Pete didn’t think he was overdramatic, and certainly not endearing.  His little sister was endearing.  Girls were overdramatic.  Scowling at Nat, he wished he’d not said anything. Just posing the question reeked of weakness and sensitivity.  If he could take it back, he would.  Of course, the whole problem came down to girls.  Nat was right.  Yelling at girls was awful.  Such a thing took practice and mental somersaults to make himself forget that they were girls.  But if they couldn’t take it – if they couldn’t handle the same level of pressure as the boys – then they were just a weak spot on the team.  

“See, that’s why girls shouldn’t play Quidditch,” he said.  Pete threw another pebble, but he’d forgotten to charm it and it only disappeared into the darkness.  “They just don’t belong on the pitch with blokes.  It just makes all kinds of issues and crap to deal with.”  He couldn’t even yell at his players equally.  And he wouldn’t say this to Amber ever, but Pete would really love an opportunity to Beat with another bloke for once.  She just didn’t have the strength and it was tiring having to make up for that gap himself.  

The sparks from Nat’s pebble scattered around the floor of the stadium and Pete reached for another pebble, weighing it in his hand as Nat went on speaking.  

“Thanks . . . I think,” he said gruffly.  Nobody ever actually told him he was good at this.  Well, Lindsay said stuff like that all the time, but her opinion was biased and somehow less important than Nat’s on this matter.  “If I’m not tough, though, everybody just slacks off even more.  It feels like I have to push twice as hard as I actually expect them to work.”