"Where have you been?" Susie asked.
"Oh was down visiting Xeira," Nita said. Xeira was Nita's owl.
"Then I send a letter to my aunt, just to let her know how it's been so far," Nita said quietly and took a piece of toast and chewed on it.
"Cool," Colette said.
"We were just talking about the gobstone club, what about you, do you want to join?" Susie asked. Nita chewed a bit on her toast before she answered.
"Don't think so," Nita said, "not quite the thing for me."
When they didn't really know what else to say about the gobstone club, Colette changed to another subject.
"Have you finished your history of magic essay?" Colette asked the other girls. Christina and Nita shook their heads.
"I have, finished it last night," Susie said with a smile.
"I can't believe you do so much out of history of magic, when we have that cow for a teacher," Christina said and shook her head.
"I think I'll try and give her an empty piece of parchment, just to see her get off," Nita said thoughtful.
"Good luck, then I don't think we'll see you the next month," Colette said with a smile.
"I love history of magic," Susie said, the other girls looked shocked at her.
"Who are you?" Christina asked in disbelieve.
"No I mean it, I really love the lessons, I know Leeve is not the most pleasant person to be around."
"PLEASANT!?! She's a human eating dragon, she is," Christina said. Susie started to laugh.
"I think that'll be an improvement if she was that," Susie said. The other girls started to laugh. The kids near the quartet glanced at the four girls, when they started to get a laughing fit.
The weekend went quickly. Colette decided to give the gobstone club a go and wrote her name on the parchment, Sunday evening before she went to bed. So far it only had Susie's and Colette's name on it. When the school week had ended, it was time to focus on the gobstone club. Susie was looking forward to the first practise the next Saturday morning. So when the day arrived, she woke up early. The other girls were still asleep, so she got up quietly and got dressed. She went downstairs to get some breakfast. When she was done, Colette came through the doors to the Ice Hall and went over to the Arctos table.
"Morning, Susie," Colette said and yawned. She sat down and found some cereal and some milk.
"Do you know where the training takes place?" Colette asked after she had taken her first mouthful of cereal.
"Yeah in the empty classroom on the sixth floor," Susie said. She had asked Stefan the day before, when she ran into him in the hallway on the second floor.
"Wonder if we can take our own gobstones or we have to use the school's," Colette said.
"I don't have any, so I can't bring any if I had," Susie said. Just before Colette had finished her breakfast, the Ice Hall started to fill with students. Nita and Christina were among the students, followed by Lucy, a second year from Arctos. The three girls sat down next to Susie and Colette.
"You're up early," Christina said to Susie and Colette.
"Yeah, it is gobstone practise today," Susie said.
"Gobstone?" Lucy said and lifted her left eyebrow.
"Have you signed up for that," she said with a giggle.
"Yeah, what's wrong with that?" Colette asked and looked rather crossly at Lucy.
"Nothing, if you like it, then fine by me, I just think it's a boring game, no action. Now if you took Quidditch, that's a game. Especially the moment, when you get the snitch," Lucy said and looked dreamy out of the window. Colette shook her head, when Lucy looked away.
"Well I think we better get going, don't you think Susie," Colette said and got up.
"Yeah, see you later guys," Susie said and walked out of the Ice Hall with Colette. They walked up to the sixth floor and found the empty classroom. When they stepped in, they saw that it didn't look like an ordinary classroom.
The classroom was long and in the other end stood a couple of students talking. One held a couple of small bags in his hands. The boy with the bags looked up, when Colette and Susie entered the room.
"Oh good, glad you could make it," the boy said. It was Stefan Felicis, the gobstones captain.
"Are we the last?" Susie asked.
"No we still missing Jonas, oh there he is," Stefan said and looked towards the door. Susie turned around and saw what looked like a fourth year student come in. He had blond hair and a rather big nose.
"Okay as we're all here, we better get started. We've gotten two new members, Colette and Susie, both first years," Stefan said and pointed at the two young girls. Susie waved shyly to the others.
"Hi everyone," Colette said.
"This is Serena, second year, Gianna here is third year and this is Jonas who's on fourth year and of course me, Felix third year and Gobstones Captain for the Arctos house," Stefan said.
"As he likes to point out," Jonas laughed. Stefan looked harshly at the other boy, but Jonas kept laughing.
"Well if we can get started," Felix said sternly. Jonas made a gesture to Stefan that showed that he could start whenever he felt like it.
"Thank you. Well have any of you played Gobstones before?" Stefan asked Colette and Susie. Susie shook her head.
"I've played a little, but not much," Colette said.
"Okay, well the others can team up, then I'll get you two started up," Stefan said. He handed out a bag to each member.
"You all get a bag of Gobstones each you can use, these are only for practise use, at each match we get a bag that's been cleared for jinx or any cheating spells there might be, so the game is played fairly," Stefan started to explain.
"Well it doesn't mean it's played fairly," Jonas said with a smirk.
"Oy, it's me who's explaining, just get started with yours, Jonas," Stefan said.
"Now where was I, oh yes. The gobstone matches are played in sets," Stefan said.
"Oh like in Tennis?" Susie asked. Stefan looked confused at her.
"Tennis? Don't know, anyway, each member of the team will play against a member from the other team. Now we play five sets, if we say team A has won 3 matches and team B has won two, team B can choose if they want to play the sixth match and go for a so called re-match. If team B wins, we start over, if the re-match doesn't get a winner, we play for sudden death, so when the team wins, the team will win the match," Stefan said.
"Sudden death?" Susie asked nervously, it did sound a bit dangerous.
"Don't worry, the worst thing that can happen is the spit from the gobstones," Stefan said.
"Oh okay," Susie said, more relaxed.
After the gobstone practise, returned Colette and Susie to the common room, there they met up with Nita and Christina, who had taken place near the fire.
"Hey, how did it go?" Christina asked when she saw the two girls come through the door to the common room.
"Not bad, although I must say that Stefan liked to talk, he spends most of the time explaining the rules and stuff, THREE TIMES!!!" Colette said and dropped down into one of the blue comfy armchairs near the fire. Christina laughed.
"Sounds like a true captain," Christina said.
"Well we have practise three times a week, we've got our first match in mid-November," Susie said.
"Cool, who do you play against?" Christina asked.
"Lupinus house," Colette said with a frown.
"Well we'll cheer for you, right Nita," Christina said and looked at Nita, who had sat quietly and listened to the conversation.
"That we'll do," she said.
"Great," Susie said with a smile.
