Jim Armstrong and the Goblet's Curse

Chapter 1: Fighting in the Morning Isn't Fun

I ran up the cool, slippery steps, then raced down the halls to the door at the end. I ran in, promptly collided with the desk nearest to the door and fell on my butt.

   The seventh and eighth graders that filled the room burst out laughing. Sheepishly, I got off the floor, picking up my fallen books.

"Settle down, settle down," Mr. Lambert called out to the room. Once silence had fallen Mr. Lambert turned to me, his legendary scowl etched on his face.

"This is the third time you have been late to my class this week, Jim, what is your excuse this time?" Mr. Lambert asked with disinterest.

"To be honest, it's kind of your fault that I'm late because your science class is the first class in the morning, when I should still be sleeping," I tried, hoping this comment wouldn't earn me a detention. Luckily, Mr. Lambert's scowl only deepened, before he pointed me to my seat on the seventh grade side of the room. I hastily took my seat next to my lab partner, Gianna. She already had her textbook out and her famous unicorn pen in her hand. I extracted my books from my bag as Mr. Lambert started the class.

"Alright, today we're going to test the reactions of the following chemicals on the whiteboard," Mr. Lambert said, gesturing to the whiteboard where, indeed there were chemicals written.

   I rubbed sleep from my eyes. Even though it was two weeks into the new school year, my internal alarm clock was still on summer vacation mode, also known as the get up at 12:30 pm mode. Adjusting to the get up at 7:30 am mode was proving to be extremely difficult, if not impossible. I am definitely not a morning person. It was true that I had now been late to science three times, since science class was first thing in the morning on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. But, don't get me wrong, it's not personal to Mr. Lambert. I was late to English on Tuesday, and Math on Thursday. So, I'm balancing it out. Right?

   Gianna started gathering some items for us to work with. It was only mildly interesting work to me, although I found all school subject uninteresting. I wasn't the best student, what with the missed classes, and the incomplete assignments, my grades were not the prettiest. My dad wasn't too worried about my school work, even though I would start applying to high schools next year. I never fully understood why he wasn't more worried, but I didn't complain. My mom on the other hand? Well, I wouldn't know what she thought of my low grades, since she had left my dad when I was two years old, and I hadn't seen her since. My dad and I didn't talk of her if we could help it and there were barely any pictures of her in our house. Sometimes I wondered what it would be like if she was still around, but not very often. I was perfectly content with only having a dad, especially one as cool as mine.

   I stifled another yawn. I had went to bed even later last night, b because yesterday had been my 12th birthday, and also the midnight premiere of a movie I had really been anticipating. My dad had taken me, and we hadn't got back until about 3 in the morning. That was another thing about my dad. He didn't really have strict rules on bedtimes, and stuff like that. He was more of a when-you're-tired-you-can-go-to-sleep parent. Again, not that I was complaining.

   I scratched behind my left ear. It was always itchy, from as long as I could remember. Occasionally, I would ask my dad if we could have it looked at, but he'd always refused, saying that it was just my imagination, even though I was pretty sure it was not.

   My sleeve had rolled up when I scratched my ear to reveal the permanent tattoo on my left wrist. It was a very unusual tattoo, and again, I had had it for as long as I could remember. I didn't know why it was there, but I thought it looked pretty cool. It was of a circle in parentheses, like this: