CHAPTER 10: MARGIE PEREGRINE
A snowstorm was raging. It was minus 5 C out. James was at the substitute bench, jogging to keep warm and holding Margie Peregrine's Greenade.
The Griffins had been shooting across the sky field for an hour straight.
HWEE!
The whistle signalled break time. Margie Peregrine swooped down on her Flyaway Zephyr and dismounted. The Griffins gathered around her. Margie observed their rosy, snivelling faces, before fixing her grim eyes on Brian.
"Brian you suck. Why do you suck?"
"Because it's bleeding cold!"
Brian breathed warm air on his bare hands and rubbed them.
"I forgot my gloves. It is so cold I am developing cannibalistic wendigo urges."
"Well tough! Shouldn't have forgotten your gloves then! In Finland they play naked in the winter! Over there they'd make you wear the diaper of shame for complaining!"
James wondered, if this was how it felt, to be turned on. Brian looked down at his boots sourly.
"I bet they all complain, then."
Margie eyed him confrontationally.
"What was that? Do you want to wear a diaper, Brian?"
"No."
"NO WHAT?"
"No my captain, queen and goddess!"
Brian got down on his knees and kissed Margie's boots, lucky bastard.
"Alright that's enough," she said.
On the bright side, the snow was keeping her boots clean.
Brian got up. James was hypnotised by Margie's fingers fingering the gold whistle. The gold whistle with Margie Peregrine's dribble, and the dribble of so many captains before her. James really wanted to taste all that dribble.
"I know the weather is shit!" said Margie. "The other house teams may move their training indoors in the winter. We have never done that and that is what makes us great! We are world famous for our ruthless discipline!"
Susan snorted.
"Then how come we haven't won the cup for fifty years?" she mumble-asked.
She and Brian had such rubbish attitudes. It was why they were most often made the weakest link.
"Because we didn't have me as the captain!" said Margie.
James believed he was falling in love. He held on to her energy drink bottle like it was her hand.
"Ok take two."
Everybody grabbed their cigarette packets and went to the ball shed.
Margie came over to the bench, shaking the last cigarette from a packet and beckoning with one hand.
"Pass me my Greenade."
Margie Peregrine asking for her Greenade was like a princess asking for her hand! Or... his hand. James gave her the Greenade eagerly. She gave the bottle one look, saw that it was now an ice bottle, and returned it.
"Let me melt it for you!"
James began to rub at the bottle with his mittens. He broke a sweat bead that became an ice sweat bead.
When Margie smiled at him, it was like a princess blowing a kiss. She lit her ciggy and began to smoke.
"Dave says you have mojo."
It was like it was suddenly 20 C plus out. James rubbed that ice bottle, trying to conceal that excitement.
"What even is mojo?"
He hoped his tone wasn't too disinterested. Margie shrugged.
"Like, motivation and drive, or something, I think."
"Then you all have mojo!"
Margie laughing, it was like a princess playing the horn.
"That is what you think..."
She looked so cool smoking that cigarette. She smoked it like such a pro.
"They've all just about given up."
"Given up? I thought you looked great!"
"Oh I bet we looked amazing compared to whatever toddler team you come from!"
The Junior Kestrels wasn't a "toddler" team. The Junior Kestrels was as good as any house team.
Puffing on that ciggy, Margie looked a tad subdued. The grey snow whirling around her and the wind pulling at her hair, it made her look, like a princess of the wind and snow.
With a runny nose. She was apparently captaining despite a mild fever, such was the extent of her dedication.
"They... or perhaps I should say we...just don't handle failure very well. We all need to sit down and listen to that song, Rose Garden. Along with the sunshine, there's got to be a little rain sometimes."
There wasn't much left of that ciggy now. James wasn't getting anywhere with the ice bottle. He was tempted to sit on it like a bird but decided against it.
"But it's going to be different now because they have you! You're that sunshine!"
"Hm..."
She reached inside her robes, whipped out a fresh packet of cigarettes and lit a new one using the old one, before throwing the glowing stump to the ground where it died before James had the chance to take it.
"ONE MORE!" she shouted at the shed real quick.
"I just don't see how you can lose," said James. "You're not doing anything I wouldn't."
Margie gave him a Look, as if to say, he had a way too high opinion of himself if he thought his judgement was equal to hers or even better.
"Or... Darren O'Hare would do..."
"Of course we're not going to lose! You don't need four eyes to see that!"
She laughed, smoked and got a brief coughing fit. Then the smile was gone. She seemed so very encumbered by past failures and the immense pressure put on her to be the one to turn the trend.
If only she could see that all they needed was James! The solution was so easy and so available!
He put down the ice bottle, zipped down his snorkel parka and reached into his inner pocket.
"Would you recruit me... for a Coubertin?"
His heart felt like a giant's hammer. Would he really part with his Coubertin?
Margie's eyes widened. Her mouth fell. She reached for the card. James let her touch it. Hold it. Feel it.
"I do not deny that my heart has greatly desired this..." she said, staring manically at the card.
She returned it.
"But I will have to pass this time. After all, that is how I got stuck with Brian."
She finished her last ciggy, dropped it and stuck the whistle in her mouth.
HWEE!
Break was over. The Griffins resumed their training.
As much as he hated to admit it, James thought these people lacked spark, or mojo. And he was so full of mojo apparently!
He watched them criss cross the sky field when all of a sudden Margie shouted:
"I'M THIRSTY!"
So James, having forgotten that the Greenade had turned into ice, threw it right in her face, bruised one of her eyes and knocked her off the Flyaway Zephyr.
She scrambled to her feet, picked up her ride and came stomping to the substitute bench.
"What the hell did you do that for!"
She pressed a snowball to her bruised eye and shouted some very nasty and threatening things.
"I'm sorry!" said James. "D-didn't you say: I'm thirsty?"
"I said: On Thursday! Susan was asking me about our quiz! Maybe you should have four ears!"
Oops.
It was some time before the hour of Margie's transfiguration quiz. James and Sirius stitched Brussels Sprout's shadow to a chicken sitting stick and that way they didn't actually shirk herbology.
James adjusted his bobble hat.
"Now listen. I have it all worked out. Right now she should be sitting up in that classroom there."
He zoomed in on a window a couple of floors up.
"I can see her sitting in the window!"
"I know you said you didn't need a lute," said Sirius. "But I thought maybe you just don't know what a lute is."
He gave James a lute, with a red rose tucked in the hole. James threw the lute at their snowman.
"You're a lute! Now take this."
He had brought two broomsticks, his own and one from the broom shed. He gave Sirius the shitty, useless one.
"You and I will get on these."
Sirius examined the cheap old school property crap broomstick.
"What sort of broomstick is this?"
"It's Uranus."
"It's pronounced Yurin-us."
"No, it is pronounced Uranus. I found Uranus in a shed. Uranus is old and worn. Uranus is school property. Students will have had a ride on Uranus for generations. Uranus wasn't much to look at so I gave it a painting job so they will get the message."
He had painted it green and white. Sirius felt the Slytherin emblem.
"What's the message?"
"We are going to stage a sky fight. The message is that I'm the good guy and you're the bad guy."
James checked his pocket watch. The classroom was probably full by now.
"Is the other message that I will beat you?" Sirius asked.
"Like you beat me at rock, scissors and paper. If you call that winning, that explains a lot."
Sirius gazed at their fallen snowman.
"I think that, maybe subconsciously, I wanted to lose."
"I don't. Do you need to do the up thing first? Up Uranus? Do you need to up Uranus? Do you need to go up Uranus, or shall I go up Uranus for you?"
"I was there when we all had to do the up thing. It's only a one time thing, right?"
"Yeah for some reason you have to do it the very first time you get on your very first broomstick. All the other broomsticks will get the message after that, that you want to get on them. The first one needs the hint."
James stuck his fingers in his mouth and whistled. The Ziggy Stardust popped into being.
What a beauty it was. He could just admire it for hours.
"So what's the plan?" Sirius grabbed the Uranus. "I just grabbed Uranus."
"I told you. The plan is we get up there and stage a fight in which I beat you. But I am still figuring out the details. Have fun playing with Uranus."
"You said you had it all worked out!" said Sirius, a little accusing.
"Yeah the broader strokes! All I know is, I want it to involve this apple somehow..."
He took an apple from the pocket of his snorkel parka and began to throw it around, hoping it would spark some ideas.
It didn't.
"What's the apple for?" Sirius asked.
"I just have this vision of me taking something from you and throwing it at an impressive distance and hitting an impressive target. If Margie sees me do that I am in!"
"Oh I see."
The two of them just stood there in the snow, looking around and going: Hmmmm, for some time, in the hopes that inspiration would be sparked.
When no inspiration was sparked, James suggested they saddled their sweet rides and fly closer to the window because maybe that would do it.
"Uranus ok?" James asked. "I think Uranus could use a bit of ointment."
Sirius peeled off the Slytherin emblem sticker.
"It says: Skymaster."
"No it says Uranus don't remove that!"
Margie sat in the window, opening her pencil case while McGonagall was talking at the blackboard. James was so tempted to knock and wave and do a backflip.
"We have to come up with a plan fast!"
"What if I were to take off my gloves?" Sirius suggested. "I can roll them to a ball, throw it and then you catch it."
"What will that achieve!"
"Isn't that where the 150 points come in?"
"It's me that has to do the throwing!"
"If you want something more impressive looking..."
McGonagall began to hand out the quiz.
"Yeah..," said James. "Yeah! Impressive looking! It has to look like something that needs epic destroying! An object packed with dark magic, that I destroy by throwing it at the destructive branches of the Great Willow! I will have killed two birds with honey; destroyed an evil thing and impressed Margie Peregrine! Do you have something that looks impressive or evil somehow?"
"Why isn't it enough that you hit an impressive target with anything?"
"Because Margie already said no and I don't want to seem totally desperate do I!"
Did he have to spell EVERYTHING out? If he had planned this better, or at all, he would have arranged for the scene to take place when Margie was outside smoking so she could pick up the necessary details from their conversation.
Sirius reached under his hair and removed that earring.
"Will this do?"
It was a spider, of course it would. James threw away that half eaten apple.
"We could call it the Earring of Great Evil Potency but we'll have to shout."
"Shall I throw it now?"
"It's ME that's supposed to do the throwing!"
Sirius gave him the earring. Just like that. For him to throw. James was no expert on jewellery but it felt authentic. He glanced at the willow tree. It seemed to be getting ready.
"You sure it's ok that I throw it?"
"Yeah!"
"Listen, I can throw it so it won't get a scratch I promise."
"But if you hit a branch and it's kicked to Mars that's ok too. I have more earrings."
His mum's earrings. He was clearly not over what his parents had done to his TCRS.
"String would have been useful," James thought.
They could hear McGonagall announce the start of the quiz. Since the plan had always been to wing it, James was just going to wing it. He forced the earring back in Sirius's hand.
"Really, it's fine-"
"OI! WHAT IS THAT YOU GOT THERE!"
He kept glancing at the window, to see if Margie was looking.
"WHAT!" Sirius shouted back.
"THAT THING! IT'S THE EARRING OF EVIL DEATH! GIVE IT TO ME NOW!"
"TRY AND MAKE ME!"
McGonagall came and opened the window.
"Stop shouting out there! There's an ongoing quiz!"
"Sorry professor McGonagall!" said James. "It's just-"
"Why aren't you at herbology class?"
"Uh-"
McGonagall shut the window and closed the curtains. James grabbed the earring and knocked on the window. He knocked and knocked. Sirius, too, knocked and knocked. Then they banged and banged.
The curtains parted and the window went up again.
"I see you liked waiting on those ghosts at their Halloween party! You are most welcome to wait on them on their Yule feast and host the dead giveaway! In the meantime 200 points from Gryffindor."
Margie looked shocked upon hearing that. James tried to glide out of view.
"I have already sent Mr Filth to take you down," said McGonagall, "that is, unless you take yourselves down first. Good day."
Before McGonagall could shut the window James got the head of his Ziggy Stardust jammed in between.
"Hey Margie! Margie look!"
Margie looked up. McGonagall told her to not pay him any attention and un-jammed the broomstick forcefully. James threw the earring at the Great Willow in the distance. But the curtains had been closed before anybody could see it disappear among the whipping branches.
James and Sirius swooped to the foot of the tree and got off their sweet rides to search the ground.
"Next time Margie Peregrine needs to be outdoors," said James. "And the thing I throw should be something that would explode. Sorry about your mum's earring. Hey, perhaps you can just go: Accio mum's earring!"
"Yeah that might do it! Oh wait here it is."
Something glimmered in the snow, right at the foot of the Great Willow. Sirius picked up the earring and put it back on.
"Would you like me to pierce one or both your ears sometime?" he asked.
James wanted to think about it. He looked around.
"Hey... Notice anything?"
"Hmm... No."
"Me neither."