Story: Middle Part 12
[[Continuity Note: Alf is about to start magic training and is introducing us to his teacher.]]
and that therefore, she was younger than him. Despite what Mr Aldus had intended, it merely had them speculating about his own age. Them being the wider magical community within Sydney that mostly consisted of the Aldus family, with only a few more beyond that.
"Now," Aliana began on their first lesson. "I suppose you think these are going to be terribly boring lessons about magical history and all that stuff that isn't fun about when not to use your powers, and how not to use your powers."
Alf had one of those feelings as though the other person was reading his mind. He had almost resolved to wearing a foil hat like Foaly in the Artemis Fowl books. But he supposed that as well as making him look stupid, it would also not work and perhaps he'd be guarding against nothing. He really wished people would stop trying to read his mind. It's not as though anything particularly interesting went on in it.
As though sensing that her pupil was gone for the time being, Aliana sat patiently for a minute before clicking, causing a gigantic thunderclap to sound in the room. It shook Alf from his thoughts for the time being. "Sorry," he apologised.
"Now, Alf, paying attention is a very important skill to have, especially when you've completed your training and want to join the rest of magical society."
"What exactly do magical people do?"
"Oh, general overseeing of the populus. These days they mostly look after themselves, besides you know, global warming and global warring. You'll have the adults like me who teach people. Take my husband, he's basically given up magic and just become a dentist. Then there's my brother who basically watches Antarctica. I don't suppose it sounds very fascinating to you, either, which is why I always had the suspicion that he does something else with his time. Karen and her sisters are kind of nursemaids. Karen's official, non-magical occupation is as a midwife and she's proud to say that no baby has ever died on her watch. So really, there's a number of different things you could do."
Alf nodded, hoping that he'd end up being the sort of magic user of leisure that Dr Aldus was.
"Now, the history of magic is not all that important except as a learning tool so that we know what not to do. But today, I'm going to start you learning about magic. What is magic? What's it made of? They're probably questions you've thought, especially since you seem like the sort of kid that spends a lot of time looking through a microscope."
Alf was indignant. "I'm not that sort of kid. I like a good game of footy as much as the next bloke."
"Sure, sure. I was just saying. You have thought about that, haven't you?"
"Well, yes. But that's just because I'm an incredibly curious person."
"Of course," Aliana nodded. "Right." Using a finger, she beckoned to an unseen object, which landed in her hands moments later. "This is your teaching orb," she said, holding it up. It was a small blue sphere, about the size of a golf ball. "Catch," she said, throwing it at him.
And though Alf was eager to prove that he was as athletic as the non-geeky boy, he missed. Luckily it bounced harmlessly on the ground, despite the fact that it seemed like the sort of thing that would break.
"Be careful with that," Aliana commanded with a stern look on her face. Behind her oversized glasses, Alf felt that she was actually laughing at him.
"So what does it do?" Alf asked, rotating the globe slowly between his fingers, peering at it as though a specimen under a microscope that he claimed to have never used before.
"Well, it has two main functionalities. You can either ask it a question, like 'What's the date of the next full moon?'." She looked at Alf, as though encouraging him to try it out.
"When's the next full moon?" Alf paraphrased. It didn't glow briefly, but then an eerie voice spoke,
"The fifth day of the month of December." Alf looked at it wonderingly.
"Or you can ask it to go into encyclopaedia mode, and then it will just tell you things. For example, ask it to tell you about the witches' hand in World War II."
"Tell me what witches had to do with World War II," Alf paraphrased.
The orb began to speak in a slightly less robotic voice. The voice this time came out more full of character, and sounded quite a bit more female than male like the previous voice. "The role of female magic users, or more colloquially, witches in the second world war as defined by the non-magic users is one that is quite varied and complex. While no female magic user, or indeed, a single male magic user, participated in the active warfare as had been dictated by the current magical council, female magic users did play a large role. Haephesta Sigbjörnsson, the magical council spokesperson was the first to notice that the centre of the conflict arose from the suspicious intent of the German leader Adolf Hitler-"
"Pause," Aliana commanded after taking the ball from Alf.
"It's like Wikipedia for magical people," Alf commented.
Not quite sure what Wikipedia was, Aliana chose to ignore that comment. "So you see, Alf, you can pause it like so. Repeat." And the globe began again
"Haephesta Sigbjörnsson, the magical council spokesperson..."
"If you want it to go back farther than a sentence, you'll have to say Rewind, and Stop when you hear it come to the appropriate place. It's very much like a tape recorder."
"You can use all the same terms you'd use for one as well. Fast forward, louder, softer, slow down. I based the design on a CD player and some nons' learning tapes."
"Where does the information come from?" Alf asked.
"Why don't you ask it?" Aliana suggested, offering the ball back to Alf. "So that will be your homework for the week. Familiarise yourself with the globe, and specifically ask it about magic. I'm expecting you to be able to tell me what magic is, what it's made of, and what its primary purpose is by this time next Tuesday. And make sure that you don't let anyone else get a hold of it. No nons, anyway. I guess your parents are all right, but no one else. I haven't yet managed to work out how to key it to a specific magical person, or even magic itself so it will play for anyone. And we don't want nons finding out about us just yet. Not until at least the next council meeting, anyway."
"Do you really think they're going to vote for assimilation?" Alf asked.
Aliana shrugged. "It makes no difference to me. I don't remember the last time I spoke to a non."
"They might turn up at the house, though. It will be fairly obvious that this is the magical epicentre of this part of Sydney."
"Well, that's a question of what's to come in the future," Aliana stated. "And I don't like to delve too far into that." She winced slightly, as though having experienced the cons of seeing too far into the future.
"Thanks Aliana," Alf said as he left to find Jessica before he went home.
[[End scene.]]
posted by Cedric @ 3:43 pm
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