He wanted to say,
"I am not who I appear to be."
He wanted to say,
"Do not blame me for my past.
We have different lives and faces
But our hearts have common places.
This was deep inside me
And you helped me find it at last!"...
But all he said was, "I know how to blow things up!"
-- "He Wanted To Say," Ragtime.
“No, mum!” I shouted for the millionth time. “Sorry, but I am not going to a Chudley Cannons game! Period!”
“Emma, honey, your father’s friend Rolf from work had six extra tickets to the game, and if you didn’t use yours, it would be a waste,” cajoled my mother, She never calls me, ‘honey,’ unless she wants me to do something horribly unpleasant.
I sighed. “Can’t you give my ticket to Holly or Jonathan? They love the Cannons.”
My mother fixed me with a cold stare. “Emma, am I imagining things, or are you actually suggesting that we bring one twin somewhere and leave the other one at home?”
Ah. She had an excellent point. Holly and Jonathan are an extremely different species of twins than are Haley and Jordan. Holly and Jonathan are a unit. They do everything together, and they insist on having nearly everything exactly the same as each other. But this doesn’t mean they’re best friends. They still try to kill one another on average three times an hour.
“Emma, is this about Tyrone again?” my mother asked wearily. “Does he really bother you that much?”
Oh, no. For once, Tyrone’s evil deeds were the least of my worries. This time, I didn’t want to face Tyrone because I felt embarrassed. And nervous. And… guilty. Ever since reading his letter, I hadn’t been sure HOW to feel about him.
But now, I couldn’t decide who I dreaded running into more”Tyrone or Wolfgang. And then there were all sorts of other undesirables scattered around at the Quidditch stadium, like Clio, Patrick, Vaultz (shudder!) and”urgh”maybe even Anatoly Capshaw, who’d apparently been hanging out at the stadium a lot lately. (Creeper.) There was not one thing that could entice me to go.
“Mum, I’m not going,” I insisted.
Long story short, I went.
“Ah, Henderson Vaultz’s precious stadium, home of the Chudley Cannons!” I exclaimed, throwing back my head, flinging out my arms, and inhaling deeply. “I feel home again! THAT’s the familiar smell of stale nachos, cleaning chemicals, spilled beer, and B.O. that I’m used to.”
“Oh, shut up, Emma,” groaned my dad, but Uncle Harry laughed. My dad glared at him. “Harry, you’d better cheer for the Cannons like you mean it, or I’m kicking your bum back out to the parking lot.” He flailed his arms mockingly. “Whaaaat? You can’t do this to me, I’m the Chooooosen Oooone!”
My mother buried her face in her hands. “Is it even remotely possible that we can go anywhere as a family without you two making a scene?”
“It could be worse,” Harry chimed in helpfully. “Haley could be here.”
“That’s a lovely thing to say about your own daughter,” laughed Ginny. “Ivy, this is a lesson on how not to be a parent.”
We found our seats and were ready to get this over with when a dark, ominous shadow swooped down from the sky.
“Mwahahaha!” cackled Patrick Wormwood, baring his fangs.
Okay, so it wasn’t quite like that.
“Emma!” declared Patrick Wormwood, as if I needed to be reminded what my name was. “It is most certainly a pleasure seeing you here! I have stadium duty today, so I’m sure we’ll have plenty of time to catch up!”
“Oh… wonderful,” I said, my voice at a level of joy and enthusiasm that would be appropriate for a funeral. I shot a helpless glance at my family, who just smiled back at me. Gits. “So, Clio must be down at the dressing rooms. Her favourite.”
Patrick coughed in a way that was probably supposed to sound significant and worldly, but just sounded moist and disgusting. “Actually,” he said, “Clio was removed from employ quite some time ago.”
I gaped. “Vaultz sacked her as well?”
Patrick nodded grimly. “Indeed,” he said. (Who says ‘indeed?’ Well, Anatoly Capshaw does, but I can’t stand him, either. And even he only says it to further his reputation as a flamboyant goofball.) Anyway, Patrick proceeded to tell me an excessively long story with all of the gory details, about exactly how Clio managed to get her airbrush-tanned self sacked. Told in Patrick’s pompous style, it consumed the better part of an hour, but I’ll try to make it short and sweet:
So basically, Clio was guarding the door to the locker room. Three of her friends came to the game and asked for a behind-the-scenes tour, and Clio being Clio, she exercised her godlike authority and said, ‘sure, go ahead.’ And then, Clio had the brilliant idea of sneaking into the locker room that she was supposed to be guarding while the team was on the pitch… and she and her friends hid inside lockers to wait until the team started to undress. That was when they jumped out and yelled ‘surprise!’
Apparently, Clio gave the excuse that she was close, personal friends with Tyrone and he’d given her and her friends permission. Vaultz told her that what Tyrone said she could do was irrelevant and it was still horribly unprofessional, and things didn’t get any better when Tyrone paid Vaultz a visit and told him that not only did he not give Clio permission to come inside the locker room, he also barely knew her, definitely was not her friend, and was very upset by the whole incident. Needless to say, Vaultz gave her the boot.
“… and personally, I am of the opinion that she deserved everything she got,” Patrick finished up, folding his hands with satisfaction.
This was definitely the most interesting thing I’d ever heard from Patrick. “Whoa! Tyrone actually showed some backbone and told Clio off?” I said. “That’s not like him!” He really had grown up. It would be more like the old Tyrone to applaud when the girls popped out of the lockers, dramatically strip off his clothes, and then say something like, “Feel free to drop back in anytime.”
Or was it just in my imagination that he’d ever done things like that? My imagination and Wolfgang’s weird psychotic delusions? Had the sleazy Tyrone I’d hated for so long ever even existed?
Patrick looked slightly startled. “Mr. Thomas has always enjoyed a reputation for excellent sportsmanship and very professional conduct both on and off the pitch.”
Blecccch. The last thing I wanted was one of Patrick’s lectures on morals. Especially since I knew he was right. I couldn’t help but remember Tyrone’s last letter”the one that said that he prided himself on always being honest.
“Then again, it is quite sensible for a young man to take all steps necessary to deny involvement with another female when he is in a committed relationship,” added Patrick.
Weeding through his rambling pile of annoying words, I managed to pick out the basic idea of what he was trying to say. “Tyrone has a girlfriend?” I demanded, feeling like I was going to shoot out of my seat.
Patrick nodded. “It certainly seemed so, at least. A young lady ran up to him just before the game, shouted ‘Tyroonie’ quite loudly and embraced him with evident familiarity.”
Godric, the way he talked… even Jordan would tell Patrick to take the wand out of his bum and lighten up. “Oh, that’s just Haley, then. Was she tiny and annoying with dark hair?”
“She did have dark hair, as I remember,” said Patrick, scratching his chin although I was pretty sure he was incapable of growing facial hair. “But she was about your size. And quite beautiful, actually. I do recall that she had on a lovely blue blouse with ‘TYRONE THOMAS THE TANK ENGINE’ printed across the front, if that is of any assistance to you at all. As for annoying, I’m afraid I wouldn’t know.”
No, I guess he wouldn’t know how to judge whether someone was annoying or not, since he was the standard other people based their scale of annoyance on. But that wasn’t important. When could Tyrone have gotten a girlfriend? He’d said he was single when he asked me out for ice cream. He seemed upset, too, when I said no. And after everything I’d learned, it sounded like Tyrone wasn’t as bad as I’d thought he was at all. But could he really bounce back that ridiculously fast? Did he have a waiting list of backup girlfriends stored away?
Okay, Emma, I told myself sternly, Get a grip. You’ve believed rumors and stories from other people, and look how they turned out. Have some faith in Tyrone. Wait and see if Patrick’s right before you freak out, for once in your life.
“Ah, an awkward silence,” proclaimed Patrick. “I suppose this means that I should go if I do not wish to overstay my welcome, as it were. In any case, I have appreciated this little chat greatly. I understand we were not able to say a proper goodbye when we last spoke, so I must take this opportunity to say farewell, and that hopefully, it will not be for the last time.”
“I”“ I began.
“Why, thank you Emma. I daresay I shall miss you, too. As the immortal bard once said, parting is such sweet sorrow.” And with that, he was off, leaving me as bewildered as a fish competing in the Tour de France.
My family was speechless. Finally, my mother said, “Well… he’s certainly an interesting young man.”
“Sure,” I said, “if by ‘interesting,’ you mean ‘mind-blowingly boring.’
Ivy shook her head. “Emma,” she said slowly, “To be honest, I thought you were exaggerating when you told me about Patrick. But now… well, he’s worse than I ever expected.”
“He’s usually even worse than that,” I said glumly.
Uncle Harry shook his head slowly. “He’s like Percy and Jordan mixed together!”
We all stared at him. “Dad, what do you say about me when I’m not there?” Ivy asked anxiously.
“Well, we got to pick you,” Ginny explained. “Unfortunately, we didn’t have that choice when it came to the other four.”
I had to admit, I was not having the easiest of times concentrating on the game. I kept thinking the same two thoughts back and forth”the incident with Ivy and the piano, and Patrick’s proclamation that Tyrone had a beautiful girlfriend. I willed myself to try to refrain from being suspicious for once in my life, but it was easier said than done. I jerked back into consciousness when I heard the resounding roar around me that was making the stadium shake.
“Who died?” I yelped, jumping to my feet and feeling around for my wand. “Did the werewolves”“
“Now that’s the constant vigilance I like to see!” said my dad, laughing. His smile disappeared when he saw my expression. “It’s just the end of the game, Emster, not the end of the world,” he clarified. “The Cannons won by a landslide!” He glared over at Uncle Harry in a manner scarily reminiscent of my mother.
“What? Oh, erm,” spluttered Harry, as his wife nudged him with her elbow. “Er, go Cannons.”
“Pathetic,” sighed my dad. “Anyway, it was classic. Wolfgang Quinn had to fly between the rival Seeker’s arm and his broom to get to the Snitch. Didn’t even touch the other guy’s arm. It was brilliant”that kid can get away with anything.”
I snorted. “You have no idea,” I said.
After the match, my parents spotted some old friend of theirs from school”some Irish bloke whose name I forget even though I know I’ve met him zillions of times before”and Ivy, like every other pregnant woman in the world, had to use the bathroom at the exact time when everyone else in the stadium decided to get in line. So I was left alone to do whatever I wanted… which was, of course, to get a pretzel.
I was busy trying to decide whether I wanted it with or without that awful nacho cheese that tastes absolutely nothing like cheese but is so horribly tasty anyway, when I saw something almost all the way across the stadium that made all thoughts of cheese fly out of my head.
Of course, it was Tyrone. What were you expecting? Tyrone is everywhere these days. And with the crowds moving aside around him like he’s Moses and they’re the red sea, it was especially easy to notice him as he greeted fans and gave out autographs. He’s always been good at mingling with the public, and I think it’s for the same reason why he was always so popular in school, other than his looks and Quidditch skills”Tyrone has this magical talent of making everyone feel like they’re special, both to him and to the world in general. It’s pretty hypnotizing until you get used to it.
Oh, who am I kidding. You never get used to it.
Anyway, it wasn’t just Tyrone’s so-sincere-that-he-had-to-be-insincere face that I noticed across the stadium. Quite the contrary. It was the face next to his, and the shoulder that his arm was draped across, and the hair that he tousled with his free hand.
There was a girl with Tyrone. A very pretty girl. Patrick wasn’t kidding”apparently, his standards of beauty are accurate, even if none of his other standards are any good. She had smooth, dark skin, a bright smile, and a thick ponytail of black ringlets that spilled all the way down her back, and she was certainly wearing that ‘TYRONE THOMAS THE TANK ENGINE’ t-shirt that Patrick had mentioned.
Now, I’m a tall girl with a rather, erm, prominent chest, and let’s just say that balances out on the lower half, too. This girl on Tyrone’s arm could have come from the same mold as me, only she was a few years younger and, honestly, more attractive.
I couldn’t believe it. Tyrone had a girlfriend. And here I was feeling so much more charitable toward him… he really was the same irreconcilable flirt as always, complete with rebound girlfriend.
“…and she just graduated from Hogwarts two days ago!” I heard Tyrone say to a gaggle of reporters. His booming voice carried across the stadium.
Really? Really? Eurgh. Now that just borders on gross. Tyrone Thomas, a twenty-three-year-old man, dating a girl who couldn’t be any older than eighteen and who had only been part of the real wizarding world for two days? Somehow, that didn’t sound like Tyrone to me. I edged closer around the perimeter of the stadium, glad that my boring street clothes made me invisible in the crowd whereas my neon orange Auror trainee robes would have stood out like a dead moose in a tearoom. Now that I was closer, I could hear everything.
“Yeah, so looks like she’s stuck with me for the time being,” I heard Tyrone saying. “Me and my brother”well, my step-brother, I guess I mean.”
“Stop it, Ty,” I heard the girl say. Amazingly, her voice wasn’t giggly and flirtatious. She sounded genuinely uncomfortable, and her voice was a lot softer and shyer than I’d have expected. “Reporters don’t want to hear about me. I’m just one of forty people who graduated this year. This is about you.”
Tyrone grinned. “Well, isn’t it always?” he said, laughing. “Come on, Little T, I’m proud of you. It’s my job to be proud of you, you Ravenclaw genius. You remember how Dad was when I graduated”total mess.”
Waaaaaait a second. Now the pieces were coming together. This “Little T” wasn’t Tyrone’s girlfriend… whoa, no way… she had to be Tabitha! Shy little Tabitha Thomas. The last time I’d seen her, she’d been a scrawny, timid little thing who blended into the background everywhere she went. I guess I should have known that Tyrone’s little sister had no choice but to grow up gorgeous. No wonder Wolfgang was so creepy to her. Of course, Wolfgang’s just a creepy person…
Speak of the devil.
Because who should walk by just then but Wolfgang. I had no choice but to stay where I was”ducking under the bleachers wouldn’t do any good. Wolfgang had already seen me.
However, he didn’t smile his cheery smile and stroll up to me with a casual ‘hey’ and a sarcastic one-liner like I’d come to expect. He just glanced at me for a second or two, and then walked right past me toward where Tyrone, Tabitha, and the reporters were holding court. He didn’t look… right. His face was too tight, his brow too furrowed, and his eyes too wild to belong to the Wolfgang that I’d thought I’d known… and he was walking at this brisk, businesslike pace that didn’t seem Wolfgangy at all, and the closer he got to the cluster around Tyrone, the faster and more purposefully he started walking.
I craned my neck to see better, as Wolfgang reached the gauntlet of reporters. And when he drew even with the Thomases, he made a point of not even gracing his stepbrother with the most minimal amount of eye contact. Instead, he turned his head toward Tabitha, glared so fiercely that his entire face was terrifyingly unrecognizable, and spat a string of extremely rude words at her. Not even under his breath, but loud enough for every reporter in the area to gasp and scribble on their notepads.
A few reporters called after him, and one even began to chase him, but Wolfgang simply smirked and Disapparated to Godric knows where.
Tabitha did not burst into tears. She may have been a bit shy, but that didn’t make her Ivy. However, Tabitha’s face turned the same peaky greenish-purple colour that Tyrone’s did when he was especially upset, and she looked like there was nothing she’d like better than to sink into the ground. “Excuse me,” she said, and quietly walked off toward the restroom. I felt like I’d intruded on a private moment, like watching Ted and Ivy kiss or Jordan rock out to The Rolling Stones in his underwear.
Tyrone coughed. “Wolfgang says a lot of things he doesn’t mean,” he said slowly. “People who know him have learned to watch out for him when he’s in a bad mood. This was a close game.”
I slunk away from where Tyrone was still making excuses. After everything Wolfgang had done, even to his own sister, Tyrone defended him. I knew Tyrone didn’t lie, but half-truths were another story.
I knew I couldn’t ignore Tyrone forever. After getting his letter, there was no way I could just go on pretending like nothing had changed… and he had to know that I believed him. But admitting I was wrong was the last thing I wanted to do. And… there was something so intimidating about seeing Tyrone face-to-face, without a good reason to hate his guts. I reached in my pocket and rummaged around with the crinkly sound of flimsy plastic, then turned resolutely… to come face to face with Wolfgang as he Apparated back into the stadium, safely hidden from the reporters.
His face was all sweetness and light again, his normal cocky smile plastered across his face, but there was still a slight wildness about his eyes that was all I could focus on. “Well, hey!” he said, perfectly calmly. “Fancy seeing you here, eh? Were you at the game?”
“Get away from me,” I said.
Wolfgang’s smile faded slightly. “What?”
“Get away from me. And don’t talk to me again, okay?”
Now, he looked so appealingly, genuinely confused and sad that it was hard to believe that such an angelic-looking person could be such a git. “What are you talking about?” he asked gently. “Who’ve you been talking to? Did you hear some weird rumour about me? I promise, I didn’t have anything to do with any of the werewolf attacks, or””
“This isn’t about any werewolves, and you know it,” I told him, looking him straight in the eye. As placid as the rest of his face was, his eyes were only growing more and more turbulent. “It’s about Tyrone.”
Wolfgang looked as though I’d just kicked him in the face and expected him to thank me for it. “Don’t tell me you’re buying into his stories,” he pleaded, and he sounded truly upset. “Whatever he told you, it’s a lie. I never did anything to hurt anyone, and I’ve never been anything but grateful to Tyrone and Tabitha and the rest of the family.”
He honestly believes what he’s saying, I thought. He really does.
“You know what,” I said, “I don’t think you remember how to tell the truth anymore.” And with that, I stalked away, with Wolfgang gibbering incoherently behind me.
Okay, that was it. Now I DEFINITELY needed to get a pretzel.
How can you possibly know what’s right before you do it? I thought to myself as I strolled away from the pretzel stand eating my lovely, lovely snack at long last. And I wasn’t just talking about whether to get nacho cheese or not, either. I was thinking about Tyrone, and how much of an idiot I’d been to him.
But how could I have known in advance that I was mistaken and that he didn’t deserve to be treated the way I treated him?
You know, said a little voice at the back of my head. I think it was my conscience, but I didn’t recognize its voice. We hadn’t spoken in awhile. Maybe, just to ensure that this doesn’t happen again, you NEVER act like a jerk to other people, even if you think they deserve it? Just in case you change your mind about them and, you know, want them to NOT loathe you?
Hah. Yeah, that was likely.
I was caught between a rock and a hard place now”whichever way I walked from the pretzel stand, Wolfgang was on one side, and Tyrone was on the other. (I think the ‘hard place’ was Tyrone’s abs.) And as tempting as it sounded, I couldn’t just hang around the pretzel stand all night long.
I let out sigh that seemed to come all the way from bits of my body so deep, I didn’t even know they were there. Well… I might as well get this over with, I thought. You have to talk to Tyrone sometime, Emma.
“All right,” I muttered stubbornly under my breath, “But I won’t apologize.”
If anyone heard me, they didn’t have long to wonder who this crazy woman was, because I was off. Past the nachos stand, past the ice cream counter, past the stand where all of the overpriced Chudley Cannons merchandise was sold, past the sleazy-looking narrow passage where the loos were located, out of the stadium, and into the sunlight, where I could see Tyrone autographing a plastic Beater’s bat that a hyperactive five-year-old was brandishing.
The five-year-old was wearing a “TYRONE THOMAS THE TANK ENGINE” shirt, too. I was genuinely concerned that my mum would be the next to buy one.
As Tyrone high-fived the hyperactive kid (a feat about as easy as high-fiving a bouncing superball) and the kid’s family dragged him away from the nice, patient Quidditch players, I took a deep breath… and advanced.
At first, Tyrone didn’t see me. Then, all of a sudden, he blinked like I’d just ridden toward him stark naked and sitting on the back of a giant lemur, and his eyes widened to at least twice their usual size. He opened his mouth to speak, but apparently thought better of it and chose instead to look as far away from me as possible.
“Hey,” I said, casually punching him in the arm like he was just any other guy in the world. “Good game.” I started to walk away, then paused in my tracks and added, “Oh, by the way, I think you dropped something.” And with that, I took the plastic bag of prunes out of my pocket and handed it to Tyrone.
He opened his mouth again, but I cut him off. “Listen, thanks, Tyrone. Ivy’s over the moon.”
And before anything else could be said, I sauntered away, smiling my best Mysterious Smile.
I went to sleep in the Super Motts t-shirt that night.
EMMA’S AMAZING PRIDE AND PREJUDICE SUMMARY, PART SEVEN
WELL. According to the powers that be, my last two summaries were BOTH called “Emma’s Amazing Pride and Prejudice Summary Part Five.” So, I guess that probably makes this part seven, right? Whatever, you can’t expect me to be a brilliant literature expert AND a brilliant math expert at the same time.
So, when we last left our heroes (okay, our heroine and our wretched lizard-man from the depths of Niflheim, Mr. Darcy), Mistah D had just made the world’s worst marriage proposal and Elizabeth had just turned him down like a radio that was too loud. In today’s installment, Elizabeth decides to take a walk through the woods, and”despite the fact that the woods are humongous”she manages to come face-to-face with Mr. Darcy lurking in the shadows.
“Boo,” he snarls, and hands her an envelope. He would probably do something else terrifying, but Lizzie hikes up her skirt and RUNS AWAY FOR HER LIFE before thousands of locusts can pour out of his mouth or lasers shoot out of his eyes or anything else he may have had in mind.
Gingerly holding the letter between two fingers like it’s a poopy diaper, Lizzie retreats to her house and , opens the letter in the hopes that it doesn’t explode. It goes something like this:
Dear Elizabeth,
Don’t worry, I won’t try to ask you out again or anything else that creeped you out so much yesterday. If you haven’t ripped up this letter into a million pieces and stuck them in a blender, I actually have something pretty important to tell you. I guess I should say I’m sorry for not telling you earlier, but it would have been embarrassing for both of us, and besides, I don’t really have anything to apologize for. What I did made sense when I did them.
THING NUMBER ONE. So you tell me that Jane was crazy about my friend Mr. Bing-Bing and I ruined their happiness. But I was completely convinced she was not that into him, and I decided to spare my bud from being humiliated by getting rejected. Tell your sister for future reference that if she likes a guy, she should skank it up a little.
THING NUMBER TWO. Your family? Okay, Lizzie, even you have to admit that your family is like something from a freak show. I figured if the relationship between Jane and Bingles wasn’t a given, then I should whisk him away before he fell into that zoo. Listen, your little sisters are complete harlots-in-training. Your mum is a terrifying banshee. And even your dad’s a little crazy. I was worried that if he didn’t actually like Jane that much, your family would suck him in and start chanting “ONE OF US! ONE OF US!” and he’d be trapped forever. Now, there is nothing I have against you or your sister, and I don’t mean to be a total snob, but you do have to admit I’m right.
THING NUMBER THREE. I get if you still hate me after these first two items. But this third things’ a doozie, a multi-paragraph doozie. Sit down and don’t drink any liquids, because you WILL spit them out.
Mr. Wickham is a dirty rotten liar. I didn’t steal the house my dad left him, he sold it and gambled away the money. He had to join the military because wasted any cash he got. Any money he touched disappeared, like some reverse King Midas.
But the real reason we’re not on good terms? He tried to seduce my little sister Georgiana when she was fifteen. He just wanted her for the money, and it broke her heart. So, now do you see why I’m not a huge Wickham fan? Believe it or not, I care about my sister as much as you care about yours. Anyway, if you still hate me, that is fine by me, but I just wanted you to know the truth about Wickham and all that jazz. And if you still don’t believe me, you can talk to my cousin the Colonel, who helped raise my sister with me.
Uh, all right then. Awkwarrrrd. I guess that’s that.
Peace out,
Fitzwilliam “The Darcinator” Darcy.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
?????????????????????????????????????????
Uhhh, you might notice that this was less funny than most of my summaries? But I, uh, I’m kind of too busy being amazed that I don’t think Darcy’s supposed to be the bad guy in this book after all. I honestly did not expect that. But the way it looks to me is… Wickham’s just as much of a sleazeball as Wolfgang Quinn, and Mr. Darcy’s not all that bad after all. Like Tyrone.
I HATE MR. WICKHAM. WHAT A MAN-SKANK.
If Elizabeth flippin’ Bennet doesn’t wise up and realize that Mr. Darcy isn’t so bad, I am going to tear this book in half and feed it to wolverines.