Chapter 3
"Found anything interesting yet?" Rachelle asked Tiffany when the three girls were back in their room. Rachelle and Bita were packing as Tiffany sat on her bed reading (if you can call touching books for a second and retaining all of the information "reading") books about Hogwarts that Mr. Vilner had given them before dinner.
"Well…I don't know if I should tell you," Tiffany began slowly.
"What is it?" Bita asked worriedly. "Does Waffle Pudding go to Hogwarts?"
"No, worse. Since electronics are non-magical items…they're kind of…banned from Hogwarts. If you bring something electronic inside the school grounds it won't work," Tiffany said, sadly glancing over at her CD player, which was her most beloved item.
"Ugh. That's not fair," Rachelle said, matching Tiffany's depressed glance, as she looked over at her laptop which Mr. Vilner had kindly bought her last Christmas.
"Oh, that's ok," said Bita, looking cheerfully at the stuffed lemon that lay on her bed.
"Everything else is just kind of what you'd expect," Tiffany went on. "They – we – have classes like Transfiguration, History of Magic, Charms…stuff like that. The uniform is sets of robes; we have the weekends off, just like normal school…that's basically it…for now, anyways. I haven't read all of the books yet, but I think I should start packing."
"Wait a second…aren't we supposed to have textbooks and stuff? And what about the robes you mentioned? Where are we going to get those?" Rachelle asked.
As if on cue, Mr. Vilner walked swiftly through the door holding three bags.
"Here you go," he said, handing one bag to each of the girls. "I bought all of the things you will need a couple of weeks ago."
"A couple of weeks ago?" Rachelle asked, shocked. "Exactly how long have you been planning this?"
"For a while. I didn't want to scare you girls, so I didn't tell you about Zastrin until we had a plan set up for you," Mr. Vilner explained. "Oh, there's something I should tell you. About the wands…usually you're supposed to pick out your own. You get the best results that way. But, since results don't matter in your situation and we didn't have time to bring you to the wand shop, I picked them out for you. That means that you're going to have to work extra hard in your classes."
"Wait…isn't the wand shop in London?" Tiffany asked, remembering what she had read about Hogwarts school supplies.
"Yes…" Mr. Vilner said slowly.
"Well, how did you go all the way to London and back a couple of weeks ago without us noticing?" she continued.
"I sent a friend," said Mr. Vilner smoothly.
"But you just said that you picked out the wands for us," Tiffany pressed.
"You better hurry up and finish packing, you have a flight at midnight," Mr. Vilner said quickly over his shoulder as he left the room.
"He's acting weird…" Tiffany said.
"Yeah. But hey, he's Mr. Vilner," said Rachelle.
Tiffany said, "That's true…but he's still acting weird. Oh well."
The three girls finished packing and sat on their beds with fluttery stomachs as the time for them to go to the airport drew nearer and nearer.
Finally it was eleven o' clock and Mr. Vilner walked into the room and announced that was time for them to be going. They crowded into Mr. Vilner's car and started off to the downtown airport, where the plane that would bring them to their new lives was being prepared to take flight.
