Tiger staggered down the corridor. The dizziness spell Martin had put on him meant he couldn’t walk in a straight line, which was the whole point.

When Martin had first told him to pretend to be drunk in order to spy on the girls, Tiger had thought it was a very bad joke. But it appeared he was serious. To Tiger, it was self-evidently a completely horrendous idea, because the girls weren’t stupid and they knew he wasn’t stupid.

He didn’t have much choice: it was either obey orders or launch a leadership challenge, which was also a horrendous idea: Martin was three years older and stronger than Tiger and dividing the group in half would be handing victory to the girls.

Which was why Tiger was now trying to act as stupidly as possible. He banged into the wall. “Stupid wall!” he slurred. “Take that!” He kicked the wall. “And that! And that!” He kicked it with the other foot and then punched it, trying to keep a straight face.

His toes actually hurt now. That was going to leave a bruise, probably. He continued along the corridor, stumbling and wobbling on his clumsy feet, until finally he reached the end and the girl sitting on the plastic chair. He recognised her as Penelope Turner, who was in the same year as him.

“What’s the password?” she asked, although she looked extremely confused.

“Pashword?” Tiger asked. “I don’t need no pashword!” He swung his fist in a clumsy blow he normally would have scorned.

Penelope, of course, dodged it without any difficulty whatsoever. She turned her head to the door behind her, opened it a crack, and called “Tiger Moon’s here! And… I think he’s drunk?”

Tiger forced open the door and stepped inside. “Die!” he shouted, stomping towards the nearest girl and drawing his sword.

For the next few minutes the scene resembled one from a comedy. Tiger stepped towards the girls clunkily and made half-hearted attacks which were all easily dodged. He fought the urge to burst out laughing.

Eventually the girls managed to organise themselves and he was surrounded by a wall of raised swords. Normally, facing these impossible odds, Tiger would take the sensible option and surrender, but being “drunk” he couldn’t do that. He charged towards one of the oldest girls there and was immediately hit by a Halting Spell, completely taking away his ability to move.

Well, that was stages one and two of the plan, “pretend to be drunk” and “get captured”, successful. Now all he had to do was spy. And hopefully not have to endure his sister’s evil gloating.

Ix watched with folded arms as Charlotte continued pouring the tequila into her very tall glass of margarita mix. "Lottie..."

"Why not?" Charlotte asked, turning to fill Ix's glass after she'd emptied half the bottle into her own. "I've seen you drink this stuff before, and it's not like you weigh that much more than me."

"No, but..." Ix bit her lip. "I mean, I would have preferred you start on cider or something..."

"It'll be fine," Charlotte said, handing Ix the glass and raising hers in a toast. "Come on, cheers—here's to my first time having alcohol as a human!"



"I looove you."

"Yes, Lottie... I love you too."

"I really love you!"

Ix sighed, but smiled as she wrapped an arm around her extremely giggly wife. "I really love you too."

Charlotte's eyes went wide and she pushed her glasses up her nose, leaning in as she put a hand on Ix's cheek. "Do you have a girlfriend?"

Ix bit back a laugh. "I'm married, actually."

Charlotte's smile immediately vanished and her lower lip quivered. "You are?"

"To you!" Ix said quickly. "I'm married to you—no, Lottie, hon, please, don't cry—"

Charlotte buried her face in her hands and began bawling. Ix rubbed her back uncomfortably for a moment before summoning a box of tissues to them, offering it to her sobbing wife.

"Next time," she said quietly, barely audible over Charlotte's crying, "we're sticking to butterbeer."