Jane Fizzle and the Chamber of Secrets

Chapter 7

    Jane spends a lot of time over the next few days dodging out of sight whenever she sees Gilderoy Lockhart coming down a corridor. It's harder to avoid Dillon Drail, who seems to have memorized Jane's schedule. Nothing seems to give Dillon a bigger thrill than to say, "All right, Jane?" six or seven times a day and hear, "Hello, Dillon," back, but it wasn't as cheerful when Dillon says it. Jane just wants him to leave her alone.

    Tibbles is still angry with Jane about the disastrous car journey and Scarlett's wand is still malfunctioning, surpassing itself on Friday morning by shooting out of Scarlett's hand in Charms and hitting tiny, old, Professor Wilson squarely between the eyes, creating a large, throbbing green boil where it has struck. So with one thing and another, Jane is quite glad to reach the weekend. She, Scarlett, and Gavin are planning to visit Robin on Saturday morning. Jane, however, is shaken awake several hours earlier than she would have liked by Randall Miller, telling her something about how Mason, the Captain of the Slytherin Quidditch team wants to talk to her.

    Confused by what he's talking about and how he's even in her dorm, she asks, "Whassamatter?"

    "Quidditch practice!" Randy says, Jane blinking lifelessly a little bit. "Come on, Mason doesn't like to wait much!"

    Jane looks gloomily out of the window, seeing the Black Lake a lot darker, Jane knowing it must be very early. Now that she is awake, she can't understand how she could have slept through the racket the lake is making. Sometimes, it rattles against the window and she can rarely see the squid swimming around.

    "How are you here, Randy?" Jane asks, rubbing the crust out of her eyes, looking at Randy. His face is a little more thin and his hair is a little longer. Jane looked at him in confusion.

    "Must be a glitch," he answers, shrugging. "Come on, Mason is waiting for you and the others."

    Jane sighs and gets out of bed. She pushes Randy out and gets dressed in her Quidditch robes of green and silver, tying her back in a very small ponytail. She walks down the stairs to see Mason standing there with a big smile on his face. Before Jane can complain, he says, "It's part of our new training program. Come on, grab your broom, and let's go. None of the other teams have started training yet; we're going to be first off the mark this year —"

    Jane sighs and walks back up the stairs and grabs her broom, writing a note about what's going on and leaves it on her bed. She walks back down, seeing Mickey yawning loudly, his Quidditch robes hanging off his shoulders. The other boys are looking very tired and disheveled.

    "Good, let's go men, and young woman," Mason grins.

    When they exit the common room from the stone wall, Dillon Drail is right there, dashing dashing down the corridor, his camera swinging madly around his neck and something clutched in his hand. "I heard someone saying you were going to have Quidditch practice, Jane! Look what I've got here! I've had it developed, I wanted to show you —"

    Jane looks bemusedly at the photograph Dillon is brandishing under his nose. A moving, black-and-white Lockhart is tugging hard on an arm Jane recognizes as her own. She is pleased to see that her photographic self is putting up a good fight and refuses to be dragged into view. As Jane watches, Lockhart gives up and slumps, panting, against the white edge of the picture.

    "Will you sign it?" Dillon asks eagerly.

    "No," Jane says flatly, glancing around at her Quidditch mates, all of them looking at her. "Sorry, Dillon, I'm in a hurry — Quidditch practice —" she awkwardly shuffles away with Mickey, knowing how uncomfortable she is getting.

    "Oh, wow! Wait for me! I've never watched a Quidditch game before!" Dillon waddles after them.

    "It'll be really boring," Jane says quickly, but Dillon ignores her, his face shining with excitement.