Triora's Trial

III

That day at school for Tobia and Olivia went by pretty smoothly, as they all did after all; at this point the siblings had got used to how school worked in the ordinary world, and seeing that Sorcery School was ten times worse, they could not but be thankful for not having to step foot into it again.

Of course it wasn't always all fun and games at ordinary school either, but the twins soon figured out how to behave in that environment.

During the two-week break between their arrival to town and the beginning of the school year, the twins did some research about the habits and traditions of the Ordinary. They knew that if the magic world had decided to abandon them, they couldn't just keep wallowing in grief and regret, as their dad seemed to be doing. And since they didn't want to start off unprepared, especially at school, they came up with a list of Dos and Don'ts, based not only on theoretical research, but also direct experience from their first days in the new community:

DOs

· Get yourself the latest mobile phone. They do everything with that here.

· You can dress as you want. They have no restrictions on colour matching (just don't get carried away with the colours, you don't want to look like a parrot).

· You are allowed to have as much sugar as you want, even in your tea or coffee (Don't get carried away here either, it isn't properly the healthiest choice. And don't eat much of that before bed time, you might end up feeling too energetic to fall asleep).

· Young people can easily address older people without much formality.

· Bread is really good on this side of humanity, especially the one they make in the morning in little shops.

· People eat a lot of different things: it is ok to experiment with food.

· People like to ride bycicles, you might consider getting one.

· People often take public transportation, like buses and trains, but remember that you have to buy a ticket to get on one. Also, remember that it will be packed and possibly smelly, so take that into consideration.

· Another thing about public transport: you can smile at people sitting around you, but don't talk with everybody like you are a big family, apparently people don't like that and will get annoyed easily.

· Eat as much stracciatella ice-cream as you can. It's so good.

· It is ok to talk to cats. Surprisingly, the Ordinary do that as well and they don't consider that weird.

DON'Ts

· Don't befriend spiders and snakes among the Ordinary, they scare the hell out of them.

· Don't ask for Stramonium at the supermarket, they'll look at you like you're crazy.

· Don't take broomsticks that don't belong to you (apparently broomsticks are personal properties in the ordinary world, so if you take one that is not specifically yours, they would consider that as an act of stealing).

· Don't ask people for directions to the Divination Centre, they don't have that kind of building here.

· Don't recreate ghostly holograms in front of children, they will run away screaming (instead, you can try with animal holograms, but not minotaurs or hydras, go for unicorns or cute cats).

· Don't purify a public environment with either smudges, onyx or obsidian stones, the Ordinary will stare and think you're being weird.

· Don't ever, ever eat crickets in front of the Ordinary (not even fried), they will make you feel like you're the most disgusting person on Earth.