Continued from below (Echo, Elly!) on Cascade Hall

Gil Idoya

July 08, 2006 9:05 PM

Continued from below (Echo, Elly!) by Gil Idoya

Gil blinked, his grin taking on a somewhat overwhelmed glaze - though, of course, as overwhelming as this crash course in Muggle technology was, he was absolutely fascinated by what Elly and Echo said. Something in Elly's speech had him perplexed, though. "Batteries?" he asked dubiously, glancing at her wrist watch. "We must not be thinking the same thing..." He'd only ever heard the word used to describe a beating, and was relatively certain that wasn't the context she meant it in.

Then Echo was off on the potions vs. chemicals bit again, and Gil was distracted from word choice by the other boy's excitement. His uncle Roderigo was a Muggleborn - a rare breed indeed within the circles the Idoyas traveled - and had described Muggle education once to Gil. Chemistry... he tried to remember.

"Yeah, I think it is. It's really difficult, though, especially when you get older. Most of my cousins are homeschooled," he explained, "so Leo and I sometimes listened in on their lessons, mostly from Tía Isadora; once, Alejandro nearly blew up the workshop just because he stirred widdershins instead of clockwise." Gil shuddered at the memory of being abruptly Portkeyed out of his bedroom in the middle of the night and onto their neighbor's ranch.

"I'm not so good at it, but Leo's brilliant with it; he's got that eye for detail." Gil frowned abruptly, wondering where his brother had gone and what he was doing, and whether Leo was as keen on the Ramirez girl as she seemed to be on him. \n\n

0 Gil Idoya Continued from below (Echo, Elly!) 0 Gil Idoya 1 5

Elly

July 09, 2006 5:13 PM

Well this is nice by Elly

“Batteries are a form of power,” Elly explained in response to Gil’s confusion. Then, without warning, they were back on cameras again, moving swiftly onto potions, one of the subjects Elly knew was taught at Sonora.

Elly had been looking forward to potions. As daunting as the whole magic concept was, potions, at least, seemed as though it would be familiar. From what she could gather, it was just mixing ingredients in the right order. Elly loved baking at home - in fact, for an eleven year old she was a pretty good cook –so the idea of mixing together ingredients for a whole lesson didn’t sound too bad at all.

However, Gil had said potions lessons were really difficult, and he was from a wizarding family, so he ought to know. Elly was about to ask more on the topic, but she thought she had seen Echo make a move as if to reply to Gil’s ‘home schooling’ reference, so she waited for him to speak first. Instead, she drained her goblet, knocking it over when she replaced it on the table. Turning a bit pink, she righted it again, and hoped that no-one would mention it. She really was quite clumsy.
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0 Elly Well this is nice 0 Elly 0 5

Echo Elms

July 12, 2006 11:59 PM

Yep, sure is. by Echo Elms

Echo had an awkward couple seconds where he couldn't decide if Elly was going to say something or not. Finally, he decided he had the floor. He had been going to say something more about potions, maybe ask more particularly about it, but what slipped out of his mouth was, "I'm homeschooled, too!"

"I mean, I'm not anymore, I guess," he clarified, though that much was pretty obvious, him being at Sonora and all, "Three, I think -- yeah, three years, now. Or, well, not now-now, but... yeah. Did you homeschool, too, or just your cousins?"\n\n

21 Echo Elms Yep, sure is. 93 Echo Elms 0 5

Gil Idoya

July 18, 2006 9:51 PM

Next thing you know, we'll be talking about the weather... by Gil Idoya

Gil smiled gratefully at Elly when she briefly explained the Muggle version of a battery. The explanation was rudimentary at best, though with the way he and Echo had gone off on photography, he couldn't fault her; he could just hear his mother gently reminding him that he had two ears and only one mouth for a reason. Then she upset her goblet, and Gil swallowed back a laugh; it wasn't meant cruelly, but he was afraid she'd think it was so. His little sister always got mad when he laughed at her, even if he was just truly amused. Instead he settled for winking conspiratorially at her, not sure whether she caught it or not.

Echo, at this point, was talking about his own home-based education. "Well, all younger witches and wizards get a basic education sort of like what Muggles get - you know, like grammar and spelling and math and stuff like that, only with basic charms and some really, really simple magical theory thrown in. Some places have grade schools just for magical children, but we're really out in the middle of nowhere. My uncles renovated the old barn into a sort of school, and all my cousins have to go from the age of four to the age of ten, and since some of our magical neighbors have young children, they come too. It's really a neat set-up," he said. "And Leo promised me that when he becomes patriarch, he'll give me the school - by then my aunts should be old and ready to retire, anyway."

He looked at Elly then. "So what about you? Did you go to a regular Muggle school? Is it really different from Sonora?" he asked. Honestly, the nonmagical world was just so fascinating!\n\n

0 Gil Idoya Next thing you know, we'll be talking about the weather... 0 Gil Idoya 0 5

Elly Eriksson

July 19, 2006 5:28 PM

Yes, the weather... very hot! by Elly Eriksson

OOC: Despite trying particularly hard not to discuss the weather, I just have to say that today was the hottest day on record in the UK since 1911!!! 39C (that's about 109f, I think) and it's my birthday! So I've spent the day lying in the sun eating ice-cream... anyway, back to the posting.

BIC:

Still a bit pink from the embarrassment of knocking over her goblet, Elly thought she saw Gil wink at her, but she wasn’t sure. Why would he be winking? Her grandfather used to wink at her all the time when he’d caught her being naughty. Perhaps Gil was doing the same thing because Elly had been clumsy with her goblet? Luckily, the moment passed so Elly didn’t have to worry about it, and she listened to Gil talking about how his magical family members were taught simple magic in a barn from the age of four. She had to bite her lip from blurting out how amazingly cool that would be, while simultaneously worrying whether being from a Muggle background would give her an disadvantage in lessons at Sonora.

"So what about you? Did you go to a regular Muggle school? Is it really different from Sonora?" Gil asked.

As usual, Elly had to mentally shake herself free from her reverie, so was a bit hesitant in answering. “Yes, I went to a Muggle school,” Elly said, amused by referring to her very average primary as a ‘Muggle school’, and talking especially fast to make up for her delay in answering. “Strictly non-magic and boring stuff like English, maths, science… P.E. was okay, and art because you could just mess around,” Elly laughed at herself. “I’m, not very good at paying attention and following rules.” She grinned, and gently slapped her own wrist in mock punishment.

“It’s not so different from Sonora in that there are teachers and classes and houses, and we all had to eat in a hall together. But no-one had a wand, and it wasn’t a boarding school, and, of course, the pictures didn’t move.” Elly smiled again. She was glad she’d decided to get up early for a change.

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0 Elly Eriksson Yes, the weather... very hot! 92 Elly Eriksson 0 5