Jim Armstrong and the Goblet's Curse

Chapter 9: Archery Can Be Deep

I followed Noah and Cecily out of Boxing class and on to our next class. To my dismay, Erebus and his friends were in the same class, which was Archery.

We walked through the Main Wing, through a doorway hidden by colourful beads, up a flight of stairs and down a trapdoor that almost perfectly blended in with the floor. We approached a dark wooden door that was beautifully engraved with the words:

Hitting a target is more than just hitting a target for the sake of it; it is reaching a goal that is set in your view

"Deep," I murmured as we walked through the door.

"If you think that one's deep, wait till you see the one on the library doors," Noah said.

When we walked in, the first thing I noticed was... everything. There were targets plastered all over the walls, the ceiling and even the floor. There was not a single space that wasn't occupied by a target. The targets were of all different sizes too. Some were huge, the size of truck tires, while others were tiny, the size of compact mirrors.

I followed Noah and Cecily to a wall to the side, where we dropped our duffle bags and extracted our bows and quiver of arrows. I slung my quiver over my shoulder and walked over to the center of the room with Noah and Cecily. I watched as they both nocked arrows into their bows, aimed, and let them fly. Noah's arrow hit in the ring outside the bull's-eye, while Cecily's obviously hit the middle of the bull's-eye.

"How do you guys do that?" I asked? "I keep telling you, make it look so easy, where in reality, I have trouble just nocking my arrow."

"And we keep telling you," Cecily answered, grabbing another arrow from her quiver and nocking it, "that you just have to practice." Cecily let the arrow fly, and it hit home, right next to her first one. Suddenly, an arrow whizzed past my ear, so close that I felt it nick my ear. The arrow hit just on the edge of the complete center of the bull's eye, about two centimeters from Cecily's arrows. The three of us whipped around to find Erebus, standing with his friends, his bow still raised. As his arm dropped, he gave Cecily a truly loathsome look, before turning away.

"Wow," I said. "He hates you."

"Thank you for pointing out the obvious," Cecily said.

Noah and Cecily spent the rest of the period showing me how to properly nock an arrow and let it fly so that it at least flew a couple feet in front of me, if not hitting a target. By the end of the period, I could proudly say that I could nock the arrow without help. Getting it to fly? I'd rather not talk about that. I would only embarrass myself.

After Archery was Survival Skills, which was much more successful for me that the previous two classes. For one thing, Erebus and his posse weren't in this class, and this class didn't require any physical effort. I just sat and happily read about different edible plants.

After Survival Skills, Noah, Cecily and I headed with the rest of the students to the Dinery for lunch. Enzo and Sandra caught up with us, and we took seats at our table. Lunch today was simple, but still heavenly; pizza that was somehow made to seem gourmet. Like, how do you make pizza gourmet? Somehow, the cooks managed it. Along with the pizza, there was freshly squeezed fruit juice poured into intricately carved golden goblets that just seemed too fancy to be holding juice. They were all differently made with different patterns and gems embedded into them. But I didn't focus on them for too long. I mean, hey, there was pizza in front of me. Who cares about a cup when you could rather be eating?

I reached for another piece of pizza when a terrible shriek ripped through the Dinery. Everybody looked around at the scream and all noise died down. A girl that looked around Sandra's age had stood up from a table and was looking at her hand as if it had just talked to her. She continued screaming in agony as everyone stared in horror. The girl backed up, still crying out, then just as suddenly as she had started, she fell quiet, then she toppled over and hit the ground with a thud that echoed through the Dinery.

Nobody moved for a moment, everyone staring at the girl, who lay sprawled on the ground. Finally, one of the Dinery monitors rushed to the girl and knelt down by her side. She examined her for a moment in which the room was deadly quiet. Then she suddenly stood up.

"Everyone out," she muttered. When no one moved, she yelled. "Everyone out! Now!" All at once, the noise returned to the room at an even higher level as all the students got up and made towards the exit, discussing what had just taken place. The Dinery monitor stood in front of the girl on the ground with her co-workers, trying to shield her body from prying eyes. Even though they were doing a good job at hiding the girl, I still got a look when we passed, and what I saw made me almost stop in my tracks.

The girl's hand was a raw red, the skin looking as if it were badly burned. The burns extended up her arm stopping a little before the crook of her elbow. The rest of her, though, was deathly pale. Her face was white as chalk, and she looked... well she looked dead. I actually thought she was for a moment, but I could clearly see her chest moving up and down with staggered breaths.

Noah, Cecily, Enzo, Sandra and I finally got out of the Dinery, but it was no better out in the hallway outside the Dinery than it was inside. All the students were milling about, talking in hushed whispers about what had happened. The few students that had gotten looks at the girl were being interrogated by those who hadn't and a group of other girls were silently crying, or worrying about the scene that had taken place. They were probably the sick girl's friends. Because that's what she was right? Sick. Right?

"Come one guys, let's get out of here," Enzo said, leading the way past the other students. We went back to Sandra and Cecily's dorm, since theirs was the closest to the Dinery. Once we got there, no one said a word, only sitting in various spots in the room, thinking about what we had just seen.

"Do you... do you think we're going to have classes this afternoon?" Sandra asked quietly.

"I don't know," Enzo answered. We lapsed back into silence, and I tried to clear my mind of the events of that afternoon, but it was kind of hard to do that since the image of the girl lying on the ground still burned fresh in my mind.