life is a cabaret [trudy]

Isis enquired about ghosts but instead of staying next to Trudy to wait for the other girl's response, the little Thunderbird already opened a chest. Trudy decided to answer anyway because the ghosts at Hogwarts were actually quite fascinating.

“Of course I have met a ghost,” Trudy said, looking at the other girl as she went through the clothes in the chest. “Haven't you?” She raised her eyebrows, wondering if there were no ghosts at Ilvermorny. “Each of our houses at Hogwarts has their 'own' ghost,” she explained. “They Grey Lady is the ghost of Ravenclaw and she's the founder's daughter, Helena Ravenclaw. Then we have one that is called Nearly Headless Nick, the Bloody Baron and the Fat Friar. There's also a poltergeist at school who is actually both funny and annoying.”

Seeing Isis try on some traditional African robes, Trudy frowned. “Ugh… yeah...” she replied with little conviction as Isis stated that she found the robes cool. Fortunately Isis seemed to have realised that the thing she tried on was not actually what they were looking for and held up something different.

“Hmm…” Trudy made, tilting her head to one side. “I think it is something that an old lady would have worn back in the days but… maybe we find something that looks like a thing that old people would wear these days. Possibly something in darker colours… You know, I don't think your average old people wear red and orange, at least not where I live. Well, my grandmother likes colours but… she's not average.” The girl had a smug smile on her face now. Her grandmother was the coolest grandmother ever in her opinion anyway. “Do they wear such bright colours in America?” The girl wasn't quite sure if something colourful wouldn't ruin the image they were going to create especially given that Isis did not look at all like an old woman.

Sitting back on her heels before standing up again, Isis' jaw dropped in amazement. "You have ghosts ...at school?" she asked, delight spreading across her face "That must be awesome...well, except for that Bloody Baron guy, he sounds kind of creepy...Wait! Is he like Baron Samedi? We learned about him in Voodoo magic class last year..." she paused and looked around, as if expecting someone to leap out on them at any moment before confiding in a lowered voice "Actually, he is kind of creepy!" She was about to say that The Grey Lady sounded like the sort of nice, friendly ghost who you could sit and pretend to drink iced tea with (presumably ghosts didn't drink tea, or maybe it just went straight through them?) but then her mind backtracked again.

"Nearly Headless?" she asked, fascinated, the word 'poltergeist' going right over her head for the moment simply because it was unfamiliar. She stood with wide eyes as she waited for the explanation on that one, and only when she understood (and shuddered a little) did she pull the Moroccan robes over her head and refolded them, putting them neatly back in the chest. Well, she thought they were pretty, anyway.

Isis was a bit disappointed that apprently they were going for a completely modern play, but she figured it didn't really matter. It would have been fun to wear something like her grandmother still kept in her closet back home, but on th other hand... "Yeah, I guess I should wear a dark cloak or something so I can hunch over and walk with my stick..." she mused "is there anything like that in your chest?" Isis meant to wait for an answer, she really did, but Trudy had a famous actress for a grandmother, and she couldn't resist adding "Grandmama Arceneaux loves bright colours! She wears oranges and purples all the time, and she likes to wrap her hair in a bright scarf when she's doing the housework too. Once her neighbor got a chizpurfle infestation and she said she needed the scarf so they didn't get in her hair..." Isis doubled up, giggling unhelpfully.

“Yes, yes, we do!” Trudy nodded and smiled when Isis commented on what she had just told her. “Hmm, I don't know. Who is Baron Samedi?” The girl sounded confused. “Voodoo magic? You're taught Voodoo magic?” Trudy sounded quite excited now. She knew that there were different kinds of magic and Voodoo magic sparked her interest given that it wasn't taught at Hogwarts.

“Oh yes, he has been kind of half beheaded,” Trudy explained. “The head is not entirely cut off. It's really kind of creepy,” the girl said frowning slightly. “But! He's a pretty friendly ghost. I like him. He's much chattier than our house ghost anyway.”

Trudy appreciated that Isis took her suggestions well. “Yes, I think it'll just work best for the story.” She had opened another chest in the meantime, finding rather shabby clothes in there that might work if they wanted to impersonate a homeless person. “Well… not exactly,” she responded. “I think, if you wanted to be a poor old woman these clothes might work.” She giggled and held up a ragged cloak in a dark grey colour.

It was a bit of a surprise to Trudy that Isis' grandmother also liked bright colours. Maybe her own grandmother was not quite as unique in this regard. She was still the best grandmother ever, or so Trudy thought at least. She, too, giggled, mostly because Isis giggling was infectious in a way.

"He's the head of the Guédé, and a giver of life" she said immediately, because that was the most important part she remembered from the class "but he's also a ruler of death, and he likes tobacco and rum, so only students who are overage are allowed to take part in his ceremonies. Last year we just learned who he was, the only ceremony we did was for Papa Legba" she explained. This made perfect sense to Isis, and the idea that other schools might not study communication with spirits, much less that she was talking about something that could be really dangerous if dabbled in without an experienced adult in charge, didn't occur to her. She just assumed that Trudy would know what she was talking about. Besides, it wasn't really that interesting, not to a girl who had grown up knowing it was just one of the magical things that made up her worlds. But ghosts, on the other hand...

"I wish I could come to Hogwarts" Isis said, and then, because she didn't want Trudy to think she wasn't happy with her own school, she added "for a visit, I mean. Like an exchange student, you know?" she shivered though, because a ghost who was half-beheaded...eww.

Isis went over to stand just behind Trudy as she looked in the next chest. The ragged grey cloak didn't look very inspiring, but on the other hand, if they were meant to be in a dark, scary haunted house... "May I try it?" she asked, reaching out to take the cloak Trudy was holding up. Wrapping it around her shoulders, she attemped the 'old lady walk' again, though this time the effect was slightly lost because she had to pretend she was holding a walking stick having left her tree branch behind at the lake. "What do you think?" she asked "I mean, if we can find one that's a bit nicer than this, but... then if it was dark in the house, maybe you wouldn't see the old lady and we could bump into each other and act real scared...that would make people laugh, right?"

All the same, Isis hoped they could find a nicer cloak than this. She didn't want to complain, but it smelt like a family of mice had been nesting in it for several years.

Trudy looked at the other girl feeling somewhat confused. She had no idea what Isis was talking about. She wondered briefly if she wanted to enquire further but figured that this would mean just a longer distraction from what they were actually here to do. “You seem to cover quite different things at school,” was, therefore, the only thing the Ravenclaw said.

“That would be cool indeed. I'd love to come to Ilvermorny as an exchange student,” Trudy said, nodding as if to underline what she said. “Is this a possibility though?” She added, frowning slightly. They wouldn't even have a language barrier to overcome. While some words were different, Trudy figured she'd get along fairly well if she spent a year in America. Then again she'd miss her friends if they wouldn't come as well. At least she'd have Edna though. The plushy was always there to comfort her and that was a relief.

“Of course!” Trudy said at once, handing over the ragged cloak. “Hmm,” she made as she watched Isis. “I think we should find something for an old lady… but if there's no such thing this could be our back up plan.”

Isis' suggestion wasn't exactly anything Trudy found very funny or good for that matter.  What was the worst about it was that the Hogwarts student didn't see how they could actually play it out. “Yeah,” she said slowly, “but if it isn't dark it would look odd and if somehow we manage to make it dark the audience won't see it...” While Trudy truly enjoyed Isis' company and her enthusiasm, she found some of the other girl's suggestions not quite so convincing and it was hardly a pleasure to tell her this.

Trudy moved on to a smaller chest and pulled out a black dress that was probably meant to be a short and tight one but given that both girls were not fully grown yet, it looked like a long and flowing dress as she held it up. “How do you like this one?” she asked, hoping that they'd figure out the costumes soon so they could move on.

"So do you actually study the ghosts, or do they just live at Hogwarts?" Isis asked next. It seemed to her that the two schools had a lot of differences, though she had cheerfully assumed that her rather vague explanation of voodoo magic (for which, it has to be said, she hadn't achieved a top grade) had made perfect sense to Trudy. Nor did she have any idea about exchange students. There certainly hadn't been any at Ilvermorny last year, but that didn't mean it wasn't possible. To Isis, anything was possible if you just believed in yourself and worked hard enough.*

"I don't know" she admitted "maybe not for a whole semester, but maybe a month or something? I mean, I'd love to learn how another school works, but I wouldn't want to miss too much work while I was gone, you know?"

She didn't even notice Trudy's reluctance at her latest idea. As far as the Thunderbird was concerned, she was just throwing out possible ideas. Some of them would get accepted, and some wouldn't and this was just one of the ones that wasn't going to work for whatever reason. It was fine. "Okay!" she said agreeably, watching the other girl examining a dress that had probably been fashionable 10 years ago but just had far too puffy sleeves to work today. As a costume, though..."for me?" she asked, nodding thoughtfully. She took the dress and held it up against herself. It looked like it would fit, and... "Should I wear the cloak over the top, do you think?" she mused, looking around for somewhere she could change to see how it fit.

"Give me a minute!" she exclaimed, seeing a curtain that seemed to partition off part of the room. Probably it was something to do with when this place was used as a theatre, but it would do for now. She skipped behind it, quickly unbuttoned the top of her dungaree shorts and pulled the dress over her head. It wasn't a great fit, but it seemed to work, and... "Oh!" she'd just spotted a rail of hanging items that hadn't been immediately obvious to the girls, partially concealed as it was behind the curtain. Here there was a better cloak, lightweight but navy blue, and she pulled that around her shoulders too.

"What do you think? There's other dresses round there, you might find..." Here she dissolved into giggles, for Isis had neglected to remove her dungarees, and at this point they slithered down her legs under her dress to land unceremoniously around her ankles.

[ooc: *I'm sorry. She's so enthusiastic she exhausts me xD]

“They just live there, but oh!” Trudy realised she had forgotten about one particular ghost that would clearly fascinate Isis. “One of the ghosts actually teaches History of Magic! Professor Binns. He knows a lot about history, obviously. His lessons are not exactly exciting though. I've heard he died in the staff room and woke up as a ghost and just went on with his schedule, teaching students even though he had died.”

Trudy nodded, agreeing fully with what Isis said for the first time in a while. “Oh yes, I'd love to go to Ilvermorny for a month to get to know the differences. It would be so great if that was possible.” The girl smiled dreamily, imagining herself going to a different school for a while just to learn more interesting and new things. Overall, though, Trudy was still pretty sure that Hogwarts was the best school.

“Yes, for you,” Trudy confirmed handing the dress to Isis. “I think that dress would work without the cloak actually,” she mused.

She watched as Isis disappeared behind a curtain, waiting a little impatiently until she came back. As Isis appeared and asked Trudy for her opinion and both girls burst into giggles as Isis' dungarees fell down to her ankles. “I...” Trudy began, now laughing loudly, “I… I think this is maybe not a great old woman look,” she said holding her tummy because it hurt from laughing.

When she managed to calm a bit again, she looked at Isis critically. “Well, the dungarees aside I think it's a good outfit,” she said. “What do you think I should wear?”

"Really?" Isis' voice went up almost a whole octave, so excited was she at the prospect of a ghost teacher. But then, it seemed that perhaps it wasn't so exciting after all. History was cool, but you needed a good professor to really bring it to life and make it sound interesting, and aghost wasn't exactly...well. lively. She still liked the idea of trying a lesson or two like that, though. And she very much liked the idea of being an exchange student, but she'd belatedly realised that if she and Trudy were both exchange students, they wouldn't be able to see each other, and that would be disappointing. She thought of something else, though, but while they were in the middle of picking costumes she wans't going to say anything.

Especially not with dungarees around her ankles! She steppd out of them with as much dignity as she could muster (which wasn't much, considering she was still giggling) and picked them up, folding and putting them over her arm. She was rather glad to discard the bad-smelling cloak, which she put on the top of the nearest of the chests she'd been looking in. Somewhere nearby she could hear the sound of voices, which probably meant that someone else was coming in to look at the costumes. She turned back and looked at the rack, finding a couple of regular dresses that looked as though they might meet with Trudy's approval. One was a blue gingham design, the other looked like it had been based in a QUidditch uniform and then turned into a dress, and was mostly green and white. She brought them both out and help them up quizzically.

"Would either of these work?" she asked hopefully, and then because she couldn't hold back her earlier thought any longer, "Uh, Trudy...would you want to be penpals when we go back to school?" She asked the question casually, trying to make it sound like it was just another of her ideas and it didn't really matter whether the other girl said yes or no.

“Yeah, really,” Trudy confirmed. She assumed that this must sound entirely weird to someone who had never really seen a ghost. The Ravenclaw had been amazed by the ghosts at Hogwarts in her first few weeks at the school as well. However, already after like two months she had got so used to them that she almost forgot that they were special to some.

Isis made costume suggestions for Trudy now and the girl looked at them, tilting her head to the side thoughtfully. “Hmmmm,” she made, “I think that green and white is really cool but I guess the other one might work better for our purpose?” She chewed on her lip and wondered if there wasn't a better costume somewhere out there.

She approached Isis now, takng the gingham design dress and held it in front of herself, opting for a sweet smile. “How do I look,” she said in a very sing sang voice. “I think I'll need plaited pigtails to  look younger than I am. I think that might be good or not?” Although Trudy had been rather bossy so far, feeling a little superior because of her acting experience with her grandmother, she was now a little uncertain.

“Penpals?” Trudy asked, caught by surprise by this sudden question. “Oh yes! That would be great!” The girl smiled at her new friend and nodded. “That's a good idea. I'd like that very much.”

Isis had the thought that perhaps her costume suggestions weren't quite what Trudy had in mind as she held them up. She was on the verge of suggesting she could go and look for something else when Trudy said the blue one might work. "Okay!" she said, handing the dress over and returning the other one to where she'd found it. She looked at the other girl thoughtfully. The dress was indeed something that a younger girl might wear, and she grinned at the suggestion of pigtails.

"That would look awesome!" she agreed "Maybe we can find some blue ribbons to tie them with as well...oh, wait! I've got some clips in my room, I could go fetch those later if you like?" Isis had brought a whole bunch of accessories, from clips and ties for her hair to necklaces and pins to brighten up her outfits, and she was quite happy to share them if it would make their costumes look better. She thought about closing the chests they'd been looking in, but at that moment a couple of older kids appeared at the door.

She didn't say anything about that though, because Trudy had said they could be penpals, and she was seized with a sudden urge to hug her new friend. She didn't instead doing a little impromptu dance step on the spot and beaming with joy. "You would? That'll be almost like going to another school! I'll tell you everything that happens at Ilvermorny, I promise!" she said, and then, because the other students clearly wanted to look at costumes, she decided they should talk more about that later and swap addresses then.

"Have we got everything we need?" she asked, ready to head back to the lake and work on their play, still wearing the long black dress.

Trudy smiled as Isis agreed with her idea of the pigtails in combination with the dress. "Oh!" she exclaimed, "blue ribbons would be so nice! Clips would do too. You could fetch them later if we have time, if not we'll just improvise. It doesn't matter that much, I guess." Trudy would like a perfect outfit but her grandmother had told her that while a proper stage setting and costumes were needed to give a perfect impression it was still most important to have a good story line and they were still far from having anything properly fleshed out.

Other students were now joining them and probably eager to look at the chests themselves. Briefly Trudy wondered if she should peek a look into the last one that they hadn't opened yet just in case there'd be the perfect costume but it did not feel quite right, to hurry there to beat the other students to this.

Nodding excitedly, Trudy listened to Isis as she expressed her enthusiasm for the penpal idea. "Of course I would!" she responded, smiling widely. "It'll be amazing to compare the two schools if we both share everything about our school. I'm so interested in hearing more about your classes and the houses at Ilvermorny," she explained. 

"Well yes, I think this should do. Unless we'd find a proper walking stick for you... or a dog lead!" She looked around hurriedly and found a rope that lay on the floor next to the chest she had last examined. "We could take this... just in case," she muttered, picking the rope up. It was not exactly a dog lead but maybe they could implement it in a way when they expanded on their story idea.

"If you have no idea what else we could need from here we should probably head back to the lake," the Ravenclaw said. "I cannot think of anything else at the moment at least."

As soon as Trudy said she liked the idea Isis determined that she would definitely have time to fetch some hair accessories later. Even if she had to run all the way there and back, she was going to make sure her friend had everything she needed for their play.

Her friend! Trudy was really her friend now! They were going to write to each other and Isis was going to get to hear all about what it was like at Hogwarts, where there were ghosts and...it suddenly occurred to her that she could send Trudy something for Friendship day! Did they celebrate that at Hogwarts, or was that just something that happened in the US? Well, she'd find out soon enough...and she wasn't going to say anything about it yet because she wanted it to be a surprise later. "Me too!" she exclaimed "I told you I'm a Thunderbird, right? Do you know what that is, or don't they have them in England...uh, Scotland?"

Of course, because they were chattering about all manner of things and both excited, Isis wasn't completely confused at the mention of a dog lead, but as soon as she saw what Trudy was holding... "Perfect! And don't worry about the walking stick, my tree branch is mighty fine" she said, using one of her favourite expressions. She had her dress...well, she was wearing her dress and holding her dungarees; they had the dog lead and Trudy has a dress too...

"Sure, lets go back! Do you want to race again..?" she sounded just slightly reluctant, not because she didn't want to run - Isis always wanted to run - but because now she was less distracted she realised her hands were stinging from where she'd crashed into the wall a little earlier. She wasn't going to tell Trudy though, in case her friend wanted her to get medical treatment. They had much more important things to do!

"A thunderbird," Trudy repeated, wondering if Isis meant if there were the magical creatures in Britain or if she was referring to the houses. "I know what a thunderbird is. Well, at least I've heard about the magical creature. My mother is a magizoologist, you know." She said importantly. The girl thought that her mother's job was pretty amazing and she was proud of having such a cool mother. She loved to ask her about creatures and listen to her stories. However, she had no idea what was typical for a thunderbird student at Ilvermorny.

"I don't really know anything about the houses you have at Ilvermorny," she, therefore, admitted. "Our houses are Ravenclaw, that's my house, Gryffindor, Hufflepuff and Slytherin. They are named after the founders at Hogwarts. Are all your houses named after magical creatures from your area?" She was curious to hear the answer. It was, after all, also possible that the founder of Ilvermorny had been a Theodore Thunderbird.

Trudy nodded. Yes, the branch was okay as a walking stick but okay wasn't perfect. For their play Trudy would absolutely prefer perfect to okay but given that there wasn't much time left to prepare everything she figured that okay was as good as it got.

Isis asked if they should run back to the lake and Trudy wasn't quite sure. She shrugged indifferently, having picked up on the slight reluctance in her friend's voice but interpreting it differently. "I think we could as well walk back before you stumble in your long dress," she said, smiling. "Let's go."

"She is? That's awesome! Did she have to go to a special school after she'd finished at Hogwarts?" Isis asked excitedly. She had no idea what she wanted to do when she grew up, though over the past couple of years had considered dancer, professor, healer, President of MACUSA, Quodpot champion and clabbert breeder. But Trudy had such an amazing family! Her grandmother was an actress, and her Mom knew all about magical creatures. She suddenly hoped that Trudy didn't ask what her parents did. It wasn't that she was ashamed of it or anything - they had good honest jobs and Isis had never gone short of anything. But seamstress and janitor didn't sound exciting, even though people came from three states away to buy Mom's quilts. It was okay though, because she'd got a lot else she could talk about.

"Ravenclaw sounds the coolest" she said, not just because it was Trudy's house. Slytherin sounded silly, like a snake with a lisp...she almost giggled. "Yeah, that's right. There's Thunderbird, Horned Serpent, Wampus and Pukwudgie. Magical creatures, though I've only seen pukwudgies of course. You know what they all are, I guess?" she asked, because if Trudy knew what a thunderbird was, she probably knew the others as well.

They were outside by now and isis squinted a little as her eyes readjusted to the bright sunshine. "Okay" she said agreeably, thinking that she wasn't going to trip over the dress, though they walked at a fast pace all the same. A few steps and she did, indeed, catch her foot on the hem and stumble, just as Trudy had predicted, so she turned it into a twirling dance step, spinning around and then having to drop her dungarees in order to lift the long skirt so she didn't trip on it again.

"Oops!" she exclaimed, picking up the dungarees again and now holding the hem of the dress up so there was no danger of tripping again. Actually this was going to be perfect for pretending to be an old lady, because she would have to walk slowly unless she wanted to fall over! Once they got back to the lake, she dropped the dungarees on a convenient boulder and reclaimed her 'walking stick'. "Okay, where should I be to begin with?" she asked.

“Yeah, it is,” Trudy agreed. Her mother's job was so great. “She has travelled a lot to find creatures and study them,” she explained. “She still occasionally goes away for weeks to observe some species. Usually she now does it when I'm at Hogwarts and not during the holidays when I'm home.”

Trudy did not even consider asking Isis about her parents now. The thought just did not occur to her. They had only got to the topic because of the Ilvermorny houses and the other school was clearly fascinating.

“Ravenclaw is great,” Trudy agreed, “Gryffindor is pretty cool though, too. I would have been fine being sorted into that house as well. Did you have preferences? Did you expect to be a Thunderbird?” Isis had told her about the other Ilvermorny houses' names and she nodded. She would not be able to write an essay about the creature Isis mentioned but she vaguely knew about them. “Yeah, I've heard about the creatures,” she, therefore, said, deciding she didn't have to admit that she didn't have extensive knowledge on them.

As they walked down to the lake again, Isis stumbled over the long dress as Trudy had suspected already. She didn't comment though. It was far more important to work on the play. Truth be told, the Ravenclaw thought that they'd still have plenty of work to do. Fortunately Isis seemed eager to get on with the play as well.

“Hmm…” Trudy made, realising that they had forgotten the material for the hut. “Ugh… we didn't look for bedsheets or something else to somehow create a hut.” She said, feeling rather annoyed. “We'd need something though. Or… do you think if we are performing there's a stage setting that we could use? Did you see anything there?”