Land Ho! (Matthew)

Phin was feeling adventurous! Even though it was cold outside, and a light snow was falling on the ground dusting it in white, Phin still felt like playing outside. And yes, he was a second year, but who didn't like to play pretend every once in a while? He seriously considered wearing his peter pan outfit that he wore to the Halloween party in his first year, but, decided against it because he knew he would be spotted by an older kid and get made fun of for the rest of his life, and he didn't need that added onto his plate on top of everything else going on! He bundled up with his house scarf and a coat Uncle Chad had gotten him since he left his other one at home, and ran out to the middle court yard, first to see if anybody was there to interrupt his adventure time. Thankfully nobody was.

He set a scene:

There's a ship, with big masses, and a giant flag, and a crew, and he's the captain! He was a good guy! In the distance, he spots another ship! This one set off an evil feeling! It bare a flag with a skull and cross bones! Danger lurking ahead!

Phin took a random sharp looking stick and stuck it in his belt. He took a piece of parchment paper he had brought with him, and rolled it up to look like a telescope! This was going to be an awesome adventure! He only hoped that nobody would see him.

He imagined the pirate ship getting closer to his own ship! Some of the evil pirates had swung onto his ship, and he was now battling them. He swung his pretend sword at the pretend men he was fighting! This was awesome! If only he didn't feel as ridiculous as he felt doing it by himself.

Matthew was in a particularly good mood today, for a particularly good reason - his awesome amazing wonderful brother Ollie who hadn't actually forgotten him had helped him learn the fire spell! And he wasn't the best at it yet, but Ollie told him that he'd gotten it really quick. And it came pretty easily to Matthew. So now, he was sitting in the corner of the middle courtyard, practicing the spell by lighting pieces of parchment on fire.

"Incendio," he muttered, concentrating hard on the spell and the paper and the fire! And like magic, the paper ignited! Yes, Matthew was usually unfocused and all over the place. But that didn't mean he couldn't focus when he needed to. And fire was a real reason to focus. Actually, truth be told, while Matthew got really excited about the idea of fire, fire itself was quite calming to him. He could watch it for ages, trying to figure it out. A lot of people were afraid of fire, but Matthew wasn't. You just had to know how to handle it.

Matthew leaned down so that he could watch the fire eat away at the paper until the paper was no more, and didn't even notice someone enter the courtyard that had been empty before. But when he looked up, his eyes set on Phin, who was running around swinging a stick through the air at some imaginary foe. Matthew beamed and shot in his direction, grabbing his own stick on the way. "Hi Phin! Phin! Hey Phin, hi! Are you playing Star Wars?" What else would he be doing? "Can I play? I want to be Darth Vader!" And with that, he swung his stick - which was now a lightsaber - again, making awesome lightsaber noises as he did.

Phin was just casually waving a stick around pretending it to be a sword when he heard his name being called. Matthew. Phin liked the kid, but this was his "alone time." But at the same time, Phin didn't have the heart to tell the kid to go away. Then he said something about Star Wars.. Phin didn't know that stars had wars... What was Star Wars?

Phin was playing pirates. Not this Star Wars. But then the kid started making sound effects with his stick. Weird. He asked, "What's Star Wars? And I'm playing pirates. I guess you can play." His alone time was ruined. But he guessed it was better than Aoife, or worse, Hunter running into him.