Absolutely Normal Chaos

CHAPTER TWO. Mystery Girl.

It had been about a month into the term. Harry had learned that Maris Academy for Girls, the school that shared the campus with Stonewall, was an ancient rival. The girls were smarter, better-looking, sportier, and superior (according to the envious girls of Stonewall) and, according to the boys, unbearably annoying. Harry now sat down with a group of friends at lunch every day, instead of finding a lonely corner to eat in. He could now tell the difference between most of the gray uniforms moving about the hallways. Like the other students, he was also bored stupid by their teachers.

One day, in mathematics, Mr. Butler was droning on about all the fascinating ways to use a protractor, and demonstrating for them with a giant cardboard protractor painted a garish pink. He seemed very much taken with his subject. Harry rested his cheek on his palm and stared out the window. The sky was stormy gray outside. Across the field the Academy girls were having soccer tryouts. Harry had heard these, and all other sports tryouts, were mandatory: Maris Academy was very big on sports, especially since they had wiped the field with Stonewall Highschoolers for at least fifty years. He bemusedly watched the coach whistle on her metal whistle, very loudly if her red and puffy cheeks meant anything. She finally gave up and started shouting. He followed her gaze to a girl with bushy brown hair, sitting on the grass next to the bleachers and reading a book. She jumped up, startled, and walked reluctantly to the tryouts. In goalie-and-player pairs they tried out before the coach. First, the girl was a player, and the first time she kicked the ball she slipped and fell on her back. The girls snickered. The next time she kicked it too far and to the side of the goal. She jogged hopelessly to get it, cheeks glowing red. As a goalie, the first time the ball was kicked at her she covered her face and crouched. Harry saw the coach throw up her hands in exasperation. The girl trudged back to the bleachers, face burning with embarrassment, and immerse herself once again in her book. Harry shook his head and returned his gaze to the teacher, now enthusiastically demonstrating the way to draw an acute angle.

At lunch every day he saw the bushy-haired girl sitting under a tree with a sack lunch scattered around her, an apple in hand and her nose in some formidable-looking book. She always stayed after the bell thirty or forty seconds, gathering her lunch with one groping hand and savoring the book for just a bit more before going back into the Academy building for class. He sometimes felt a bit sorry for her: she always seemed by herself, and half the Maris girls would giggle and whisper behind her. She didn’t seem a bit regretful about not having very many friends, so he soon forgot about her.

The first soccer game of the year arrived: the students poured onto the bleachers rosy-cheeked and excited. The Maris girls came with smug looks on their faces. The game began. Harry noticed that the Maris team consisted of tall, thin girls with fierce expressions, while the Stonewall team looked depressingly ragtag. He found a seat on the edge of the silver bleachers. Swinging his legs, Harry watched as the girls scored goal after goal. Quite suddenly, an irritable voice came out of nowhere and asked him to please stop. He fell right off of the edge of the bleachers in surprise. The voice had come from underneath him. Brushing himself off, he saw the girl with bushy brown hair sitting underneath the bleachers, at the very edge where sunlight filtered in, reading a thick book, her knees hugged to her chest.

“What are you doing down here?” he asked in surprise.

“Reading, what else?” she snapped, waving her book in front of his nose (Darwin’s Theory of Evolution). He stared at her.

Not having anything much else to say, he said, rather stupidly, “You’re supposed to be watching the soccer game, you know.”

“I don’t care much for soccer,” she replied, “and anyway they’ll—” she jerked her head to a group of Academy girls watching her and giggling—“they’ll make fun of me.”

Harry shrugged and settled down on the grass next to her to watch the game. She continued to read.

The next day the same group of girls taunted Hermione in the hallway: “Granger’s got a boyfriend! Granger’s got a boyfriend!” She asked them impatiently what they were talking about.

“You know—the boy you spent the soccer game talking to!” said one.

“Oh, honestly! He just sat next to me and watched the stupid soccer game while I was reading!”

“Oh, how ro-man-tic!” the girls shouted ridiculously. She scowled and walked away from them as fast as she could.

Harry saw the bushy-haired girl leaving lunch the next day, clutching her books, and he followed her. Tapping her on the back, he said, “Hi.” She whirled around.

“You!” she said furiously. “Don’t even talk to me! It’s your stupid fault that everyone’s saying I have a boyfriend! Just go away!” And she left him standing there with his mouth hanging open.

EXCERPT FROM HERMIONE’S DIARY:

God I hate this academy. I’ve never cared whether people like me or not. Suddenly it feels like my life’s been ruined, because of a stupid bunch of girls.

Why does this school have to be so sporty? Why do we have to try out for EVERYTHING? Stupid sports. Stupid soccer. Stupid coach, stupid academy, stupid boy...

I was minding my own business, reading under the stands (okay, so I was supposed to be watching the ‘big’ soccer game, but who cares?) when he started swinging his feet back and forth. I asked him quite politely to stop, and he nearly fell on top of me! Jeez. I didn’t think I’d surprised him that much. Then he had the nerve to ask me what I was doing under the stands, so I said, “Reading.” Well, duh. What else could I have said? He saw the book in my hands. I’d seen him at lunch a couple of times, looking over at the empty table I sat at in an, “I-feel-kinda-sorry-for-her” sort of way. Sorry? For me? Ha! No other sixth grader has a 119% gradepoint average. Least of all a skinny, messy-haired boy with taped-up glasses. Sorry indeed!

Ah, well, gotta go. Coach is calling (again);

Hermione