The EEs have entered the library on Library

Echo Elms

October 20, 2006 11:26 AM

The EEs have entered the library by Echo Elms

OOC: Continued from Astronomy class.
IC:

"Uh, is there a, um, card catalogue or something?" Echo wondered as soon as he entered the library. What he was really looking for was a computer. He didn't know what a real card catalogue even looked like since his home library had gone to a digital search before he could even remember. Even if he found one, he wouldn't know what to do with it. He promptly decided to just wander around and look at everything.

He spotted some tables in an open area. "I'll meet you at one of those tables," he whispered to Elly, who had come with him from Astronomy. She was looking for something on Sticking Charms for a secret project that was tons more interesting than his desire to find a "Transfigurations for Dummies" equivalent.

He had no idea where he was going or where the Transfigurations sections was. Maybe he could ask someone along the way. In the meantime, this section on the goblin wars looked interesting.\n\n

21 Echo Elms The EEs have entered the library 93 Echo Elms 1 5

Elly Eriksson

October 21, 2006 8:15 AM

Mwahahahaha! (evil genius laugh) by Elly Eriksson

After their astronomy class together, Elly had followed Echo to the library. She hadn’t been to the library much in her time at Sonora so far, so it had seemed like as good a place as any other when Echo had suggested it. Besides, she did need to look up sticking charms for a little prank she had planned for her fellow Pecaris.

Since neither of them knew the library very well (if at all), Elly followed Echo’s wanderings around for a short while. He was looking for something to help with his transfiguration. Elly was aiming for charms books, but was presently idly reading the titles of the occasional spine or two as they passed the many heavily laden shelves. Some did spark her interest, but mostly they just reminded her about how little magic she actually knew.

“I’ll meet you at one of those tables,” Echo whispered. Elly looked up to see a cluster of small study tables in a bookcase-free section of the library.

“Okay,” Elly whispered back, nodding. She left Echo and set off to find the charms area. She passed many interesting areas, including a section all about dragons, and several shelves filled with sinister-looking books, which, upon closer inspection, seemed to be about brewing poisons.

Elly finally found the section that held books on charms. It was vast; there were hundreds of books. Elly swallowed. How on Earth was she supposed to find one charm amongst all these volumes? She began by flicking over the titles – ‘Charm your blues away – mood lifting charms’, ‘The authoritative guide to cleaning charms’, ‘Charms for beginners: Book 14’. Elly scoured the shelves, occasionally removing a book that looked promising.

A short while later, her arms filled with no less than seven assorted books, Elly made her way back to the tables where she was supposed to be meeting Echo. There were several other students there already, working quietly. Elly found an empty table and deposited the books. They hit the table with a loud BANG. Elly winced, hoping she hadn’t disturbed anyone.
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0 Elly Eriksson Mwahahahaha! (evil genius laugh) 92 Elly Eriksson 0 5

Echo Elms

October 21, 2006 3:07 PM

Arrrrrrrgh! (pirate, um, something) by Echo Elms

The Goblin Wars appeared the be in the last third of a history section. It reminded him of his dad's bookshelves, but instead of titles like Medicine of the Civil War and Travelling The Old West, it was Medical Charms of the 16th Century and A Half-Giant, an Auror, and a Hippogriff: How Nicholi Trevant Became The Magus of the Century. His dad would be fascinated.

He skipped a few rows and found himself in a section with glittering animated spines. Quidditch. He pulled The New Quidditch Dos and Don'ts down and flipped through a few pages. The bright billowing uniforms and waving hair, the competative bumping of brooms, the demonstration of the Wronski Feint... nice. He was taking this one with him.

A few more rows down he reached a wall, and still no transfigurations. Elly was in the next column of shelves and he started make his way to her to see how she faired and would have missed his row entirely if not for one enormous book that shouted, "TRANSFIGURATIONS" in thick gold embossing.

He was immediately dissapointed to see a lot of very serious looking bindings. No bright yellow and black paperbacked "Transfigurations for Dummies" here. Maybe transfigurations book printers had no sense of humor -- but that didn't explain titles like 700 ways to transfigure your mother-in-law, and how to get away with it. Echo pulled down several promising titles and found Elly at one of the study tables.

"How'd it go, Elle-belle?" Echo grinned and showed her one of the books he'd chosen, Elle-belle's Transfiguration Theory for Children by Elle-belle Erikdottiere. He slid into the seat across from her. "Did you write this one?"\n\n

21 Echo Elms Arrrrrrrgh! (pirate, um, something) 93 Echo Elms 0 5

Elly

October 23, 2006 2:53 PM

Miaow! (cute lil cat) by Elly

Echo shortly joined Elly at the table. “How’d it go, Elle-belle?” Echo said.

Elly looked up at him. “Elle-belle?” she repeated, somehow managing to simultaneously grin and wrinkle her nose. She looked at the book he was showing her, and understood the reason for the weird nickname.

“Did you write this one?”

Elly laughed, but stifled it quickly as it echoed round the otherwise quiet library. “Yeah, I wrote it when I was seven,” Elly said, rolling her eyes, but still smiling. She slid into her chair, inadvertently blocking her view of Echo with her pile of books. Elly shifted them so she could see her friend again, and selected the book from the top of the pile. It had a dusty purple cover with ‘Unusual charms for amateur witches and wizards: volume II’ emblazoned on the front in a bold metallic font, and a moving picture of a young, skinny wizard dancing with two stuffed elephants decorated the cover. Elly flicked it open to the first page and scanned the contents list. She sighed. “I’m going to be here all day,” she said to Echo, nodding towards the six other books stacked on the table. “Did you get what you were looking for?”
\n\n

0 Elly Miaow! (cute lil cat) 0 Elly 0 5

Echo Elms

October 23, 2006 4:33 PM

Ah-ah ee-ee (funny lil monkey) by Echo Elms

She smiled. Echo beamed. This had to have been his first conscious attempt at a joke ever -- well, a joke he made up. And it worked. Awesome. Getting Elly smiling and laughing, was like getting a kleptomaniac to steal.

With that interesting comparison in mind, he grinned down at the book again as Elly claimed authorship.

“I’m going to be here all day,” she said, apparently having other things to think of besides his newfound apparent cleverness. Good. Too much notice and he'd never have tried it again. Echo looked up to see her flipping through one of the books in her stack. "Did you get what you were looking for?"

"Uh," he snapped back into normal mode from whereever it was he'd been, and opened the book by Elle-Belle. Pulling his eyes away from Elly, he glanced through the introduction and looked up suddenly, "Hey, aren't sticking charms, I mean -- they'd be pretty normal, right? You'd think, anyway. Shouldn't they just be in a standard book of spells cause they're all practical and stuff."
\n\n

21 Echo Elms Ah-ah ee-ee (funny lil monkey) 93 Echo Elms 0 5

Elly

October 24, 2006 1:20 PM

Moo! (Buttercup the cow) by Elly

Echo didn’t reply to Elly’s inquiry about how his search went (unless Uh counted as a reply).

Elly had already been distracted by several fun-sounding charms listed in the contents, and was being very restrained not to go and look those up, too. She was just turning to page 238 (Section 8: Funny Fastenings and Fixtures), when Echo suddenly spoke:

"Hey, aren't sticking charms, I mean -- they'd be pretty normal, right? You'd think, anyway. Shouldn't they just be in a standard book of spells cause they're all practical and stuff."

Elly shrugged in response. “I’ve got some standard spellbooks here, too,” she said, indicating her collection with a flick of her hand. “I’ve already looked in our class text books though, and can’t find anything in there. Besides, these more unusual ones might give me ideas for future entertainment.” She smiled. If this little trick with the sticking charm proved successful, Elly would undoubtedly be trying more in the future.

Elly read the first few lines of page 238 and, deciding this particular book wouldn’t be useful in her current quest, Elly put it aside, creating a new pile for discarded titles. She picked up the next book from the stack – a cheerful paperback entitled ’Useful Household Charms’. She absent-mindedly played with one of her long orange ringlets as she skimmed over the contents list. There was even a self-folding charm for clothes - Elly made a mental note to return to that one later.
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0 Elly Moo! (Buttercup the cow) 0 Elly 0 5

Echo Elms

October 24, 2006 2:05 PM

Baa Baa (Black sheep). by Echo Elms

More pranks. In Echo's opinion, it was way too early to be thinking about that. The other kids would hate them pretty quick if this one didn't go over well, and there might be detention involved. Maybe he didn't want to help so much after this one.

The books he'd picked up looked almost promising on the shelf, but now they didn't seem too good. This one, the Elle Belle's Children's Guide, was too simple. When it said "Children" what it really meant was third graders. It only covered the first few paragraphs of the first chapter or so of their textbook.

The next book was Transfiguration Theory and it was the opposite. It was all scientific-looking line drawings and long convoluted sentences in some random difficult to read wizarding font. Echo pushed that one aside, too, after just a glance. Practical Transfigurations was the same way, but at least the writing was legible.

How to Succeed in Tranfigurations looked promising, but it turned out to be more about notetaking, report writing, and study skills than Transfigurations. Here was an interesting tip, "Look at the teacher when he or she is addressing the class." He made a "maybe" pile for that one.

"This one looks good," he whispered to Elly two books for the "definitely not" pile later. It was by R. S. Kingsbury, and titled My Mom Makes an Awesome Cat: Transfigurations for the rest of us. On the second page it had a cartoon featuring a kid transfiguring a woman into a cat and saying to an angry looking man, "But you always said mom was a pretty cool cat."

It had friendly looking diagrams, legible writing, and some humor thrown in to keep it interesting. This was the one.\n\n

21 Echo Elms Baa Baa (Black sheep). 93 Echo Elms 0 5

Elly

October 26, 2006 3:41 PM

Are we odd? by Elly

Elly continued sorting through her pile of books, making two smaller piles: one for books that might be useful, one for books that weren’t. The useful book pile contained three books, the last of which Elly placed in front of her. She looked up at Echo, to see how he was getting along.

”This one looks good,” Echo said.

“Great!” Elly grinned. “I’ve got three promising ones,” she whispered back, “they’ve each got different charms in so I want to try them all to see which one will work best.” The spells, although their incantations varied, all seemed suitable for the task of sticking things in place in the common room. Elly’s wand work wasn’t fabulous though, so she intended on trying them all and using the one she could accomplish most successfully.

Elly pulled her three books towards her and glanced around the library. “So where do we go to take these out, then?” she asked Echo, hoping he would know. “There’s a librarian around here somewhere, right?” Elly had heard mention of a librarian at Sonora, though she’d never met him, and most libraries tended to have a librarian anyway, so it seemed a safe assumption to make.
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0 Elly Are we odd? 0 Elly 0 5

Echo Elms

October 26, 2006 10:11 PM

Odd like crazy oddness. by Echo Elms

Librarian. Echo half stood and peered around the library, "There," he said, finding an official looking desk like thing, "maybe. Yeah."

He gathered up the books he wanted -- the Quidditch one and the cool transfigurations one -- and belatedly picked up his other stack too. Usually libraries had somewhere to put books for reshelving so things didn't get out of place.

He pushed his chair in with his knee, and approached what he assumed was the circulation desk.\n\n

21 Echo Elms Odd like crazy oddness. 93 Echo Elms 0 5

Elly

October 29, 2006 12:31 PM

I'm glad it's not just me who thinks so. by Elly

When Elly asked about where to go to check the books out of the library, Echo indicated a desk and headed towards it, carrying with him all his books – both wanted and unwanted. Elly picked up her three potentials and followed him. She left the other four books, the not so useful ones, on the table – she could always go and get them again if she needed to.

As Elly walked over to the librarian’s spot, she was thinking about when it would be best to try the sticking charm idea. Probably the end of tem was best, because then people would be in better moods and would be more likely to find it funny than irritating that everything in the common room was stuck down. Not the last day though, because people might need to move things to be able to take their stuff home. She thought that all the older students would be able to lift the charm if they wanted to, anyway, so she wasn’t really going to cause much trouble. She had loved playing jokes on her class in her last school, but now magic was available to her, Elly planned to explore pranking possibilities much further in her years at Sonora. She’d never do anything to hurt anyone, though. Not intentionally, anyway.\n\n

0 Elly I'm glad it's not just me who thinks so. 0 Elly 0 5