Chapter Two: Charlie
I always love coming back to Wolverhampton Academy after the holidays. I mean, don’t get me wrong, summer’s fantastic. I get to spend time with my cousin Andrea, and I always wish that lazy weekends at the twins’ cottage would never end, but there was something about those solid peaceful grounds that were just begging me to wreak some havoc. And really, that is what I do best.
My eyes were glued to the window as we pulled into the Wolverhampton grounds, soaking up all the familiar sights and buildings, and keeping my eyes open for familiar faces. I took in the fountain at the center of the round a bout, the glass doors to the front entrance, the boarding houses in the distance, and the vast green fields surrounding it all. It was as if I had never left.
I was by the trunk with my bags half out of the car before we’d even fully stopped.
“You’d think we don’t treat him well at home,” Dad said with a bemused smile on his face. I dropped my stuff and turned to my parents. Mom was looking at me with a sad, forced smile on her face. The familiar feeling of guilt started to kick in. It was bad enough that I was gone at school all year, but then I had to go and spend my whole summer up north, or out with friends, or even in Ireland with Andrea.
But I just get so bored at home.
“I’ll be back most weekends, mum. It’s not like we’re saying goodbye for very long.” She laughed a bit and stepped forward, giving me a hug.
“I know, hun. But we do miss you.” She seemed so tiny in my arms. I wondered when I had gotten so much bigger than her.
“I’ll miss you too,” I said, stepping back and going to give dad a handshake.
“You know it’s not good to lie,” Dad said with a wink and something that can only be described as a half bro-hug. He wasn’t too broken up about my leaving. Well, he didn’t seem too bothered anyways. Then again, dad never really looks that bothered by much.
After another quick hug to mom, the two got back into the car and I struggled to pick up all my stuff, eager to go check in and find Will and Carter. We needed to figure out rooming. “Charlie!” Dad had just started the engine when mom poked her head out the window to call after me. I turned and continued walking backwards, successfully dropping one of my bags. “Please try not to get into too much trouble dear.” I grinned at the anxious look on her slowly retreating face as I maneuvered the bag back on top of a suitcase.
“Yeah, I’ll… I’ll try mum.”
~~~~~
I felt something smack me on the head. Something…soft? Whatever. I was way too tired to care. I let myself drift again.
“Charlie! Come on man, wake up!” I felt another soft thump. This time something registered that the weapon was a pillow. But why anybody could be trying to wake me up when I was that tired eluded me.
Sluggishly, I opened one eye just a crack – to find Carter’s face about 3 inches from my own. “AHHH!” I jumped back, one-hundred percent awake now. Carter looked way too lively for this ungodly hour. “Carter!! Geeze man...! Having Demetré as my roommate means that I don’t have to put up with this kind of wake up call!”
Carter tossed the pillow at me and laughed. “Well, at least you’re up now. Wouldn’t want to be late on the first day of classes. And you know how Worthington likes to have his little assembly thing.” He glanced at his watch, “Ooh, and breakfast ends in 12 minutes so I’d get going!”
~~~~~
“So Demetré, ready for your first day at Wolverhampton?” Carter asked as the three of us sat down in the auditorium for our start-of-the-school-year speech. Demetré shrugged.
“It’s nothing I haven’t done before.” That was for sure. The guy had lived everywhere. And I hadn’t told anyone as much, but I kind of got the sense it had messed him up a bit. Ok, maybe ‘messed him up’ isn’t exactly what I mean to say. But seriously, despite countless attempts to make him feel more comfortable around us – including our legendary ‘Newbie Tour à la Charlie’ – Demetré remained relatively polite and distant. Don’t get me wrong, he seemed like an alright guy, just kind of…boring I guess. And I know people can say that anyone would seem boring compared to us, but Demetré exceeded that norm. In my opinion anyways.
However, there was one thing that I needed to be completely positive about if we were going to continue trying to be friends with the guy. I put on the most serious look on my face I could muster and leaned over to him.
“Demetré, promise me something.” He raised his eyebrows skeptically. “Promise you won’t turn into a zombie like our pal Jules over there,” I nodded down a few rows in front of us where Julian sat with a tall brunet boy.
Demetré rolled his eyes, but promised he wouldn’t. I didn’t entirely believe him, but before I could say so he spoke up again. “So, who’s that guy with Julian?” He was looking down to the two boys again, where Julian was looking increasingly irritated at whatever the other boy was saying. “I’ve seen him around our house, but I don’t think he’s ever said two words to me.”
“Lucky you. You haven’t had to deal with the British terror.”
“That,” Carter said, ignoring me, “is Holden Archer Lyons the third.” I snorted at the use of his full name. “He’s kind of… intimidating. And his family is crazy rich.” He glanced at my face, and as I willed him to finish, he sighed, “…And British.”
“My theory is that he comes from a family of elite British thieves,” I reported in a low voice, “Sure, they’ve got their day jobs, but you just know they’re stealing crown jewels on the side.”
“Who’re thieves?” Will slid into the seat we had reserved for him next to Demetré.
“Holden’s family.”
Will laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous Charlie. They’re nobility.” We stared at him disbelievingly, “I’m serious. His mom had Italian lineage somewhere down the line, and I think his dad was like, adopted by nobility or something.” We sat back, taking in the news.
“How do you know these things?” I asked, completely incredulous. But I asked myself a far more important question: How did I not?
Will shrugged mysteriously. “I’ve got my ways.”
We talked for a while more about Holden, filling Demetré in on his past terrorizations, and assuring him that he would know what we were talking about once he encountered the older boy. Our attention was drawn to the stage when the headmaster, Mr. Worthington stepped up to the podium. “Boys if I could just have your attention for the briefest of moments.”
“Oh boy, here we go,” Carter groaned, rolling his eyes.
“What do you mean?” Demetré looked questioningly at all of us.
“Every year he says the same speech,” I sighed.
“Study day and night,” Will supplied, “Get high marks and scholarships to the best schools!”
“Join teams!” Carter continued with a roll of his eyes, “Win medals and trophies!”
“Write a play!”
“Compose a symphony!”
“Paint masterpieces!”
“Win awards!”
“Preferably of the Nobel Peace variety.”
“But we’ll take Oscars too.”
“Basically, make us look good.”
“And he never does seem to factor in our social lives,” I said regretfully.
“You get the point. And it would be fine,” Will said, “except it’s always the same.”
“Every. Single. Year. I mean, you’d think the guy would be a bit more creative,” I mumbled. We shut up when Mr. Cattrelli – our art teacher and head of house – caught our eye with a threatening glance. Apparently we were talking kind of loudly. I zoned out, thinking about what I would say if I could give the speech. It was taking a concerted effort not to laugh evilly at the thought. It took me a while to notice that the three boys around me were actually paying attention to Worthington’s ridiculous ramblings, and what I saw in their faces made me sigh internally. Regardless of the way we laughed at it, I could see the desperate desire to achieve what he was talking about. It wasn’t anything new. I was perfectly aware of how badly my friends wanted to do well. I mean, between Carter maintaining his scholarship, Will’s obsession with good marks, and Demetré’s…Demetré, you could probably say that I hung out with the three most mark-driven students in the 11th grade.
“…And I know that you will all do your best…” I brightened, realizing he was nearing the end of his long-winded speech.
“Boys, make sure you honor our school well.” Carter, Will and Demetré snapped out of their trance as I spoke perfectly in time with the headmaster. “For you are not only gentlemen of Wolverhampton Academy now, but for the rest of your lives.” There was a moment of silence as he let that sink in. His best effort at dramatic effect I guess. “Now off to class you go!”
A cacophony of laughter and voices rose up at our dismissal. “So as you can see, we’ve heard that once or twice,” Will said to Demetré.
“Try seven times,” I grumbled, “It really loses its novelty after a while.”
~~~~~
It wasn’t until the weekend that I finally managed to pry the other three away from their studies. Every night they’d been far too concerned with getting their massive piles of review done, or out at team tryouts or some such thing. I, on the other hand, couldn’t be bothered to finish all my homework every night, and fencing tryouts weren’t until next week, so I’d been bored as anything. The four of us were now spread across the Flavelle lounge, and upon my orders, no homework was anywhere in sight.
I was lounging across a couch, strumming absently at my guitar, while Demetré seemed to be trying to read and Carter and Will were engrossed in a heated debate.
“…What do you mean he’s not a real superhero!?” Will looked positively indignant.
“I’m just saying, it’s not like he has superpowers or anything. He’s just got lots of money and gadgets,” Carter responded with a shrug.
“And when was the last time you beat up a whole bunch of bad guys?”
“I would, if I had the stuff he does!”
“It takes real bravery to do what he does!”
“Boys, boys, boys,” I stopped strumming and interrupted their increasingly intense debate, “It’s alright Will, you don’t need to defend me any further.” They both turned to look at me questioningly, “You see Carter, Will here is just trying to defend my honour, me being Batman and all.”
“Ah, I see, perfectly understandable. My apologies, Mr. Wayne,” Carter said with a respectful nod in my direction. We all laughed, and I glanced over at Demetré, who had, up until that point been stubbornly staring down at his book. He had closed his book with a sigh and left, muttering something about being right back.
Our laughter died down as we realized we were chasing him away. I guess we needed to take baby steps with him or something. It was a bit of mood-dampener though, him always getting annoyed when we were having fun. Once he was safely out of earshot Will got a thoughtful look on his face.
“Charlie? You know how you’re always saying that we’re like the Marauders; you being Prongs, Carter Padfoot, and me Moony? Well, does that make Demetre Wormtail?” Carter and I burst into laughter, and it wasn’t long before Will joined us. A shout from upstairs that sounded distinctly like our oh-so-lovely prefect told us to shut up.
“Snivillus is just jealous we have more fun than him.” We burst into a fresh wave of laughter. If we were the Marauders, then Julian was so undoubtedly Snape.
We spent the better portion of the rest of the afternoon making connections between our lives and the Marauders, doing our best to ignore the fact that Demetré never actually came back.
“You know, Aeslin actually kinda reminds me of Lily too,” Carter said with a smile and a tentative glance at Will. He was talking about my girlfriend and incidentally, Will’s twin sister.
“Yeah, for sure. Only Aeslin is way more badass.” We all laughed at that, thinking about her beautiful spiky blond hair, sharp brown eyes and nose piercing. Ok, maybe they weren’t thinking about how beautiful she was, but it was kind of difficult not to think ‘beautiful’ when I thought about her.
“Oh God, there he goes again,” Carter rolled his eyes, “he’s got that dreamy thinking-about-Aeslin-face on again.”
“Don’t even get me started,” Will said, pretending to gag. Will was actually very cool about me dating his sister. I mean, I’ll admit it could be pretty embarrassing sometimes, especially when we first started dating, or when he walked in on us making out (for which I’m pretty sure we’d scarred him for life). But for a relatively awkward guy, Will wasn’t actually that awkward about us. If you don’t count the fake gagging that is…
Our conversation was ended by the sound of the dinner bell and the wave of Flavelle boys that followed it. I let out a sigh of contentment as I packed away my guitar. I was very happy to have gotten in an afternoon with my friends for once in what felt like forever. I knew they would be back to homework and practices and family dinners by the time tomorrow rolled around, but for now I was happy enough for a few hours here and there. And who knew, maybe Demetré would actually loosen up enough to join us one of these days.
~~~~~
If there was one thing I really missed while I was at Wolverhampton it was the constant access to a piano. At home I could literally spend whole days behind our medium grand, but at school I didn’t have that luxury. We had a few pianos, but a lot of the time they were either locked away or in use, which was rather unfortunate for me. I always had my guitar with me, but it just wasn’t the same.
On a Tuesday evening, I was on my way down to the music rooms, my fingers positively itching to play. I even had a few pieces in mind that I wanted to practice, but I stopped short with my hand on the doorknob when I realized someone inside was already playing.
It wasn’t like anything I had ever heard before. The notes tumbled beautifully through the door, seeming so incredibly random, and yet so perfectly well put together. I just stood there, not wanting to disturb the musician, letting the rich music wash over me. It sounded so tragic, and yet oddly defiant. I don’t even know how he managed to get that kind of sound and emotion in music, and I was insanely jealous for that kind of skill. I was good, but nothing I ever playedwas even a note close to this.
It took me a few minutes to realize that the music had stopped, and just as I was about to open the door to compliment the pianist and ask what he was playing, the door opened and I found myself nose to nose (well, chin) with none other than Holden Archer Lyons III, and he didn’t seem too happy to see me. It was rather terrifying really, to look up into a pair of dark eyes glaring down at you so angrily, especially when those eyes belonged to someone with a reputation like Holden.
“Hey Holden, that was-”
“Enjoy the little concert did you?” he growled at me. Perhaps it was a strange time to notice, but in that moment I realized that he didn’t have any music stowed anywhere on his person, and there wasn’t any on the piano either.
“I did actually! That really was quite remarkable, the way you were playing that. What was it anyways? Chopin?”
“Piss off,” he rumbled as he shouldered past me. He probably thought I was being sarcastic. Personally, I’ve always thought that Holden would probably be a pretty cool guy if he weren’t so intimidating. I’d seen him laughing at a stony faced Julian on many an occasion. Anyone who laughed at Julian was worth talking to in my books. The only trouble was, Holden made it pretty much impossible to start a conversation with him.
Sitting at the piano, I flipped through a few pieces from my music binder just to warm my fingers up, making my way through some classical stuff - including Chopin, because since I had mentioned him I found I had a bit of a hankering to hear one of his pieces.
At that point I put any sheet music away and decided to get down to the fun stuff. First came a bit of Coldplay, then some Beatles. I sang vaguely along to the parts I knew, but I still wasn’t quite getting into it. With the final chords of ‘Hey Jude’ echoing around the room, I sat back for a moment to consider what to play next. I flipped through a mental list of my extensive repertoire, looking for something that would be the most interesting to play. Coming to a decision, I stretched my hands out and settled them along the keys, hitting the first chords.
I coaxed the tune out of the piano, soft notes dancing on higher keys. As I neared the beginning of the verse I let the melody grow in power. And then I began to sing along.
I don’t know you
But I want you
All the more for that
I had never actually been able to find sheet music for ‘Falling Slowly’, but I had really loved it, so I worked out the music for myself. Every time I did it changed just a bit because I could never quite remember what I had done last time. It was a joy to play for its sheer spontaneity, and it really was such a beautiful song. By the time I got to the bridge and chorus, the song had become more complex, hitting more chords and less individual notes
Take this sinking boat and point it home
We've still got time
Raise your hopeful voice you have a choice
You'll make it now
My voice broke on the higher notes in the chorus, reminding me that I was a musician, not a singer, but I didn’t really care. I plowed on through to the second verse, the song developing a mind of its own and pulling my fingers along with it.
You have suffered enough
And warred with yourself
It's time that you won
As I launched into the final part of the song I closed my eyes. I started stumbling along the keys, and every now and then I could hear an out of place note but I clearly wasn’t playing this song for perfection.
Raise your hopeful voice you have a choice
You've made it now
Falling slowly sing your melody
I'll sing a long
The song trickled to a stop and for a long time I just sat there, allowing myself to be wrapped up in the comfort of music. I’ve always found it strange how such a sad song could make me so inexplicably happy.
~~~~~
I’m kind of surprised Julian waited as long as he did to say something. As it was, it took him about a month.
On the third Thursday after school had officially started, Carter and I were signing in after my guitar lesson with my friend Claire had wrapped up (I taught her guitar mostly to get some quality hang out time with her. And anyways, I was more than capable to be teaching). See, in order to make sure that we weren’t off visiting the girls or some such thing, we always had to sign in with the house prefect by 9:30, thus confining us to our house.
Of course, this year, signing in with the house prefect meant signing in with good ole’ Goldilocks. It was rather amusing really, to see how irritated and bored Julian looked every time a student knocked on his door, looking for the sign-in sheet. He usually had some huge textbook open over top the clipboard, and one time I had the pleasure to see him drooling over his notebook, snoring faintly. However, the amusement at his misfortune was usually pretty short lived, because as soon as he saw it was me looking to sign in, he would smirk. It was pathetic really, that I would get such a kick out of seeing him annoyed, and he would be so triumphant at this tiny little bit of power he had over me.
Today I could see the emblem of the restaurant he worked at, Esprit d’Escalier, stitched onto the front of his shirt. The exhaustion of his shift was evident on his face, and I wanted to laugh out loud at the sauce stain peeking out through the folds of his shirt.
Maybe it was the stress of the start of the start of the school year, or maybe he’d just had a really bad day, or even the stupid grin on my face, but when Julian saw that it was Carter and I knocking at his door, he got that evil look on his face I had learned to be wary of.
“So Charlie,” he said casually as we initialed beside each of our names, “how’s that new roommate of yours – Demetré is it?” I tensed up, but did my best to keep my face neutral. Like I said, I’m surprised he hadn’t said anything sooner. Why shouldn’t he rub it in our faces that he had separated the two biggest troublemakers at Wolverhampton? He’d played on our good manners and broken me up from my best friend. That had to be like Christmas morning for him.
“Yeah, Demetré’s pretty cool,” which wasn’t necessarily true, but Julian never left his room, so there really wasn’t any way for him to know that. I could see Carter glancing at me out of the corner of his eye while Julian nodded slowly, tapping his pen on the desk.
“Yeah, he seems like it… And you know, I think he could be good for you.”
Good for me? What? Did I have some sort of disease that could only be cured by the insufferably boring?
“I mean, who knows, maybe one of these days you’ll-”
“You do not want to finish that sentence,” I practically snarled at him. Carter had a hand on my arm before I could take another step forward, pulling me back towards the door.
“Good night boys,” Julian’s tone was as light and casual as ever and that stupid smug smile was still plastered on his face.
“Why do you let him get to you like that?” Carter asked as we walked down the hallway to his room.
“Did you hear what he said? It’s like he thinks I’m some damn dog that needs to be hit over the nose with a newspaper or something,” As we entered the final room on the right (Carter’s room), Will looked up from his work questioningly. “Julian,” Carter and I said by way of explanation. He nodded in understanding. “You know, one of these days I’d just like to properly punch that stupid smirk off his face,” I said as I flopped down onto Carter’s bed.
“I wouldn’t advise that. The faculty tends to frown upon smacking facial features off of people,” Will commented reasonably.
“Yeah, you’d know all about that, right Will? From your extensive fighting experience?” Carter said with a grin.
“I heard the last guy Will beat up never recovered,” I sat up, smiling at the story Will and Aeslin had told us about Will beating up Aeslin’s creepy ex. “You know what? New plan. We get Will to beat Julian up.”
“If he can even reach his face.” We collapsed into helpless laughter as Will shook his head and threw a few pillows in our direction.
Once we had calmed down I sat back thoughtfully. “So, we can’t beat him up, but we don’t have to take this laying down,” they were both looking at me cautiously, but I could see curiousity gleaming in their eyes, “What d’you say to delivering a little bit of payback for the misfortunes Mr. Ducharme has left us with?”
~~~~~
On Friday morning, the entire Flavelle house was awoken by a string of curses and shouts from the room 01 – Julian’s room. I lay awake in my bed, smiling at the thought of Julian waking up only to find himself – and the better part of floor – covered in shaving cream. It had proved in our summer experiments to be one of the best substances for just such an antic. A few moments later came the other thing I was waiting for. There came a loud splash, and another gargled shout. That would be the bucket tipping over him, which I personally though was a rather nice gesture on our part. It would wash off a good amount of the shaving cream. As a whole it was what I would come to call ‘The Midnight Shave’.
At breakfast that morning I could see Julian up by the teacher’s table, talking to Worthington. I wasn’t worried at all, and it didn’t look like Carter was either. There was no way Julian would ever tell that we had gotten the best of him. And no one else could figure out how we had gotten into the locked room, especially without waking Julian up. However, they also didn’t know that we had spent a couple years perfecting lock picking and the art of stealth.
“It’s your birthday?” Carter was asking Demetré incredulously as they say down. Demetré shrugged, looking a bit embarrassed at all the looks Carter’s exclamation had drawn.
“Why didn’t you tell us?” I asked. “Aw man, now I don’t have a gift. I feel bad… Ok, I’ll get you one this weekend.”
“You really don’t have to do that Charlie, it’s totally fine-”
“But I want to!” Demetré continued to look hesitant
“Just go with it,” Carter advised, “Trust me, I would know from experience.”
Will wasn’t overly engaged in the conversation, as he kept glancing down nervously to where Julian and our headmaster were talking. He had taken some convincing to do the prank in the first place. He usually did, but a few thin lies that he most definitely wouldn’t get caught usually had him convinced enough to join us. I caught his eye and gave him a look that told him to calm down. He nodded with a sigh and took another small bite of toast.
Demetré had no need to be nervous. Despite the fact that he was our friend, we had decided not to tell him a thing, so for all he knew, Kay and Marcus could have very well been behind it. Which isn’t to say he didn’t suspect us, because really, who else was awesome enough to pull off something like The Midnight Shave? Well, besides Holden. We just didn’t want to tell him, because honestly, we didn’t really trust him. Chances were, if he knew, he’d probably tell someone. And we couldn’t have that.
“I told you I don’t know, now can I please go eat my breakfast?!” Julian’s raised voice carried across the whole room, causing a roomful of heads to turn to look at him, and pausing the conversation about Demetré’s birthday. Worthington smiled tersely as he nodded, and Julian stalked his way over to a seat across from Holden, who looked like he was trying to hold in his laughter. Julian cast a glare down at us, but I just looked back at him, my eyes wide and innocent.
Score 1 for the jerk, and 1 for the good guys.
