"Wow!" Gobbins cheered as Jazmine performed an impressive dropping barrel roll through a group of clockwork Bullies, complete with mechanical Cudgels. "Way to thread the needle, Jaz!"
"I gotta admit, James," Norrick said, shaking his head, "I wasn't buying into this whole Artis Decerto thing at first. But between the new magic we've been practicing and these crazy new moves, I think we might just have a chance to get into the tournament."
"Get into it nothing," Wentworth exclaimed, his eyes boggling behind his huge glasses. "We've got a chance to win that baby! Especially now that the Pixies and Igors have been knocked out of the playoffs! It's down to the Werewolves, Vampires, Zombies and us! And we haven't even started using any of these new moves yet!"
"Let's not get too confident," James warned despite his own cautious confidence. "It's one thing to do these maneuvers in the Gauntlet. It's another thing entirely to pull them off on the course. Besides, our next match is sudden death against the Zombies and they've been practicing in the Gauntlet same as we have, thanks to the fact that we needed Zane and Professor Cloverhoof 's help to build it."
"I watched them practice on it yesterday," Jazmine gasped, jumping off her skrim as Ralph halted the Gauntlet around her, "from the window on the upstairs landing. They aren't taking it all that seriously. They didn't use the flight pad at all."
"Graarph," Mukthatch agreed, hopping onto his skrim and piloting it into position for his own turn on the pad. "Wurgh raffwabffle."
"What'd he say?" James asked Norrick behind his hand.
"He says the Zombies' weakness is the fact that they don't take anything seriously. They prefer tricks and surprise to discipline and practice."
"Wow," Ralph said, blinking. "He said all that?"
"Sasquatchian is a very economical language," Norrick replied, nodding wisely. "I've been taking it since grade school. They have a hundred words for dirt, but no word for quit. Kind of tells you everything you need to know about 'em, doesn't it?"
James nodded.
Later, on the night before the Bigfoots' last match against Team Zombie, James met Zane on the porch of Hermes Mansion.
"Did you try to talk to them about it?" he asked the blonde boy, who shook his head grimly.
"It's a pride thing," Zane explained in a low voice, glancing back at the house behind him. "Team Zombie hasn't been beat by the Foots since, like, forever. That tie game you handed them last match was bad enough. And this is a playoff death match! The winner goes on, the loser goes home! I can't just tell them, 'Hey fellas, why don't you throw this thing to the Bigfoots, eh? I can't tell you why, but it'll keep some girl you don't know from being sent to Fort Bedlam and who knows, maybe even save the universe from collapsing in on itself because of some missing thread! Whaddaya say?' Sorry James, you know I'm on board with you, but there's no way that Bludger will fly."
James shook his head in exasperation. "Can you, like, slip a dose of Weasley's Silly Serum into their morning coffees or something? Or hex some invisible weights onto their skrims?"
Zane looked aghast. "Sabotage the Zombies?" he hissed, mortified. "Look, mate, I'm on your side and all, but rule number one of Zombie House is that you never ever prank your own house." Zane stopped and glanced aside thoughtfully. "Well, actually, rule number one is to always keep the cellar door locked from the outside so the ghoul doesn't sneak upstairs at night and have parties with all the other house ghouls. Boy, do they make a terrible mess. And do they eat? Sheesh. Last time there wasn't anything left but a box of dried leech chews and half a jar of El Salsa Grenado. But not pranking your own house is definitely rule number two. Without a doubt."
"But…!" James began, but Zane cut him off with a raised hand.
"Sorry, James. I just can't do it. We Zombies may not have much of a code of ethics, but the few ethics we do have, we stick to like glue. Capiche? You guys'll just have to win it fair and square."
James sighed deeply and nodded. As he turned to leave, however, Zane tapped him on the shoulder.
"But I'll be rooting for you guys," he whispered with a crooked smile. "You can do it. Keep between Warrington and Hurst, eh? I can't tell you why, but if you do that—stick between those two like beetle butter between two slices of white bread—then you'll do just fine." He winked conspiratorially and then turned back to his house, whistling an innocent tune.
The afternoon of the match turned out to be bright and warm, resulting in a very exuberant turnout of spectators. The grandstands were packed to overflowing, crowded with waving banners and handmade signs. To James' surprise, there seemed to be nearly as many Bigfoot colours and banners as there were Zombie supporters. The two factions jostled amiably on the high rampart bleachers, competing against each other with small displays of firework spells in team colours.
"This is it, team!" Wood hollered as the players huddled around him atop the platform. His voice was nearly lost in the roar of the excited crowd. "I know this is a sudden death match, but don't let that spook you! We've played an amazing season and I am proud of each and every one of you! Do your best, keep it clean, and try to have fun! If we lose, we may be out of the playoffs, but we'll still have a better record than Team Bigfoot has racked up in over ten years! You're all winners in my book, eh? So let's keep our chins up! Ready?"
The team joined in, piling their hands atop Wood's outstretched fist. "GooOO FEET!"
As the team assembled along the platform edge, Wentworth moved alongside James, his skrim at his side.
"If I didn't know any better," he muttered under his breath, "I'd almost think Wood expected us to lose."
James glanced at the boy next to him. Wentworth looked up. "I'm just sayin'," he shrugged.
"Well, I expect us to win," James replied. "Remember, just keep an eye on Warrington and Hurst. If they line up…"
"Yeah, yeah," Gobbins agreed grimly from James' other side. "We squeeze in between them like Mother Newt chaperoning a Valentine's dance."
A sharp whistle pierced the air over the figure eight course. Professor Sanuye floated over the center ring in his official's tunic, his whistle protruding from between his teeth.
"Number Six Hippogriff," Jazmine announced, launching from the platform for the warmup lap. The rest of the team began to stream out behind her, assembling into Hippogriff formation.
"This is it," Norrick called seriously, dropping his skrim and preparing to launch from the platform. "Sudden death, everyone! Do or die!"
"Do or die!" the others echoed, as if it were a battle cry. James joined them, feeling a drunken mixture of excitement, apprehension, and secret confidence. "Do or die! Let's go!"
One minute later, Sanuye blew a long note on his whistle. The match began.
Two hours later, Team Bigfoot was gathered in the Kite and Key, jostling raucously around two tables which they had pushed together.
"Victory!" Norrick cried, hoisting his Butterbeer. The rest mimicked his toast, making sure to shout loud enough for the Zombies gathered dourly in booths on the other side of the bar to hear. "Victory!" they cried jubilantly, clanking their mugs and tankards together, slopping their drinks all over the tables between them.
"It was a close one," Gobbins admitted to James as the cheers broke up into enthusiastic chatter. "I was a little worried at halftime with them up by four points."
James nodded and shrugged, but the truth was that he knew it had never really been a close match at all. One minute before the halftime whistle had blown, Team Zombie had succeeded in walloping home a string of quick goals, thanks to the combined efforts of Warrington and Hurst, who, despite the Foots' best efforts, had managed to cluster into a piledrive formation, carrying all three Clutches between them and flanked by the remainder of their team.
James had fumed about his team's failure to prevent the maneuver, but he also knew that piledrive formation was a once-in-a-match tactic. Team Zombie had been nervous about losing the match even then and had begun to resort to desperation maneuvers. Five minutes into the second half, Team Big
foot had already regained the lead. Wentworth had replaced Mukthatch on goal, leaving Mukthatch to shadow Warrington for the rest of the game, his ape-like reach and intimidating demeanor easily preventing any repeats of the fabled piledrive maneuver. In the end, using a confident mixture of game magic and Artis Decerto aerobatics, Team Bigfoot had soundly defeated the Zombies by a score of eighty-two to sixty.
"We're going to the tournament!" Norrick cried out exuberantly, and the rest joined in, hooting and hollering, but James was less confident. Even as his fellow teammates cheered, he looked around and saw a table near the fireplace surrounded by the slate grey sweaters and scarves of Werewolf House. Clayton Altaire sat at the head of the table, staring at James with a small crooked smile. As James watched, the older boy raised a hand and pointed discreetly at James. He mimed shooting him and mouthed the word 'pow'. The rest of the Werewolves saw the gesture. They turned and grinned wickedly back at James, their eyes glittering narrowly.
James sighed, the celebration leaking out of his heart. You may make it to the tournament, you little Squibs, the Werewolves' grins seemed to say, but then you'll have to face off against us, and we're a whole different cauldron of newts. We eat Squibs like you for breakfast.
James looked away, not liking those secretive, confident grins. Instead, he looked toward the Zombies on the other side of the room, gathered truculently around their own tables. Zane sat among them, looking equally morose, and yet when he saw James, he winked and shrugged a little. Like the Werewolves' grins, Zane's gesture seemed to speak volumes. Congratulations, pal, the little wink seemed to say, now comes the fun part.
James rolled his eyes, bemused. Even Zane's gestures managed to be sarcastic.
During the following days, James, Ralph, and Zane struggled to formulate a plan. Barring any unforeseen disasters, it seemed that the Bigfoots would—amazingly enough—play in the final tournament match. For most of the team, this accomplishment was success enough. James, of course, had a different goal in mind. It was essential that the Bigfoots not only meet Team Werewolf in the tournament, but that they defeat them. Only then would Apollo Mansion relocate onto Victory Hill, replacing Ares Mansion and thus completing the dimensional keyhole. But how could it be done?
It would have helped if the Werewolves' record had been even slightly imperfect. Where Team Bigfoot (to no one's greater surprise than their own) had managed to scrape together a record of four wins and three losses, barely clinging to a second-place standing, Team Werewolf was as yet undefeated. Worse yet, all but one of the Bigfoots' victories had been breathtakingly close, including two technical wins by tie. The Werewolves, however, had easily dominated every match, usually leading by double digits at halftime and proceeding to send in their second-string players for the last quarter while the starters actually left the platform, descending to their locker cellar and changing out of their pads and jerseys. The sheer arrogance of it all added insult to injury and formed the final sting of the Werewolves' game of psychological warfare—a game they alone played with nearly eerie ease.
"Every team has a weakness," Zane insisted, pounding the arm of one of the sofas in the Bigfoot game room. "Even the Wolves."
"Probably, but nobody's found it yet," Ralph said with a sigh. "They just seem to play a totally solid game. No chinks, no weak links."
James shook his head as he looked down at the floor between the sofas. The disarmadillo waddled idly past a nearby coffee table, sniffing the carpet, two empty licorice soda bottles balanced amusingly on its plated back. Zane sat up and added his own empty bottle to the collection.
"That doesn't mean they don't have a weakness," he said darkly. "It just means they're hiding it behind all that stupid arrogance. Their best offense is psyching everyone out so much that they win even before the match starts."
"Maybe," James admitted. "But then again, maybe that's their weakness. Maybe they really aren't as good a team as everyone believes they are. Maybe Altaire and his goons have just succeeded in convincing everyone that the Werewolves are so good that the other teams just get nervous and throw the game. Has that ever occurred to you?"
Zane considered it. "It's a theory, at least," he acknowledged. "So you're saying that if you can convince the Foots that Team Werewolf is more bark than bite, then maybe you'll take the Wolves' best weapon right out of their paws?"
"Couldn't hurt," Ralph nodded. "Either way, right? I mean, psyching-out can work both ways. If it's true that Team Werewolf can psyche other teams into playing worse, then it's also true that we can psyche ourselves into playing even better. Stands to reason."
Zane pressed his lips together thoughtfully. "But you'll need more than words to convince your guys that the Werewolves are just a bunch of sheep in wolves' clothing. You'll need something concrete, something they can rally around. Some secret weapon or something, even if it's just a symbol."
"Like that stupid bronze statue that Team Werewolf rubs on their way to every match," Ralph concurred, becoming excited. "But different. Something that will really make the team believe they have an ace up their sleeve."
James was thoughtful, his eyes narrowed as the disarmadillo lumbered under his outstretched legs, knocking the bottles from its back. Zane and Ralph looked at him.
"What are you thinking?" Zane asked, raising his eyebrows.
James mused, "I'm thinking that maybe the Werewolves do have a weakness after all. I mean, besides their overconfidence."
"What's that?" Ralph asked.
James smiled slowly and a little wickedly. "Do you think that there is anyone on campus, apart from their own housemates, who want Team Werewolf to win the tournament?"
Zane blew a breath out through pursed lips. "After a decade of being undefeated? And after all the humiliations they've handed out for the last few seasons? Not likely. In fact, I'd bet that everyone in every other house would pay good money to see the Wolves get clobbered this year. Why?"
James was still smiling mischievously. "Do you think," he asked quietly, "that they'd be willing to help make it happen?"
It was a simple enough plan, and James admitted, somewhat grudgingly, that he was just the person to pull it off.
Two years earlier, during his first term at Hogwarts, James had learned something about himself. He was not like his father. This was not a bad thing, really (although for some time he had sorely believed it was). It did mean, however, that James had to find other methods to get things done. His father, as a young man, had succeeded by rushing pell-mell straight into the arms of danger, usually flanked only by his mates, Ron and Hermione. This had worked for him because he was, simply put, the child of destiny. He was Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived.
James, on the other hand, was just a kid. His attempts to manage adventures entirely on his own had failed rather miserably. Like Team Bigfoot, James had only succeeded narrowly, often by the slightest of margins, and always with the help of the people around him. This had finally convinced him of the reality of the kind of person he was. Rather than attempting to manage things entirely on his own as his father had, James had learned (at least in a few instances) to ask for help.
He had first done this by asking the Gremlins to assist him, Ralph, and Zane in the great broomstick caper, when they had believed that Tabitha Corsica's broom had been the legendary Merlin staff in disguise. The caper had failed (in the fundamental sense that the broomstick had not, in fact, been the Merlin staff), but it had worked excellently in actual practice; James had succeeded in pilfering the broom, at least for a few minutes. Later, of course, James had asked Merlin himself to help them in ridding Hogwarts of the pesky (but dangerous) Muggle reporter, Martin Prescott. That, incredibly, had worked exceptionally well. Grudgingly, over the next year, James had learned that this was his fate. He was not a hero so much as he was a manager. He asked for help. Not always, of course, and probably not even as often as he should, but when he did, things seemed to work out much better.
Now, he was only slightly more comfortab
le with it. And yet, as he visited the first house on his list (it was Aphrodite Heights, up on the hill near the theater), he discovered that this task, unlike his previous experiences with asking for help, was going to be rather eerily easy.
"You bet," Ophelia Wright, captain of Team Pixie, nodded resolutely, making her blonde pigtails flop. "Those Werewolf stump-heads had the gall to play Winkles and Augers on their platform during our last match. By the fourth quarter, Professor Jackson wasn't even watching the game! He was watching his own players winkle an old Clutch around their platform! We'll do more than share our best spells with you. We'll show you how to use them! That'll teach those tasteless old Wolves to embarrass the Pixies."
Ten minutes later, James left Aphrodite Heights in a sort of stunned daze. Ralph walked next to him, his nose buried in a handwritten notebook, its pages crammed with hand-drawn illustrations and neat, back-slanting cursive, the 'i's all dotted with smiley faces and hearts.
"Wow," Ralph breathed, not looking up from the pages. "Those Pixies are only cute on the outside. This stuff is ruthless."
James nodded, but their work wasn't done yet. They still had three more houses to visit, and yet he approached the task with a renewed sense of purpose. Ophelia Wright had responded almost as if the two Bigfoot players were doing them a favor, rather than the other way around.
"Put them in their place," she'd said grimly as she walked them to the big gingerbready front door of Aphrodite Heights. "Knock them off their infuriatingly colourless grey skrims and tell them it's from Team Pixie, at least in part."
James had nodded, smiling crookedly. This was going far better than he'd expected.
By the end of the day, he and Ralph had procured the enthusiastic assistance of the team captains from every other house.
The Igors had agreed to give Team Bigfoot's skrims a secret pre-game boost, using a battery of technomancic enhancements that they had formulated over the previous few seasons and which had, up until now, been a carefully guarded secret. These enhancements, the Igor captain promised with a slightly maniacal (if practiced) laugh, would make the Bigfoots' skrims faster and more maneuverable than anything in the Werewolves' arsenal.