This is Toby's jam, ok? Basically performing in front of the class? He's so excited.
He would've read his excerpt with great enthusiasm, standing up from his desk and sort of ~taking on the role~ of Nicholas.
"Tuesday. It was a Tuesday. I will never forget that it was a Tuesday, or that the month was July, or the way that the sun beat down. It was a scorcher," Toby said, wiping the imaginary sweat from his brow, "and here I was, trapped in a land where a quick cooling charm was illegal and impossible. A schlumpy grandmother sat on the porch spilling out of her bikini, waving a hand-fan that she'd pulled from her bosom.
"The children, though, had a much more dangerous way of keeping cool," he continued. "They called it a Slippy Slide, which appeared to neither be a slide, nor very slippery. Rather than swimming -- for all muggles talk about witches being afraid of water, they certainly used as little water as possible -- they would go running towards a strange tarp with a hose attached to it, slamming themselves down on the concrete until they reached the end, at which point they'd reach a curtain with an alligator in it, and... that was it. That was their fun, their attempt at keeping cool.
"I was desperate, you see, and I was willing to try anything for a slight reprieve from the scorching sun. I ran, I jumped, I landed on the tarp... and broke at least two ribs when I smacked into the pavement. But the "fun" did not end there, oh no -- rather than gliding smoothly down the slide like the girl on the box, I hit every bump in the gravel, very tiny dent in the ground, and kept right on flying through the alligator curtain, on and on until I was no longer on the water-covered tarp, and instead was sliding across pure concrete.
"That would teach me to have a run in with barely-clothed muggles on a Tuesday in July."