Chapter 3: Jeff

Alice thought back to when she had first met Jeff. She had met Jeff at the creek when she was seven and had just moved into a Muggle village called Grayson so her mother could have the privacy to grow a magical garden. Alice had no longer been able to see the few magical friends she left in London, and didn't know how she was going to get along with anyone in this new place, particularly since this was a Muggle village. Alice remembered too well the warning that had been issued by her father to herself and Peggy, "This is not the magical part of London. This is the Muggle world. Here, you are not allowed to even mention magic, spells, or anything relating to it. There are protective spells around the house and the garden so that Muggles will not suspect anything, but for our safety and for the safety of the Muggles around, your lips must stay sealed. Do you understand me?"

And he made the girls promise that they would not breathe a word of this to anyone. Quite honestly, Alice did not understand why her father had made such an issue over the family's magic. She knew about the Statute of Secrecy, and she knew that she was not to tell Muggles about magic. But when Alice realized how potent her magical powers truly were, she understood the true difficulty of keeping her powers a secret.

Alice liked to explore. There was only one neighbor in this area, which was so different from the crowded magical area of London. Alice walked until she saw flowing blue water. She sat down beside it, and was absentmindedly making rings in the water without touching it when she heard her sister yell, "Hey look!"

Alice turned and saw what Peggy saw. A boy was standing several meters away, pounding on a drumset. He was small; he looked as though he could be no older than Alice. Yet he was beating on the drum with everything he had. Peggy started to run toward him, and Alice followed close behind. "What are you doing?" she whispered harshly. But Peggy would not stop until she was right in front of the drummer boy.

"Hey!" she yelled. "Can I have a go?"

Alice grabbed her shoulder and turned her to face her. "Peggy! What are you doing? You know what father said about talking to strangers!"

Peggy looked up at her. "But he's just a boy. He's not dangerous."

At this point the boy had stopped playing. He was now listening to the discussion with a smile on his face. "Not dangerous, huh?" he asked. "What makes you so sure?"

Peggy looked up at him and pondered the question. "Well...you're a drummer," she said. "There's nothing dangerous about drummers."

Jeff looked at her with bewilderment, and then finally asked, "Who are you ladies anyhow?"

Peggy grinned. "I'm Peggy, and this is my sister Alice."

"Pleasure," he said. "I'm Jeff Roberts. I, apparently, am a non-dangerous drummer." He winked and smirked.

Alice took in his appearance. He had sandy brown hair that fell into his amber eyes. Having a slightly muscular build, his tanned skin displayed his habits of spending quite a bit of time in the sun. As she was studying his appearance, she realized that he was watching her.

"Well," he said, "I suppose I'm not a stranger anymore, am I? You can speak to me now."

Alice's eyebrows pushed together. "What makes you not a stranger?"

"Well, we've been introduced, haven't we?" he said. "Not strangers."

Before Alice could reply, a voice called, "Hey, Jeffrey, who are these people?"

A larger boy who had lighter hair but the same shade of eyes as Jeff came into sight. The boy looked down at Peggy and asked, "Oh, playing dolls are we?"

Without another word, he took Peggy's doll and pitched it into the creek. Chortling, he disappeared from sight.

Peggy was sobbing. "Oh, no! I just arranged Macy's hair and now she is going to be all soggy. And I can't go home with wet stockings! What Mother would say!" Before Alice knew what she was doing, the doll disappeared from the creek and reappeared on the ground.

Alice asked Jeff in anger, "Who is that?"

Jeff shrugged. "Oh, that's my cousin Charlie. He's a bit of a berk, I'm sorry to say. And his mother is tiresome. It's always such a chore to have them over."

Suddenly, Jeff turned and looked at the ground in front of the creek, where the doll lay. "Hey, I thought he had chucked the thing into the creek," he said. "How is it lying there?"

"What?" asked Alice, knowing that she must think quickly. "Oh, he missed. Didn't you see?"

A puzzled expression crossed Jeff's brow, and he shook his head, but he shrugged. "So, you still want a go on the drum?" he asked Peggy.

From that day on, Jeff and Alice became best friends. Peggy's amity with Jeff didn't last much longer than the first day when he attempted to teach her the game of baseball and she got a stain on her fluffy pink and white dress.

However, everything that Jeff did, Alice loved. She might not be good at everything they did (she was not at all athletic), but everything Jeff did was so fun. Whether they were teaching his dogs tricks or singing popular Muggle songs to passing cars at the tops of their lungs, Alice felt that she was at a place in which she truly belonged.

As the children grew older, they found that they shared another common interest: books. Alice loved reading all the classics she could get her hands on, but Jeff especially liked stories about heroes. All of his favorite stories involved a hero and a villian; a good guy and a bad guy. And the good guy always won. He loved books from Charles Dickens to J.R.R. Tolkein.

So Jeff and Alice would spend many an afternoon, sitting in a tree near the creek with Alice reading aloud to Jeff while Jeff read the quotations of the heroes.

It did not happen all at once, but sometime during those long afternoons, Alice and Jeff developed a bond of friendship that could not be broken. They were loyal to each other, and they knew, even at their young age, that they would always stand by one another.