Alexandra Quick and the Thorn Circle

Troublesome

Alexandra found out the next morning that she would indeed be seeing Dean Grimm again sooner than she'd hoped. She noticed at the breakfast table that Anna, David, Constance, and Forbearance were all gloomy and apprehensive. In fact, Anna seemed downright terrified. Darla and Angelique were trying to be sympathetic, but they sounded more pitying than comforting. "It wasn't entirely your fault, I'm sure you won't get into too much trouble," Darla said.

"What's wrong?" Alexandra asked, sitting down with her plate of bacon, eggs, and waffles.

Anna looked at her as if she were crazy. "Didn't you see the notice board?" she asked, in a high-pitched voice.

Alexandra stopped chewing her bacon for a moment, and her grimace told the other kids that she had forgotten about the notice board again. David rolled his eyes while Darla and Angelique shook their heads. "You really need to check it every morning and afternoon, Alexandra."

"I know!" Alexandra snapped. "So what did it say?"

Anna sighed. "We all have to go to the Dean's office after breakfast." Her voice was faint, and Alexandra noticed the other girl had hardly touched her breakfast.

"It's about our fight with those punks at Grundy's, the one who called us Mudbloods," David snarled. Everyone else winced when he said that word.

"You and I got into a fight," Alexandra said. "Why are Anna and Constance and Forbearance in trouble?"

"Guilt by association?" suggested Darla. Alexandra glared at her.

"We was involved," said Constance.

"We was in the middle of things," said Forbearance.

"And if we'd been quicker to raise up -"

"There might'a been no fraction."

"So it's your fault your Ozarker friends were being bigots?" David demanded. "It ain't your responsibility to keep your boys from acting up."

"Who's going to be responsible for keeping you from acting up?" asked Angelique. David glowered at her.

"Please," said Constance.

"Do not bicker," said Forbearance.

"We're already in enough trouble," mumbled Anna.

---

Alexandra was irritated and a little worried at being summoned to Ms. Grimm's office, but she noticed as they arrived at the administrative wing that the other girls were positively shaking, and even David looked nervous.

Alexandra had visited the principal's office often enough at Larkin Mills Elementary School. "What's the worst that can happen?" she scoffed. "Detention? It's not like she's going to turn us into frogs."

"I've heard she turns students who get expelled into pigs and makes them live in the forest!" whispered Anna.

"Don't be ridiculous." Alexandra was beginning to worry about Anna.

There was no secretary in the administrative wing. Instead, there was a portrait of a woman who looked very much like a 19^th century schoolteacher hanging on the wall. 'Miss Marmsley, School Secretary. b. 1814, d. 1932' read the brass plate beneath her portrait. The woman in the portrait gave them all a stern look as they entered the school's office, and pointed to a hard wooden bench. "Wait there, please," she said. While she was very severe-looking with a sour countenance, Alexandra guessed that the portrait had been painted much earlier than 1932, since Miss Marmsley didn't look nearly one-hundred and eighteen years old.

They all sat down on the bench, opposite a heavy wooden door with a brass plate on it that said "Dean's Office." On either side of the door were more paintings, but these had no people in them; they were mostly landscapes, though Alexandra recognized the Academy building in a couple of them.

They sat quietly for five minutes. Then Alexandra realized Anna was crying.

"Hey," she said. She put an arm around her roommate, a little awkwardly. "C'mon. Haven't you ever been in trouble before?"

"No!" Anna whispered. "When my father finds out, he might make me go back to San Francisco!"

"Ssh!" said Miss Marmsley, suddenly appearing in what had been a painting of a copse of woods opposite them.

Alexandra waited until the woman had slipped out of the woods and back to her own portrait, and said, "Look, I'll tell Ms. Grimm it was all me and David's fault -"

"Hey!" said David.

"All of you be quiet!" snapped the secretary, returning to scowl at them from the nearest painting.

After she'd disappeared again, Anna said in a very low voice, "You don't seem to think this is a big deal, Alexandra. Being sent to the Dean's office is a big deal! It'll go on our permanent record!"

"It's no trifling matter," whispered Constance.

"Our parents barely agreed to let us come to Charmbridge," Forbearance whispered. Alexandra realized the twins were barely holding back tears as well.

The Dean's door opened. Benjamin and Mordecai Rash emerged, both looking sullen and red-faced. Following them was the boy whom Alexandra had brawled with. She had never caught his name. He had curly black hair and didn't look like an Ozarker. All three of them gave Alexandra venomous looks, but none of them said a word as they skulked past, out of the office. Constance and Forbearance both looked down rather than meet any of the boys' eyes.

The Dean's door swung shut without giving Alexandra even a glimpse inside. The silence that followed was even more ominous, but Anna continued to tremble, with tears running down her cheeks. Constance and Forbearance had their heads together and were holding one another's hands. David had slumped on the bench, folding his arms across his chest and staring at the opposite wall, but his tapping foot betrayed his nervousness.

Alexandra stood up and walked over to the Dean's door and knocked on it loudly. Anna gasped, the twins looked up with open mouths, and David hissed, "Are you crazy?" Miss Marmsley appeared instantly in the painting nearest the door and said, "Young lady!"

Alexandra opened the door. Inside, Ms. Grimm was seated behind a large oak deck, signing something. She looked up with an expression of mingled irritation and amazement.

"Excuse me," Alexandra said, and she slipped inside and closed the door. Outside, the secretary squawked in disbelief, and then Alexandra heard her voice coming from what appeared to be a much smaller picture frame sitting on the Dean's desk, facing her. "I'm sorry, Dean Grimm, I didn't expect her to - to simply barge into your office!"

Ms. Grimm nodded. "It's all right, Heather." Her voice was cool and unperturbed. "Tell the others to continue waiting."

Other than the nod, the Dean had barely moved a muscle since Alexandra had entered, except to turn her head very slightly. Now her eyes fixed on the girl like two slate-gray gun barrels, and Alexandra could almost feel a chill settle around her.

"Well, Miss Quick," said Ms. Grimm softly. "You must be in a very great hurry to leave Charmbridge Academy."

Alexandra swallowed, then said, "No, not really." And added, "Ms. Grimm." She squared her shoulders and faced the Dean across her imposing desk. There were portraits on the wall behind Ms. Grimm, some of the Dean herself, some of other men and women, and together they made up quite an imposing wall of disapproval as they all scowled down at her over Ms. Grimm's shoulder.

"I just wanted to say, Anna and Constance and Forbearance, they're the other ones who got called to your office along with me and David, and they didn't do anything. They just happened to be sitting at the table when we got in the fight at Grundy's. Now they're sitting out there terrified that you're going to expel them or turn them into pigs or something, and they shouldn't be, so I figured if you're going to expel me anyway then how much more trouble can I be in if I decided not to make them wait any longer?"

She said that all in one breath of air, and then put her hands behind her back and shifted from one foot to the other, watching Ms. Grimm. The Dean's expression didn't change, and her eyes continued to reflect only coldness back at her.

Ms. Grimm didn't move or speak for several seconds, and Alexandra felt the silence stretching and testing her nerves. Her hands fidgeted a bit behind her back, but she didn't take her gaze away from the Dean's face. Finally Ms. Grimm set down the pen and folded her hands on her desk.

"Well, you've had an eventful past few days, haven't you?" she said conversationally. "Violating the rules against underaged use of magic not twenty-four hours after I cautioned you not to, getting in a public brawl in Grundy's, and now invading my office because what you had to say was just so very important it couldn't wait until I was ready to talk to you."

"I didn't like seeing Anna and Constance and Forbearance -"

"Yes, you were concerned for your friends. Admirable." Ms. Grimm's voice was dry, devoid of any humor whatsoever. "Do you often find yourself worrying about the consequences of your actions to your friends only in retrospect, Miss Quick?"

Alexandra closed her mouth, feeling her face burning. But she didn't look away.

"So far you have violated the law and embarrassed this institution, and now you've shown great disrespect to me personally." Alexandra didn't think it was possible for Ms. Grimm's voice to become colder, but it did, and she finally dropped her gaze.

"I didn't mean to disrespect you, Ms. Grimm," she said. "I just -"

"Did whatever popped into your head without thinking about the consequences," said Ms. Grimm. "I suspect you do that rather a lot."

"Are you going to expel me?" Alexandra looked up at her again.

Ms. Grimm seemed to be considering. "Should I?"

Alexandra hated it when adults asked loaded questions like that.

"Well, if you do, you still shouldn't punish Anna or Constance or Forbearance. But you should definitely expel Benjamin and Mordecai Rash and that other boy along with me, since they called me and David Mudbloods."

Ms. Grimm's eyes glinted. "And that excuses your behavior?"

"No," Alexandra replied, after a pause. "Ma'am."

Ms. Grimm was silent again, long enough to make Alexandra resume shifting from foot to foot , and wonder if the others outside were in an agony of suspense.

"Benjamin and Mordecai Rash and Larry Albo have received their punishments, including for the use of derogatory language that goes against Charmbridge's non-discrimination policy," said Ms. Grimm at last. She regarded Alexandra impassively for a moment, and then picked up her wand and with a little wave, caused her office door to open.

"The rest of you, come inside, please," she said.

David, Anna, Constance, and Forbearance filed in, all looking extremely nervous. Anna was sniffling and wiping at her eyes.

"Miss Quick has taken responsibility for her part in the events at Grundy's," said Ms. Grimm, "and absolved the rest of you, except for Mr. Washington." She stared at David. He was less successful than Alexandra at holding the Dean's gaze, and he dropped his eyes after a moment.

"Do you agree that all the punishment should fall solely on Miss Quick and Mr. Washington?" she asked.

Alexandra wanted to open her mouth and protest that this was another unfair, loaded question, but for once, she managed to hold her tongue. Anna looked down, while Constance and Forbearance looked at each other.

"We should've tried to calm things down," Anna mumbled in a small voice, still trembling.

"It started over us to begin with," said Forbearance meekly, looking at the floor.

"If we'd simply done like our kin asked..." said Constance, just as meekly.

"That's where you're wrong," said Ms. Grimm briskly. "The Rashes had no business telling you whom to socialize with or where to sit, and they certainly had no business using hateful language. They did, however, admit their own responsibility in this shameful episode. Their accounts verify Miss Quick's assertion that the three of you played no material part in the brawl."

She looked at the three other girls reprovingly. "I do, however, expect all of you to do a better job in the future of being responsible classmates, particularly when it comes to helping students such as Mr. Washington and Miss Quick to learn the ways of the wizarding world."

Alexandra simmered some more. Ms. Grimm was making them responsible for her and David behaving!

"Yes, Dean Grimm," the other three girls all answered in unison, still looking down.

"You three may leave."

Anna, Constance, and Forbearance were still trembling a little as they filed out. David looked as if he were having trouble swallowing while he stood next to Alexandra. Ms. Grimm stared at them until the others had disappeared, then gestured with her wand again. Her office door closed with a bang that made David jump.

"You two..." Grimm rose from her seat, and though her massive desk was still between them, she seemed now to be impossibly tall, leaning across and over it and towering over them both, almost filling the room. "Someday, you will earn the right to consider yourselves full members of the wizarding world. Someday when you can behave like a witch and a wizard and not like uncivilized savages!" She glared at the two of them, and her voice was like a whip.

"You have powers the Muggle children you grew up with can only dream of. You were born to do great things, if you so choose. Behave again as you did in Grundy's, and you can return to Detroit, to Larkin Mills, and spend the rest of your lives regretting the opportunity you threw away."

Alexandra felt herself shrinking despite herself, beneath Ms. Grimm's scathing disapprobation. Part of her wanted to cry, to run away, or to beg for forgiveness. She had never felt so intimidated and ashamed before, not when sent to her principal's office for the fourth time in one month, not when her mother caught her going through her purse looking for evidence of her father, not when she put Archie's truck in reverse through the neighbors' garage. But she held her head up and though her eyes stung and her throat was a tiny knot, she didn't cry.

David was trembling and clenching his fists until his knuckles turned white. He looked like he might throw up.

Ms. Grimm's voice suddenly dropped back to its normal icy-calm intensity, and she sat down again. Her presence still filled the room, but no longer seemed to be suffocating them.

"You will both serve two weeks detention, write apologies to Grundy's Department Store, and an essay on the subject of how your behavior in public reflects upon Charmbridge Academy and why it is therefore doubly-imperative for Charmbridge students to conduct themselves like proper young witches and wizards. Your essays will be posted on the all-grades notice board."

Alexandra kept her face still to suppress a grimace. It could have been much worse, and as if reading her mind, Ms. Grimm added, "And just to be clear, you are getting off very lightly, owing to your recent traumatic experience at the Invisible Bridge."

"Yes, Ms. Grimm," Alexandra and David both said together.

"Now get out of my office!" she hissed. Her door opened without her looking up or touching her wand. "And collect your belongings from Miss Marmsley." David turned and hurried out. Alexandra followed him, measuring her steps with great effort. The Dean's office door slammed shut behind her.

"Man, she's scary!" whispered David, wiping his brow.

"Hm," Alexandra said, noncommittally.

In the office outside, Miss Marmsley looked down at them and then, with a disdainful sniff, pointed at a closet next to a desk with an ancient typewriter on it. Both desk and typewriter were covered in dust. "There are some things for you in Lost and Found," she said.

David walked over to the closet door hesitantly. Alexandra opened it. The closet inside was dark - in fact, Alexandra got the impression that it was yet another cavernous space larger on the inside than the outside, but they couldn't even see the walls or ceiling of the closet or anything beyond the light cast on the floor from the open door. Sitting on the floor were a stack of books, clothes, and two very battered cauldrons.

"Guess they picked our stuff up off the valley floor," David said. He picked up one of his books and grimaced. It was waterlogged and almost falling apart. Alexandra's books had fared no better. Her cauldron had a small concave indentation, but David's was cracked. They both scooped up the damp piles of clothes that had also been retrieved.

"Well, don't stand there talking!" said Miss Marmsley behind them. "Get on to class!"

Alexandra felt increasingly relieved the more distance she put between herself and the Dean's office.

---

David and Alexandra didn't have a chance to talk to anyone else again until lunch. They had to go straight from the Dean's office to their first class, and since they were late, the teacher and everyone else stared at them when they walked into their Basic Charms class. They took their seats and shoved the piles of retrieved belongings they were carrying under their desks. Alexandra was disappointed but not surprised to see that the remedial Charms teacher was Mr. Newton. There were only four other students in the class, and all of them seemed bored and inattentive. Alexandra, however, was determined to get out of remedial classes as quickly as possible, so despite Mr. Newton's exasperated tone and patronizing repetition of every word and gesture, she paid close attention as he taught them the basics of wandwork. They didn't actually cast any spells that day, but spent the entire hour following along with the illustrations in their book as they learned the Six Basic Wand Movements and Seven Basic Wand Positions.

"When are we going to get to cast spells?" she asked David, as they walked to their next class, Basic Transfigurations.

"I guess when Mr. Newton thinks we know the difference between a flick and a snap," David replied. Alexandra frowned, as it had been her whom Newton had accused of snapping her wand instead of flicking it.

Mr. Hobbes was the teacher in their next class, and as if to confirm his earlier claim that transfigurations were difficult, the remedial transfiguration class was much larger, with over a dozen students besides her and David. Some of them looked like older kids as well.

"Ah, Miss Quick, so nice to see you again, my girl, so nice indeed!"

While Mr. Hobbes was friendlier than Mr. Newton, Alexandra wasn't as enthusiastic to see him again. It seemed that most of the other students in the Remedial Transformations class were just plain dull. They spent some time trying to turn matchsticks into needles, and rocks into candy, and none of them were too successful. Alexandra was surprised at how patient Mr. Hobbes seemed to be. In her head, she composed several rhymes that she was pretty sure would effect the desired transformations, but she tried using only her wand. She got her rocks to change color at least, which was better than David could do.

Feeling a bit smug, she frowned when Hobbes then told them they'd spend the rest of the hour reviewing Militades's Elementary Transformations. She wanted to do magic, not read about it. At the end of the hour, Hobbes asked, "All right, who can tell me the four most elementary transformations and an example of each?"

Several students raised their hands. Alexandra didn't, but Hobbes called on her anyway.

"Inanimate to inanimate, like rocks to candy. Inanimate to animate, like a rock into a mouse. Animate to inanimate, like a bird into a music box. Animate to animate, like a fish into a cat," Alexandra said.

David looked at her with surprise.

"What?" she whispered.

"I was wondering if you were ever going to start reading your books," he whispered back. She glared at him.

Then the class period ended, and David said, "Well, Magical Theory's next."

Alexandra shuffled her feet. "Yeah. I guess I have a different schedule." She didn't want to admit that her next class was Remedial Alchemy. David had apparently scored well enough on his SPAWN that he'd be taking alchemy and magical theory and all the other classes with the rest of their grade.

He squinted at her, and she could tell he was wondering why she had a different schedule than him, since sixth-graders weren't given any electives. "I'll see you at lunch," she said cheerfully, and walked away down the hall, brushing past several older students.

In Remedial Alchemy, Alexandra finally got to meet Mr. Grue. He was a very large man, wearing a thick black robe that looked almost like a cassock, and heavy black scaly gloves. Grizzled salt-and-pepper hair and a tangled black beard obscured most of his face, but what was visible of it - his bulbous nose, plump cheeks, and broad forehead - was covered in scars from blisters and burns.

He peered at Alexandra suspiciously, and looked at a scrap of parchment on his desk.

"Alexandra Quick?" he rumbled.

"Yeah," she said. There were nine other students, most of which she'd seen in one or both of her previous remedial classes. She took a seat next to a mousy-looking girl who hadn't spoken at all during Remedial Transfiguration.

"That's 'Yes, Mr. Grue'!" the teacher boomed.

Alexandra paused in pulling things out of her dented cauldron. "Yes, Mr. Grue," she muttered.

He walked over and scowled at her cauldron. "That is not how you maintain your equipment, Miss Quick," he growled.

"It's how my equipment looks after falling half a mile,"she retorted sullenly.

Grue's face seemed to swell up. "Did you sass back to your teachers in the Muggle world?"

"Sometimes," she said, knowing she shouldn't. Already everyone was staring at her, but she was annoyed at having been singled out immediately.

Grue leaned closer until she could smell his breath.

"Say something else insolent," he growled threateningly, in a low voice.

Alexandra said nothing, but didn't look away from Grue's bushy-browed stare. After a moment, he stood up, exhaling heavily, and told everyone to empty their cauldrons and open their textbooks, "Young Wands Teaching Series: Beginning Potions." Alexandra's was still wet and made a squelching sound as she slapped it open on her desk. Grue paused to stare at her again, and then began writing the same standard potion staples on the board that were listed on the first page of their books.

Lunch was after Grue's Remedial Alchemy class. Alexandra ran to her room to dump her cauldron and books, and noticed that Charlie had gone, though Anna's owl was still on its perch. She made sure the window was still open so the raven could return when it pleased, and then hurried on to the cafeteria.

The others were already at a table talking, but fell silent when Alexandra arrived, sitting between David and Anna.

"What?" she asked wearily, seeing everyone's eyes on her.

"I can't believe you just busted into Grimm's office like that," David said.

"I'll bet no one's ever done that before," Anna said.

Alexandra shrugged uncomfortably.

"You're lucky all you got was detention and an essay," Darla said from across the table. "You could have been expelled."

"Yeah, I keep hearing that," Alexandra replied.

"I think it was awful brave of her," said Constance quietly.

"Not very wise," said Forbearance.

"Ill-considered," Constance agreed.

"But brave," Forbearance repeated.

"Bravery doesn't impress Dean Grimm," sniffed Darla. "If you keep behaving like that -"

"Constance and Forbearance are right," Anna said. "It wasn't very smart, but she did it to save us from getting in trouble."

"She could have gotten you into more trouble," Darla pointed out.

David rolled his eyes.

"How were your remedial classes?" Angelique asked.

David shrugged, while Alexandra hastily shoved a some meatloaf into her mouth. "I'm sure I'll get the hang of all this wand stuff soon enough," David said.

"We can tutor you," said Anna. "We're supposed to help you, after all." She glanced at Constance and Forbearance, who nodded.

"I won't need tutoring," said Alexandra. "I'll be out of remedial classes in no time, you'll see."

She didn't notice the exasperated looks that the others exchanged as she swept up her books and said, "See you later!"

---

Basic Principles of Magic was taught by a phlegmatic wizard named Mr. Adams, who looked as much like a pilgrim as any of the students Alexandra had seen. He wore black knee-length breeches, black stockings, black shoes, and a black coat over a white linen shirt that looked starched almost to inflexibility. He had a long nose that he wrinkled frequently when regarding his students, which was practically the only expression Alexandra saw on him. He had them open their books and take turns reading from it. It was, in fact, somewhat educational, as by the end of the class Alexandra knew a few more things about spells and wands and how magic was performed in the wizarding world, but she felt the pace had been unnecessarily slow and she thought she could have just as easily read everything herself in less time than they took in class. Mr. Adams would occasionally ask someone to repeat some fact read earlier, and when a student was caught daydreaming, he would wrinkle his nose and make the inattentive student read the entire passage over aloud.

Wizarding World History was taught by a very old witch named Ms. Grinder, who began by having them open their textbooks to the first chapter, as Mr. Adams had done. It was titled "Wizards and Warlocks in the Ancient World."

Ms. Grinder cleared her throat, squinted at the title through a pair of thick glasses, and then declared, "Well, what do you think of that? Do you suppose there were no witches in the ancient world?"

Alexandra looked around at her classmates, who were mostly bored, though several looked confused.

"We've been using this same textbook for over twenty years!" Grinder exclaimed. "Every year I write a letter to the Department of Magical Education, and every year they foist this standardized collection of patriarchal fairy tales on us!"

Alexandra raised her hand, which was something she rarely did in school back home.

Grinder squinted at her, surprised. "Yes, Ms....?"

"Quick. Alexandra Quick. What's 'patriarchal' mean?"

"It means that men think they invented everything, discovered everything, and did everything that was ever important in the world!" sneered Grinder. "Oh, we always hear about Paracelsus and Ptolemy and Hermes Trismegistus and for Goddess's sake Merlin, Merlin, Merlin! As if Thetis and Circe and Morgana and Nimue were just bit players in magical history! I'll bet none of you have ever even heard of Himiko, Groa, Nadia of Wallachia, or Elizabeth Bathory? Not that Elizabeth Bathory was a particularly nice person, mind you..."

Alexandra thought all of these people sounded fascinating, but she didn't actually get to hear about any of them because Ms. Grinder just kept complaining about how sexist and out-of-date their textbooks were. While the teacher was going on about them, Alexandra paged through the book and saw some of the names Grinder had mentioned. Of course Alexandra had heard of Merlin, Morgan Le Fay, Nimue, and Circe, since she read lots of mythology, and was rather surprised to discover they were actually historical people.

Though Alexandra sympathized with Grinder's point of view, when class ended she still wished they'd actually spent more time learning about famous wizards and witches.

Finally she had her first non-remedial class, Practical Magical Exercise. She arrived in a large room with a hard dirt floor in a wing of the academy separate from the other classrooms she'd been in. There were many more students here than in any of her other classes, and not just sixth graders. She saw some tall metal poles with hoops atop them, and a line of barrels, and several circles and rectangular dividers sunk into the dirt to mark out sections of the floor.

"Hi," she said to David as she found him standing next to Constance and Forbearance. "This looks like a stable, kind of." She gestured at the large wooden doors that she thought opened to the outside, though with Charmbridge Academy's layout, she was not always certain exactly where she was facing relative to the outside.

He nodded. "Practical Magical Exercise... I think we do activities like wizard sports and learning to ride brooms and things. Hey, what classes did you have if you weren't with us in Magical Theory, Alchemy, and Wizard Social Studies?"

"That must be the teacher!" Alexandra said, pointing at a short, fat man nearly as rotund as a ball who was waddling towards them, his cloak dragging in the dirt behind him. He looked like a very unlikely teacher of sports or broom-riding, but he was a welcome distraction from David's query.

"Good afternoon, students," he wheezed. "I'm Mr. Bludgeleg. This hour will be devoted to practical magical exercises in a fun environment! Some of you may already be interested in team sports, or the ever-popular Dueling Club, and this class is where you may hone your skills in preparation for Quidditch and Quodpot tryouts next month."

After that, Bludgeleg sorted all the students according to grade level, and sent the sixth graders to join another young witch named Miss Gambola who looked barely older than Gwendolyn. Although they'd all been hoping to have broom lessons, they were instead told to stand in a circle around one of the rings embedded in the dirt floor, and the witch emptied a sack of balls onto the packed dirt. There were over a dozen, of varying sizes and colors, made of wood, metal, clay, and rubber.

"Plunkballs," groaned Darla.

"I'm sure many of you have played plunkballs at home," said Miss Gambola. "But it's an entirely different game when you use wands, and this is an opportunity to practice your wandwork."

"It's a children's game," Darla sniffed.

Despite Darla's discontent, the other children were enthusiastic enough about having something to actually use their wands on, and soon they were cheering as pairs or teams took up positions around the circle. From what Alexandra could gather, plunkballs was similar to marbles, except the players used magic to push the balls out of the circle while trying to prevent their opponent or opponents from doing the same. It soon developed that there were many byzantine rules about how and when a ball could be moved and how many points they were worth, and when other players could join in, and many rules seemed to be made up on the spot, causing arguments as intense as the plunkball conflict itself. Since most of them were new to using wands, their ability to magically push the balls around was limited. It was readily apparent that some kids were much better at it than others. Alexandra was pleased to discover that she could generate a fair amount of force compared to most of the other sixth graders, though her aim left something to be desired. She tried not to look pleased as well when Angelique was barely able to make even the smallest, lightest rubber ball wobble. After that, Angelique joined Darla in standing apart from the circle, aloof and chattering about much more interesting and mature topics than some silly children's game (as they repeated several times, loudly).

Alexandra was now paired with David, who was doing fairly well though he didn't seem to have Alexandra's flair for plunking the balls, but when Constance and Forbearance stood across the circle from them, they found themselves staring in amazement as the Ozarker twins began plunking, spinning, and bouncing the balls in every direction with deft flicks of their wands. They soon cleared the circle, then turned bright red as everyone cheered.

"You two are awesome!" exclaimed Alexandra, running around the circle to congratulate them. Alexandra was fiercely competitive, but she was not by nature a sore loser. The twins blushed even more.

"Oh, please don't much over us so!" Constance said.

"It's unseemly," said Forbearance.

"Most Ozarker children play plunkballs," Constance explained.

"We'uns passed many hours playing one another," Forbearance nodded.

"Since ever we was little," Constance added.

"Well, you should join the gobstones club," said another kid.

Constance and Forbearance both wrinkled their noses in dismay. "Gobstones is a horrible game!" they exclaimed.

"It's vile!" said Constance.

"Disgusting!" said Forbearance.

"I don't blame you," sneered a familiar voice, loudly enough to silence the other kids. "Oh, you were talking about your two new remedial classmates, weren't you?"

Alexandra turned and saw Larry Albo, the curly-haired older boy she'd last seen exiting the Dean's office just that morning.

David tensed up and looked ready for another fight, while Anna looked nervously around and realized that Miss Gambola was with another group of students at another ring.

"Is it true that you're in five remedial classes, little m-" Larry said, lingering over the 'm' sound for a beat, just long enough to make them think he was going to say something else before he finished it with "Miss Quick?" He shook his head. "I've heard that Muggle-borns tend to be a bit slower and less magical than the rest of us, but you must have set a new record for bottoming out in a SPAWN. Did you get anything above Hocus Pocus? Or was it all Muggles right down the line?"

"Take off!" barked David. He was practically quivering with fury.

Larry laughed, and looked down at the younger, smaller boy. "Or what?"

"Or you'll get in trouble with the Dean again," Anna squeaked.

"Or I'll get in trouble with the Dean again?" Larry repeated, in a falsetto imitation of Anna's voice, covering his mouth and raising his eyebrows in an expression of mock horror. Anna turned red.

Alexandra was already furious, and knew her face was turning red as well. Many of the other sixth graders had given her startled looks when Larry revealed her remedial class quotient, and she'd caught Darla hiding a little smirk out of the corner of her eye.

She stepped forward until she was chin-to-chest with Larry, and glowered up at him.

"Walk away now or I'll slug you," she said.

Larry smirked. "Want to go back to the Dean's office that badly?"

"No, do you? 'Cause if we do end up fighting again, you think the Dean is going to believe that it was all my fault? Whatever happens to me will happen to you too. I'm not afraid of the Dean. So go ahead, say something else. I'll bet I could beat you anyway."

Larry stared down at her. Alexandra's fists were balled up, her eyes were baleful and unblinking, as icy-green as a pair of emeralds, and he knew that she meant every word. That he was bigger than her didn't matter, that ending the day that had started in the Dean's office with another fight didn't matter. Alexandra wasn't bluffing and, at least at that particular moment, she didn't care about the consequences.

His mouth opened as if to snarl something, and Alexandra's voice had the same lethal calm of Ms. Grimm's when she said, "One more word."

Larry's eyes bulged a bit, and his face contorted with fury. More than anything else, he would have liked to finish what they started in Grundy's. But he could see that Miss Gambola was starting to come their way. Calling Alexandra's bluff would gain him nothing but a brief scuffle in front of another teacher.

And he was afraid of Dean Grimm.

He tried to tell himself he was taking the high ground, not lowering himself by letting the filthy little Mudblood girl drag him down to her level, as he spun around and stalked off, but with the eyes of most of the sixth grade on his back, and his own friends now watching his retreat as well, he knew that wasn't how everyone else saw it.

Alexandra felt everyone around her letting out a collective sigh of relief, but her face was still burning, and she was still half a heartbeat away from trying to send a plunkball flying after Larry Albo.

"Alex," David said, touching her arm.

She turned and looked at him, unnerved.

"Is there a problem?" Miss Gambola asked. Everyone mumbled in the negative and resumed playing plunkballs until the Practical Magical Exercise hour ended.

---

It wasn't until David caught up to Alexandra and Anna, heading from their room to dinner, that he was able to talk to her again.

"Hey, Alexandra. You mad at me?"

She shook her head. "No. Why would I be?"

He shrugged. "I dunno. You seemed upset when I called you Alex. Sorry, you know, if you don't like that name."

She thought about it a moment.

"Only my mom calls me Alex," she said. "And my friends."

But what she was thinking was that only her mother and Brian and Bonnie called her Alex.

David hesitated. "Aren't we friends?"

Alexandra hesitated a moment too, and then smiled at him. "Yeah. Of course we are. You can call me Alex." She looked at Anna. "You too, Anna."

"Okay," said Anna seriously. But for just a moment, a pleased smile crossed her solemn face.

"We've got detention tonight with that dude Ben Journey," David sighed.

"I know. He calls me 'Starshine,'" said Alexandra, and they entered the cafeteria together. She was uncomfortably aware that many eyes were on her. The hateful gazes of Larry Albo and Benjamin and Mordecai Rash didn't bother her, but she supposed by now everyone knew that she was taking five remedial magic classes.

At their usual table, Darla only said, casually, "Well, I'm certainly glad you didn't manage to get yourself into any more trouble, Alexandra."

"You're getting quite a reputation," said Angelique.

Alexandra glared at her. "What do you mean, a reputation?"

"For being troublesome, I suppose," said Angelique.

"I'm not troublesome," said Alexandra. "I didn't start it."

"Troublesome often doesn't," said Constance, from a few seats down.

Alexandra looked at Constance in dismay. "You too?" The Ozarker girls were rarely so forthcoming with their opinions.

Constance blushed. "I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean that quite as it sounded."

"But you know, you are much like Troublesome," said Forbearance.

Alexandra frowned. "You make it sound like Troublesome is a person."

"She is," said Constance.

"Perhaps not a real person," said Forbearance.

"But famous in Ozarker lore," said Constance.

"A girl named Troublesome."

"Born to trouble and named for trouble, for trouble is what she is."

"No boy will court her."

"No man will marry her."

"And wherever she goes, trouble follows."

The twins were speaking in tangent, finishing each other's sentences as usual, but Alexandra interrupted. "Great. Like I want any boys courting me?" She snorted. "So does Troublesome always get blamed for trouble she didn't start?"

"Sometimes," Forbearance said.

"Often," Constance admitted.

"But she gets blamed for trouble she did start as well."

"For she does start her fair piece of it."

Alexandra was certain that Constance and Forbearance were both looking at her with something like amusement.

Constance said, "It's true, no one wants their daughter to be Troublesome."

"But some say, there has to be a Troublesome," Forbearance continued.

"Or there might be far worse."

And to Alexandra's surprise, the twins began reciting what sounded like a children's rhyme, in unison:

"Troublesome vexes, Troublesome woes,
Troublesome's trouble wherever she goes.
Troublesome's wicked, high-headed, and vain,
Troublesome's awful, a trial and a pain.
Troublesome's misery, misfortune and malady,
Troublesome's dangerous, doleful calamity.
Troublesome's reckless, ruthless, and bold,
Troublesome never minds, nor does as told.
Troublesome's stubborn, but brave as can be,
Troublesome stays when others would flee.
When trouble's afoot, and all ills are set free,
Troublesome's finally where she ought to be."

When they finished, there was silence, as everyone at their table had been listening, and several other tables were as well. A few kids clapped, some laughed sarcastically, and more fingers pointed in Alexandra's direction. Constance and Forbearance blushed, having once again brought attention to themselves.

Alexandra was a little indignant at first. It still sounded to her as if Troublesome got an undeservedly bad reputation. How could she not when she was given a name like that to begin with?

But from then on, the nickname followed Alexandra around. Darla and Angelique giggled as they used it, other kids called her that tauntingly in the hallways, and those sixth graders who'd seen her face down Larry Albo whispered it with both dismay and admiration behind her back. And Alexandra decided that as nicknames went, "Troublesome" wasn't really so bad.