Adelaidaline Jujuvitz

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Adelaidaline braced herself as Bono led her through the behemothic, thick glass doors and into the chandelier lit hall. She looked up and saw the crystal chandelier hung from the center of a radical skylight made up of what looked like diamonds and rubies. She imagined the titanic room must look radiantly eloquent in the early hours of the day.

She wished to stay and examine the beautiful architecture but Bono was already steering her into a room off to the side. Once through the doors, Laidy felt her heart skip a beat. The even larger room was full with people. Not just people... kids.

Laidy had not spent time with children her own age in over a year, not since Jerald's New Years party. But the room she found herself in now was absolutely chockablock with peers. Bono pushed her through a crowd of pleasant looking children and stopped at a table on the far side of the room.

"Name?" a woman with orange eyes and a tight black bun inquired impatiently.

"Ade-" Laidy started.

"Jujuvitz, Adelaidaline Theodosia. Age group eleven," Bono interrupted. Laidy had turned eleven three months earlier, in March. She looked from Bono to the orange-eyed woman, who nodded curtly, checked her clipboard, scribbled something down on it, and turned her gaze to Laidy.

She held out a thick form, or a small, unfinished biography of Adelaidaline, whichever way you look at it, and Laidy's shoulders were almost dislocated as the entire weight was placed solely in her hands. She struggled under it for a minute, and then made her way over to an armchair and coffee table. She set the form on the table, sat down, and began to fill out the encyclopedia of Jujuvitz, Adelaidaline Theodosia.

She noticed Bono standing over her shoulder as she printed March 3^rd, 1980 next to the letters D.O.B.

She rotated her head to look up into his face. "Yes?"

"Just making sure you don't screw up," he answered.

"It's my life, if there's anything I can be sure of, it's me."

"Really? What's your W.S.N.?" he asked with a sly smirk.

"My what?" Laidy asked, completely monotonous.

"Your W.S.N. Your Wizarding Security Number?" he asked, completely grinning.

Laidy gave him a crippling look and turned back to her form. Sure enough, two fill-ins later, she came to

W.S.N. [Wizarding Security Number]: _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

She refused to look at Bono and have to endure his smug smiles. Hand shaking, she filled a 1 in the first blank. She moved to the second space, thought for a second, then slowly traced a number 2. She then carefully wrote out a number 3.

Immediately after moving her hand to the side, she cringed as she heard Bono clear his throat from behind her. She reluctantly turned to him and raised her face to stare into his. She twitched her eyebrows upward with an otherwise completely monotonous expression.

"Seven," he said pompously.

She turned back to the form, erased the 3 with her wand and carefully filled in a number seven. The next blank over she drew a shaky 4. Once again she heard the loud growl of Bono clearing his throat.

"You're enjoying this, aren't you?" she called to him without her eyes leaving the parchment.

"A little bit, yes."

"Bono?"

"Yes, Laidy?"

"What is my Wizarding Security Number?"

"You don't know it?"

"Believe it or not, I do not know it."

"I never would have guessed."

"Your sarcastic responses are inevitable, are they not?"

"No, they are. Your WSN is 12759492710300001," he answered finally.

Bono ended up taking over the filling of Laidy's form while she went around trying to make friends.

Laidy laced herself through the crowds of adults until she found herself at a clearing where two sofas and two armchairs were set up around a coffee table. Occupying the furniture were nine children, all seemingly around Laidy's age. They looked up at her as she stumbled from the crowd. All of a sudden she wished she had stayed with Bono and had helped finish her information form.

A tall, toned girl sitting in one of the armchairs was the first to speak. "Who are you?" she said monotonously, almost bored.

"Adelaidaline Jujuvitz," Laidy answered apprehensively.

"That's a mouthful," said a boy in the other armchair. He was a good-looking boy: tall, dark, and handsome. He had skin that looked permenantly tan and Laidy guessed he was Italian or something close to. He had deep brown eyes and short dark brown hair. He was fairly thin too, but not skeletal, more with a definite definition of muscle. Laidy realized she was staring at him and giggled dumbly, only to blush and turn away.

She quickly regained her composure, fully aware that the boy was staring at her chuckling. He thinks I'm just a stupid girl, she thought to herself. Well, I can't have him thinking that. She gave the entire group the once-over and realized they weren't all that intimidating apart from the two people occupying the single chairs.

"You can call me Laidy for short. What are your names?" she asked brightly, with a smart, know-it-all expression plastered across her face.

The girl in the armchair rearranged herself to get a better look at Laidy. She gave Laidy the chills, looking very scrutinizing indeed. She had thick, very curly dark brown hair and dark eyes, a lot like the boy's, but had a fair complexion. "I'm Caprice," she began. She motioned to the boy in the armchair a little aways from her, "This is Tom, my cousin." Then began the entire list of introductions.

"That there's Clyde," she said pointing to a small boy with a very wide smile.

"That's Fayette," Caprice stated as she pointed to a wafer of a girl with a mass of golden hair and a small upturned nose.

"Luludja," a dark girl with short black hair and a kind smile, "Mikolaj," a tough looking polish boy with dark hair and a pale complexion, "Casidhe," a curly-haired girl with a clever air to her. Selena was a pale girl with thin light blonde hair and a hungry look, and Cecilia was a tanned girl with brown hair and eerie bright white eyes, who, Laidy was told soon afterward, was completely blind.

"So, ahh, I haven't seen you round here before, toots," Clyde said loudly and very quickly. "You a regular, or's this ya first time?"

Laidy stared at him for a moment. For a scrawny boy he sure did have a mighty boisterous voice, and he talked as if he were thrown forward in time from the 1920s. He even looked it, wearing a tailored pinstripe suit and his hair combed back. "Um, this is my first time," she said hesitantly.

"Ah, well, if ya find ya-self in a stitch, just a'check on me and I'll give ya a whirl around, tchtch!" He punctuated his sentence with a wink and a loud clicking noise made with his teeth and tongue in the side of his mouth.

Laidy stared at him with wide-eyes wondering what the hell he had just said. "He means he'll give you a tour of the place if you ever get lost," Tom said from the armchair, smirking. He looked very laidback, like he didn't have a care in the world. She gazed at Tom for a minute, and the gaze was returned. She gave him a friendly half-smile and turned her attention to Caprice.

"So how long have all of you been attending?" she asked, trying to sound polite. She knew she didn't really fit in with this crowd, but she didn't think that mattered much. With the exception of Clyde, everyone was wearing jeans and t-shirts, worn sneakers, and had somewhat messy, un-styled hair. Laidy was wearing a red, sleeveless, calf-length dress from the 50s, red satin espadrilles, and her hair was set in a Suzy Parker-esque fashion. She realized, in sickening enlightenment, that she belonged in the past right alongside Clyde.

She pursed her painted red lips and stared at the floor. She looked around the group, nodded slightly, and made to walk away when Tom slowly rose from his chair. He motioned to it and sat himself down on the coffee table in the center of the sitting furniture. "We've all been going here since we were about nine," he answered as Laidy slowly made her way to sit down.

"Oh," Laidy replied nodding, feigning interest. She folded her hands in her lap and stared at them.

"So, who's your trainer?" Tom asked, obviously trying hard to spark a conversation that Laidy was sure was not going to happen.

"Bono... uh..." Laidy realized she had never, in her six months of knowing him, asked Bono what his last name was.

"Bono? The Bono?" Caprice asked, wide-eyed.

"Uh, yea," Laidy replied, unsure of what the correct response to that question would be.

"But he's the best!" exclaimed a wide-eyed Fayette.

"Is he?" Laidy asked politely. She had known Bono was good, but the best? And the best as in what? The best in the area, the best in the country, the best in Europe, the best in the world?

"Yea," Caprice said with narrowed eyes, "He's also very expensive. So do your parents want you to have a better knowledge of ass-kicking than the rest of the world, or are you just filthy rich?"

Ready to wipe the evil smirk right of Caprice's face, Laidy replied, "Well, I wouldn't know what my parents would want, they were murdered half a year ago. My aunt is the one who wants me to learn good self defence."

"Oh my God!" Selena gave a shocked look and Caprice's face could have fell off.

Feeling as though she no longer needed Caprice's critical retorts, Laidy excused herself to go find more new acquaintances. As she weaved her way through the throngs of people she tripped over air and stumbled into an innocent bystander. She looked up into her catcher's face and was slightly taken aback. He was tall and skinny, skinnier than her by far, and very pale. He had bright blue eyes behind rectangular glasses. But most eye-catching of his appearance was what can only be described as a six-inch afro. It wasn't really an afro but as close to one as a skinny white boy can get. It was more of a fallen afro made up of really curly, light brown hair that fell over his forehead and a majority of his eyes.

"Uhh, hi," he said in a deep voice that cracked when he said the i in hi. He set her back on her feet. After staring at her for a minute with his hands in his back pockets her gave a look of dawning and shoved his hand out for her to shake. " Fynn," he said, " Fynn Kane." It took Laidy a moment to realize that Fynn Kane was his name, and not a way of saying hello in a different language.

She grabbed his hand and shook it heartily. " Adelaidaline Theodosia Jujuvitz," she replied. He stared at her for a moment, his jaw slightly dropped.

"Sorry," he said, shaking his head slightly, so that his hair did a twirly shake thing. "Its just... wow that's a name. What is that? Polish?"

"And German," she replied nodding. " But you're one to talk, Finn Kane."

"My name's a little odd, but Adelaidaline Theo-whatever Jujuvitz is definitely odder by far." Laidy wasn't insulted by his words. She always knew her name was weird, but she had grown to like it. Besides, he said it comically and she could tell he didn't mean any harm by it. "If it makes you feel any better, it definitely fits you," he continued giving her the once-over.

"Oh, I don't always look like this. Sometimes I just feel like making a good first impression. Something I can see you don't care much about." She returned his once-over, taking in his Chuck's, his worn dark blue jeans, and his faded Ramones T-shirt. The Ramones? Weren't they a muggle punk-rock band? She didn't miss the little silver hoop in his left ear, either.

He shrugged. "Here, first impressions don't mean much to the students. The judge you every single day."

"Oh, now I'm excited," Laidy said sarcastically. "By the way, you don't have to call me Adelaidaline. You can just call me Laidy or whatever."

"Or whatever?" he repeated.

"Uh, yea," she said, a little confused.

"Ok, Jujuvitz, I'll see you later." And with that he left, submerging himself in the waves of excited children, sullen teenagers, and anxious parents.

She gave on last look around and gave up. " See you later, Fynn."