When Lyle had summoned them and told them that their next challenge involved sports, Quidditch was not what Mary Jane had been expecting at all. Why couldn't they just do something simple?
She eyed Graham suspiciously as they all faced off. She knew he wouldn't play fair, he never did. "Brooms up!"
"This is so stupid", she muttered.
"Tell me about it", Stuart mumbled back.
During the first half of the game, Team Lyle was being completely dominated. The pressure was seriously on. Mary Jane got the ball once and attempted to throw it to Stuart, but, since the boy was on the phone yet again, it just completely bounced off his head.
"Ow! What the hell was that?", he cried out, looking up from his phone.
"Maybe if you joined us here in the real world sometime, you would know!", Mary Jane huffed.
"Yeah, dude, at least try to act like you give a shit!", Neha added as she ran past.
"Seriously, Stuart, it's insane how attached you are to that thing! What do you even do on it all day?", Mary Jane mumbled.
"Watch porn", Stuart said flatly.
"Really?", Mary Jane asked, raising both her brows.
"Yeah, I recently got into Neha's hentai, Japanese tentacle porn crap. No! I don't actually watch porn on my phone all day!"
"Don't you wanna socialize?", Mary Jane asked in confusion as they headed over to where Lyle had called a time out.
"I am socializing. I'm doing it right now. That's why it's called social media."
Mary Jane just rolled her eyes.
"It's over", Neha sighed.
"We're getting creamed out there", Mary Jane added, nodding in agreement.
"Our team's a joke", Stuart added, throwing his beanie down onto the ground. His hair was really messy and fluffy from being under his hat. Mary Jane suddenly had the urge to ruffle it and run her fingers through it due to how soft it looked. What the hell was wrong with her?
"Well, I ain't laughing. Are you laughing, Billy?", Nick asked, looking over at Billy.
"Hell no!"
"Listen, we need to get our minds right and start believing", Nick started.
"This reminds me of a little girl who had to get her mind right and start believing. A little girl from a steel town who had the dream to dance", Billy added, making everyone look at him weirdly. Well, except Mary Jane. She had a thing for movies from the 80s and 90s â and even the late 70s. "No one believed in that little welder girl, but, thank God, she believed in herself."
"Are you talking about Flashdance? The movie from the 80s?", Stuart snorted, a look of disgust crossing his beautiful features.
"Yeah, you're damn right I am!", Billy said enthusiastically. "That is exactly what I'm talking about!"
"Got it", Stuart sighed. He really just wanted Billy to hurry up and get this over with. It was kind of annoying at this point and probably wouldn't be very helpful.
"You know how she overcame those odds? She believed in herself and trying. She literally had to become a maniac!", Billy continued on. He looked so serious, so intense, that it was almost concerning. Mary Jane had never seen him that way.
"Have any of you ever been called a maniac, maybe because you're a little bit different?"
"Nope", Mary Jane said immediately. She couldn't ever recall being called such an insulting word.
"That's a surprise", Stuart mumbled, making Mary Jane punch him in the arm. "Ow!"
"My mom calls me a maniac every night when I tell her that I love her", Yo-Yo admitted. Everyone gave him odd and sympathetic looks when he said that.
"Of course she does, Yo-Yo! You are a little bit â in a good way! And, guess what! Bill Gates? They called him a maniac too!", Nick said, squinting at the sunlight.
"Yeah, I don't think anyone ever called him a maniac", Neha frowned.
"Well I just did!", Nick huffed.
"You guys are getting off the point here! She had to strip down in next to nothing. She had to sit in that chair and arch her back. She pulled that chain out of nowhere and doused herself with water!", Billy exclaimed, once again getting their attention.
"Yeah, where did that water come from?", Nick asked.
"Who knows", Billy shrugged.
"It cane from her belief that it was there!", Nick said, throwing his hands up.
"She believed so hard that she found herself with an audition in front of those stuffed shirts at the dance school. And she spun, oh, and she spun. And she spun, and she spun, and she spun herself into that dance school. And she spun herself into our hearts", Billy said, picking up where he had left off. Even though Billy's speech was a tad bit confusing, it seemed that his enthusiasm had rubbed off on the rest of the team. "Now, in the second half of whatever you guys call this game, can't we all be that little welder girl who wants to be something more?", he asked, making everyone nod their heads. "Now look, I know that you guys aren't excited that we're on your team, but we're here. Guys, we're in this thing together, and I'm asking you to believe in yourselves. Believe in each other. Now we're gonna put on our leg warmers and dance our asses off." The team looked around and smiled.
"Come on, you lovable little maniacs, get in here!", Nick said, making them all huddle up.
"Alright, lets do this thing, bitches!", Mary Jane shouted, causing everyone to give her odd looks. "Whoops?"
As the second half began, it was clear that Team Lyle was feeling a lot more confident than they had been before. In fact, once they learned to work together, they completely dominated the field. They even began scoring points. Stuart used his phone screen and the sun to blind a girl on the opposite team, proving that the object actually could be useful. Once the girl sucks out of the way, Stuart raised his fist and brought it back down, shouting out a very loud, 'yes!'
Mary Jane made several scores â being forced into soccer and other activities as a child finally payed off a bit, it seemed. They blocked many of the 'Ravenclaw's' attempt to score and made plenty goals of their own. "Eat it, Malfoy!", Lyle yelled towards Graham when he worked with Yo-Yo to make another successful score. Mary Jane wanted to point out that Malloy was a Slytherin, but she just let the boy have his moment.
Stuart jumped up and slapped a ball out of the sky to keep it from going in, causing the rest of the team to cheer. "Way to go, Stuart, now you're getting your head in the game!", Mary Jane yelled. The score wound up being 70-70, resulting in a tied game. Of course, there would need to be a tie breaker.
A man in a gold suit ran out onto the field with a golden tennis ball dangling between his legs. He began a cringy dance while Mary Jane watched with a 'what the fuck' look. She was very familiar with Harry Potter and quidditch, but this was just weird. "Oh, what the Hell?", she muttered at the same time that Nick said, "Oh, who is this now?"
"It's the golden sniiiiiiiitch!", Lyle yelled as he pointed. "Whoever gets it first wins the game!"
The two teams seemed to eye each other for a moment before all hell broke loose on the field, everyone running after the 'snitch' who was now running away.
Mary Jane was close, she could almost reach it, but something caught her hard in the stomach, sending her spiraling to the ground. Her head smacked the ground violently, the sun had been beating down on her pale skin so much that she started to become red. She forced herself to roll onto her back, staring dizzily up at the sky that seemed to spn around her. Black dots danced across her vision. She briefly registered Billy falling to his knees, apparently being taken out as well.
Nick was yelling at Sid about how the plays were "unfair" and "illegal", but, since he had been too busy attending to Zack, Sid didn't see either incidents and couldn't call it.
Graham's victory was short lived when he realized that he had actually hurt Mary Jane, which was never his intention. He cared for her, in his own sick, twisted way, and never wanted anything to actually happen to her. He noticed Stuart heading towards the red head, who was still staring up at the sky in a daze, and blocked his path. "Listen here, Twombly", Graham said, jabbing his pointer finger into the boy's chest. "You stay away from my Mary Jane, you hear?"
Stuart looked at Graham in disbelief. "Are you serious? She could be seriously hurt because of you, ass wipe!", Stuart shouted, slapping his hand away.
"Which I will take full responsibility for. But don't think I don't see the way you look at her â like she's the greatest thing you've ever seen. She is a beauty, isn't she? A real prize. But she's not to be won by you â you won't get your grubby li'le mits all over her. Whatever you think you could have with her better evaporate. Are you kidding? A girl like her would never go for a guy like you."
Stuart's jaw ticked. He wanted so badly to punch Graham in his smug little face, but he knew he couldn't do that. His subconscious taunted him with how Graham was fight, how Mary Jane deserved so much better than him. How his silly little crush was just that: a silly little crush that would soon evaporate. "Maybe not, but I'm still not the one who lost her."
"Mary Jane will be mine again by the end of the summer", Graham said with a roll of his eyes. The boy before him shook his head. He didn't want to believe that â he couldn't. Instead of continuing to argue, Stuart just walked away, running over to where Mary Jane was laying.
"Is she okay?" Neha, Lyle, and Yo-Yo had been trying to get Mary Jane to focus, but all her eyes could focus on were the black dots that dance across her vision before her vision blurred. Nick was still arguing with Sid, but Billy was trying his best to make it over, cupping his privates. "I'll take her to a nurse or something", was the last thing she heard before her eyelids fluttered shut.
February 25, 2019