life is a cabaret [trudy]

Isis had been looking forward to the first performance seminar ever since she had read the list of activities. The fact that she didn't really know many people didn't worry her at all, nor that she was one of the youngest. She just couldn't wait to dance...and maybe sing...or act. Whatever. Wearing one of her favourite outfits the one she called her Fourth of July ensemble because that sounded cool and grown up, she looked eagerly around the rest of the participants.

There was almost nobody she recognised. A couple of sixth years who she knew by sight but had never spoken to, who clearly knew each other and had decided to work together. The boy who had fallen off his broom during the Quodpot tournament and claimed he was okay and could carry on when clearly he had a concussion. Oh! The girl from the campfire, who had made up the cool story about the haunted house! Isis couldn't remember her name, but she knew the girl was good at acting. That's who I'm gonna work with she told herself firmly, even as the instructor was still introducing herself.

Isis shifted position where she was seated on the grass under the big marquee. It was nice and cool under here, and she briefly wondered if they used the same spell as Mom used in their house during the summer. Only for a moment though, because she was eager to hear what they would be doing. She leaned forward, chin cradled in both hands and absorbed the word. Work in pairs...a dance, song or play...her eyes sparkled at the prospect, but...what if the girl from the campfire already had someone to work with? Would she be able to find someone else or was she going to be that tragic kid who became the third member of a group that didn't really want her there?

As soon as she heard the magic words "It's time to pair up and discuss what you want do to" she leapt to her feet, heart pounding. She had intended to walk over to the other girl, a smile on her face, and suggest they work together. But now the time had come her usual courage seemed to have taken a sudden vacation, and she hesitated. All around her, kids were chattering and pairing off, and it spurred her into action, almost running over to the other girl. Her mouth seemed to take control before her brain had decided what to say.

"Hi! Great story the other...uh, I mean, I  wonder if you, uh, might like to make up a play with me? Or, y'know, a dance..?" she grinned nervously, knowing she had just sounded completely mad.

@Wiltrud Wagner

Ever since she had received her Hogwarts letter about a year ago Trudy felt that her life had become the most exciting life ever. The magical world had so much in store for her (and every other magical kid, of course) that she could hardly decide what was the best thing about it.

Now the summer camp was basically for witches and wizards but without magic. It had sounded odd at first but now the girl found nothing wrong with the lack of magical classes. She knew a fair bit about the muggle world due to having a muggle grandmother whom she adored. In fact, now that she was at the camp she wrote frequently to her grandmother telling her of all the new acquaintances she made, the fun activities she took part in and everything else that the little girl deemed worth sharing.

She had already yesterday written to her grandmother that she'd take part in a performance seminar and even though she had no reply yet – how could she anyway? –  the girl knew deep inside that her grandmother was delighted that she took part in this. After all, Cordelia was a stage actress and had taught Trudy quite a bit about performing arts.

The girl was scribbling down notes in her diary as she listened to the instructions not really bothering to check who else was participating yet. Then, however, they were told to team up and Trudy got to her feet looking around in the mass of taller students to find someone who was around her age.

The little American from the campfire night approached her and Trudy beamed at her. “Hey!” she exclaimed brightly, “it's Isis, right? I'm Trudy,” she wasn't sure if the other girl remembered her name from the other night but felt it would be less awkward to introduce herself again rather than them having to wonder how the other one was called.

“Thank you!” she squeaked in delight. “You liked it? Really? You story was really good too!”

She paused to think about what they could. “Yes, let's team up. I'd personally love to do a play. My grandma is an actress, you know.” She nodded proudly. Looking around she saw that some of the others were spreading out to find a more quiet place to work on their performance and Trudy thought that that was sensible. “We could maybe go down to the lake or to some other place to work out an idea,” she suggested.

Half of Isis feared she was about to be told to get lost. The other asked why wouldn't someone want to work with her? It was only for this one class, not for the entire summer. Even so, there was still the jittery feeling in her stomach for the brief seconds before she got an enthusiastic reply - thankfully including the other girl's name, which she hadn't been certain of. Her grin broke into a full-on smile of delight that she had someone to work with - someone who actually wanted to work with her, not just someone she randomly got paired with by a professor.

"Yeah, Isis Arceneaux" she confirmed "Oh, it was awesome! I loved the part where the girl got her Hogwarts letter...you go to Hogwarts, right? What's it like there?" Isis didn't really think about the vastness of what she was asking. She just wanted to hear about what kind of classes they had, and whether the British kids had houses as well. There was no way it could be as good as Livermorny, but she decided to keep that knowledge to herself. In the interests of international relations, of course.

Her heart sank just the tiniest bit, having hoped that Trudy would say she wanted to perform a dance, but her next words were even more exciting. "An actress? That's awesome! Does she act in theatres or has she been on the radio or..." Isis had a fascinating thought that slipped out before she could prevent it "...is she a No-Maj? Has she been in a uh - movie?" Her eyes sparkled with excitement at the thought. The girl had never seen a movie, but she'd seen the huge posters with titles and pictures of actors on them, and she knew they were really famous in the No-maj world. The idea that she might actually meet the granddaughter of a person on one of those posters was...wow!

"Okay, that works for me" she agreed, immediately turning in the direction of the lake as Trudy had suggested. Then another idea struck her. "Hey, what about we make a play about one of the ghost stories?" she suggested hopefully.

Trudy nodded eagerly. “Yes, I go to Hogwarts,” she was proud of being a Hogwarts student but then again she knew very little about the other schools except for the names of the big ones and could not really compare them and say which was the best school. “It's a great school! I love it there.” She paused and tilted her head to the side a little.

“I suppose all magic schools are great though. You go to Ilvermorny? Do you have different houses too? Is there a lot of rivalry going on?” She beamed at the other girl and forced herself to stop asking more questions as to not to overwhelm the other girl. They'd get plenty of chances to talk about their schools later, or so Trudy hoped at least.

“Yes!” Trudy exclaimed brightly. “My grandma plays in theatres, mostly. She has done a film too once though.” She paused, frowning slightly. “What is a no-maj?” Having never head the term, Trudy was confused for a brief moment. “Do you maybe mean a muggle? For she is a muggle! My mother is a muggleborn...” The girl wasn't quite sure why she shared this information. From what her mother had told her not everybody was fond of muggleborns, hence mentioning this blood status might not be the best idea. However, Trudy felt that Isis would hardly judge her because of it given the way she had reacted to the revelation that Trudy's grandma was an actress.

She smiled at the other girl as Isis agreed to go down to the lake. It was a nice place and they'd be able to work on their play practically undisturbed. Her smile turned into a slight frown as Isis suggested that they could turn one of the ghost stories into a play. They could, of course, do that, but Trudy wondered if they had a lot of potential to be used for that. “Hmm,” she made, a little of her euphoria fading, “no matter what we do – we need to remember that we are just a duo. I mean, it might be fun to slip into different roles but we cannot make anything with a scene in which more than two characters are present...” She left it at that, hoping that Isis would agree with her. A slight smile spread across her face as she wondered if they could include Edna. It could be a bit of a comedy… However, she had no real plot idea yet and kept the thought to herself for now.

As she'd expected. Everyone was going to think their own school was the best. Well, that was fine by Isis, she wasn't going to contradict anyone, just tell them how amazing her school was! "Yes, Ilvermorny! I'm a Thunderbird...we've got four houses, and..." she broken off, surprised. "Rivalry? You mean between the houses? Is that what happens at Hogwarts?" she thought about that for a moment , and then asked "Don't you have a house cup? We have one we have to fill with cranberries, and if we win, we get a party at the end of the year. How could we fill it if we weren't working together?" her voice was genuinely curious, as if the idea of competition had never occurred to her. It had, of course - she'd watched enough quodpot games to enjoy cheering for her own house, but to compete for points was a new concept.

Her thoughts shifted to the grandmother who was an actress, and another difference revealed itself. "I...guess so? Someone who doesn't have any magic, right?" she asked uncertainly. She hadn't realised there would be different words for such simple terms. "I only know my real grandparents on my Dad's side" she added thoughtfully "but Mom's a pureblood, so I guess we don't have any, uh, muggles in our family" Isis shrugged and mae a little grimace, as if having grown up in an entirely magical family was something to apologise for. Truth be told, as excited as she was to be working with Trudy, she hoped her acting skills were good enough.

Besides, they didn't really have any plans for what to do yet. "Yeah...unless...no, that wouldn't work..." she said thoughtfully, and then realising that she hadn't made any sense, explained, giggling "I was going to ask if you knew a spell to make it sound like your voice was coming from another place, and then I remembered that we don't have our wands anyway. We can play different characters, though. Just...like you say, only two of them can be in each scene. So, if we started outside the haunted house, we'd have to be just two people talking about the dare...hmm..." she wondered whether that was going to work and how they could make it appear scary if their audience would need to imagine a ghost.

Trudy listened to Isis' description of her school with quite some interest. It sounded pretty much like Hogwarts and she wondered if the house cup was really less of a competition at the other school or if it was just Isis' perception. It was not that Trudy herself was fighting for points for her house and competing against others. She wanted her house to win the house cup for sure but maybe it was really just a matter of the point of view if one called it a rivalry or not.

“Well, yes, we do have a house cup, too,” Trudy explained. “At the end of term feast the winner of the house cup is announced and the Great Hall is decorated in the house's colours. Everybody naturally wants their house to win.” She shrugged, “I guess that's also part of the concept, isn't it? I mean, if you have some sort of competition nobody wants to lose.”

A no-maj was apparently indeed another term for muggle. Trudy meant a mental note to write that to her grandmother. She told her everything anyway and she assumed that she'd be delighted to hear that in America people like her would be called no-majs. “Yes, a person who cannot perform magic,” the Ravenclaw confirmed. She was surprised that Isis seemed to apologise for her mother's pureblood family. To Trudy blood status didn't matter either way. She did not judge people by things like that.

As Isis thought about their play some more, not really sharing all that she was thinking – at least that was what Trudy assumed as the things she voiced did not seem to make any sense whatsoever, the Hogwarts student observed her curiously. Fortunately the American seemed to get that she was not exactly coherent and added some more thoughts. “Yeah...” Trudy said and nodded thoughtfully. “we cannot really create a whole play anyway, I guess. I mean do not have a lot of time to prepare it so we should probably create one closed scene that is for two and, well, is entertaining in a way. Either terrifying or funny or… well, you wanted a ghost story, right? We could pretend there was a ghost that nobody can see… that way we'd have an imaginary third character.” She looked at Isis curiously now, waiting for the other girl's reaction to her thoughts.

“Oh, the decorations sound cool!” Isis admitted. It would be kind of nice, seeing the school decorated in a single colour, like the Christmas trees she'd seen in no-maj department stores. But then three quarters of people would feel left out...maybe they should just cycle through the colours in order - red one year, blue the next and so on. That could work! Isis nodded, figuring that Trudy's school probably wasn't so different from her own. They all got the feast at the end of the year, no matter who had got the most cranberries. Same kind of thing.

Satisfied, particularly now she'd learned a new word (she was going to enjoy telling her friends what a muggle was when they were back at school) the girl turned her attention to the play. That wasn't a competition either, not really, but as they were among the youngest kids here Isis felt as if they had to try and make something a bit special. Right now she didn't really have many ideas beyond the ghost idea, and how where they going to do that so it didn't look like 2 kids just talking about something nobody else could see?

But Trudy had clearly learned a few things from her famous grandmother. Isis eyes widened and she gasped with delight at the suggestion. “That's it!” she exclaimed, clicking her fingers for emphasis “Oh, boy, this is going to be awesome...wait...what if one of us can see the ghost to begin with but the other can't? I guess...well, I guess you're a better actor than me, so maybe you should see it first, and you're saying what it's doing, and I'm saying Huh? What are you talking about? Come on... and I drag you further into the haunted house...” she said all this very fast, and was a little out of breath when she stopped, looking at Trudy hopefully. “What do you think?”

“Yes...” Trudy said thoughtfully. “Yes, I think that could work.” They had reached the lake now and  the little Ravenclaw stared onto the still surface that was mirroring the blue sky with its small white clouds. It looked beautifully and perfect. Just like a painting.

“Well, what exactly do we want to say with our story? So we have the two of us… shall we play two girls or… find roles that more are different from who we are? Then we have the imaginary ghost. We need a plot and a stage setting. Maybe we could set up a little hut?” The girl chewed on her lip, thinking further about what they could do.

“Do we want to make a scary ghost story or rather make it an amusing one? I think as the spectators cannot see the ghost either we could actually try and make it funny in a way. Hmmm...” Trudy looked at the other girl curiously. Isis was nicely enthusiastic but Trudy doubted that they'd get anywhere if she didn't take the initiative herself. She didn't mind that at all. This was, after all, her kind of thing. She liked to make up stories and play different roles. However, teamwork meant that she had to check with Isis at least. She could hardly make decisions the other girl did not approve of. They would hardly give a convincing performance then and she clearly didn't want to embarrass herself and her new friend.

“We might also need some sort of costumes,” she mused. “Maybe we could set the story in a different time...”

Isis was impressed with how much Trudy knew about acting. Of course, with a famous grandmother it wasn't surprising at all, but she was asking the sort of questions that the young Thunderbird would never have thought of. If Isis had been in charge, they woud have ended up running around in the trees while one of them wore a sheet and the other screamed. This was...this was something you won awards for!

A big smile lit up her face as she considered the idea. What parts did they want to play? With a giggle, Isis grabbed a long stick from the ground and pretended to use it like a walking cane, putting the other hand to her back as if she was a very elderly witch indeed. "What do you mean dear, I see no ghost...I was just looking for my dog Henry, have you seen him?" she said in a quavery voice, peering through squinted eyes like someone who'd lost their glasses. Yeah, that would be fun! Only if Trudy thought it was a good idea, of course, because their play needed to be the best, and... "Oh my!" she exclaimed standing up straight in surprise.

"You know, I was just thinking how I wanted our play to be the best. Isn't it crazy, right after I've gotten through saying we work together at Ilvermorny, the very next thing I do is try and make this a competition!" she grimaced a little, as if this was an amazing revelation about something she wasn't too proud of "I still want it to be good, though" she admitted, and thought for a moment, walking closer to the lake. It was very tempting to pull off her thong sandals and just stroll into the water, but they had a job to do.

"I don't know if we've got time to make a hut, unless we drape a bedsheet over something?" she mused "they've got costumes though, I saw two whole boxes in the theatre area yesterday!' again she was excited and enthusiastic. "So what do you think? Should I be an old lady, or something else? Whatever you want...oh! What if there was a lost dog and we chased it into the house, and that's why we went in there? There doesn't need to be a dog, we can just say there is" she added hopefully.

Trudy burst into giggles when Isis picked up the stick and played the role of an elderly woman. “That is hilarious!” she managed to say in between her giggles. It took her a moment to compose herself again. It was not that Isis impersonation had been perfect, she could see possibilities to improve it but the Ilvermorny student had overall done a pretty good job considering it had been an improvisation.

As Isis stopped acting her role and spoke about wanting the play to be the best – or not really wanting it because, apparently, competitions weren't what she liked – Trudy became serious again too.

“So you think it's not okay to try to the best?” Trudy asked, sounding slightly confused. “I mean, I don't need to be the best student but...” She paused, trying to sort out her thoughts on the matter. “I think for this play we should try and be the best. If, in the end, it doesn't work out, we should not be sore losers.” She shrugged. “I'd just really like to try.”

Maybe it was her grandmother's input, maybe Trudy was just discovering her ambition. She didn't want to make a fool of herself on a stage even if only the improvised stage of the summer camp.

Trudy nodded at Isis' response regarding the hut. “Yeah, I guess a bedsheet might work. Without magic we cannot possibly build a real hut and develop our play in this brief time.” Her eyes lit up as Isis mentioned boxes with theatre costumes. “Oh”, she exclaimed excitedly, “we should probably look at the available costumes, see which fit us and which work for our play. Then we can decide which roles we play.” The Ravenclaw looked at the other girl, waiting for her response. She felt rather certain that her approach made sense. If they didn't have the perfect stage they needed to make sure that the costumes at least worked well.

"You think so?" Isis was delighted that her efforts had pleased her new friend. "Okay, what if I lost my dog and you're someone younger who offered to help me find it? And then you see the ghost, but I'm just looking for the dog...but the audience can't see either of them, of course" she clarified. That sounded like a much better plot than just 'two people getting scared by a ghost' and something that people might actually find interesting as well. But then she realised she'd said the wrong thing, or rather, she'd said the right thing in an odd way, and she felt worried.

"No! I mean...we should always try to be the best we can, because that's what we want to do, not because we're trying to be better than someone else" she said, aware that she wasn't explaining herself very well. She was having one of those thoughts that Mom said made her 'an old had on young shoulders', a description she really liked because it made her feel grown-up and smart. She didn't feel smart right now though, she felt worried that she might have said the wrong thing to Trudy and then compounded it with her confused explanation. It was a relief to be talking about the staging instead.

"Okay! Did you want to go back and check now, then we can bring the costumes down here and practise?" she asked. That sounded like a sensible plan, and once Isis knew how she was going to look she would know better how she needed to act. Playing an old lady in dungaree shorts didn't really help her to get into character. If she at least had a cloak or something she would feel like she knew her character better. Isis was smiling broadly, glad that she'd picked Trudy for her partner today.

“Hmm,” made Trudy, considering what Isis had just suggested. “Well,” she began, not quite sure how to best put her thoughts into words. “I think the only character on stage that's invisible should be the ghost. So if you play an elderly woman who lost her dog the dog cannot turn up at all or it would seem like a ghost dog.” She paused and chewed on her lip thoughtfully. “Does that make sense?”

She was relieved to hear that Isis wanted to try to be the best they could and nodded along happily. She didn't quite see why it meant so much for the other girl to be the best she could while not trying to be the better than someone else but it did not matter. As long as Isis wanted to give her best, Trudy would not be nitpicking although a thought occurred to her – if Trudy wanted to be the best she could be without being the best overall did that mean that the other girl did not feel confident that she could be the overall best?

“Yes!” Trudy was quick to respond, before Isis had even finished speaking. “Yes, let's go back and find costumes that work and then we can practise in them and possibly even modify the plot depending on what we find.”

She was smiling widely now, eager to pick a nice costume for herself without even having a clear idea of her role. However, the girl felt confident that she'd find a costume that would inspire her to work out a good character. The little Ravenclaw made a few quick steps in the direction of the theatre area. “Shall we have a little race there?” she asked, suddenly eager to run in order not to waste another minute before going through the possible costumes.

"A ghost dog would be awesome..." Isis mused, but she was speaking to herself rather than to Trudy. "Yeah, it makes sense. I guess I kind of meant that we start with the old lady looking for her dog, and then the girl comes along and asks what's wrong, so there wouldn't really be a dog at all" she clarified, though really, she hadn't thought about it in depth until that moment. 

Now the idea of costumes was in her mind though, it seemed they had to go and sort that out before they did anything else. The rest of the groups seemed to have found other places to practise, so they wouldn't need to worry about leaving 'their' rehearsal space unattended. Besides, she wanted to get back there and look for something already before all the cool clothes were claimed.

"Shall we?" Isis parrotted, a huge grin on her face. At the time she was a few metres closer to the lake than Trudy but as she walked forward she said "Three...two...one...GO!" and started running. She also started giggling, which didn't help any with her speed, though the Thunderbird knew she was fast because she had won races at home even against older kids when they'd had Fourth of July cookouts. Isis wasn't quite sure why that day was so important, but all the no-majs in her town celebrated it, so her family did the same, and it was always good fun.

Even though Trudy had had something of a head start, Isis was catching up with her by the time they approached the building, and she didn't slow up, even when that meant she held out her hands and effectively crashd into the wall, still giggling. "Okay, shall we..." she gasped for breath "shall we see what they've got in there?"

Trudy shook her head to Isis's musings, saying nothing but thinking 'no, they wouldn't be awesome, they'd make no sense for our play.' The girl figured she didn't have to tell her new found friend that she didn't want a ghost dog in her play. Isis would be reasonable when it came to it or so she hoped at least. The other girl summarised the idea, this time stating that there'd be no real dog at all and she nodded along happily. Yes, that was more like it.

Isis agreed that they'd race to the theatre area. Trudy nodded with a wide smile. She was not the fastest runner out there but she was decently athletic. As Isis counted down, Trudy looked at their destination and at 'Go!' she started to run. Hearing Isis giggle made the Ravenclaw also giggle. She still tried to be faster than the other girl though, in the end though she was one step behind Isis.

Trudy laughed as Isis crashed into the wall, having stopped just in time to prevent a crash herself. "Are you okay?" she asked, still grinning. "You are not a ghost yet so you cannot run through walls," she teased her.

"Oh yes! Of course! That's what we're here for, after all." Trudy said nodding eagerly. They walked in and found a few chests labelled 'costumes'. Trudy opened one and knelt down in front of it. The things she found in that chest looked like the clothes her grandmother had worn in a Shakespeare play a few years ago and the Ravenclaw frowned. "Well, I doubt these costumes will work for us," she called over to Iris. "What's in that chest?" She turned to look over to see what the Thunderbird was examining.

Isis shook her hands, vaguely aware that she'd grazed her palms with the force of the impact. They stung rather than actually hurt, and it certainly wasn't bad enough that she wanted to tell one of the counselors. "I'm fine" was what she said, and then she giggled again.

"Did you ever meet a ghost?" she asked as they walked inside, suddenly curious. She'd read about them, but they were still little more than a myth to the twelve year old, like unicorns and dragons. She knew they existed, but because she'd never seen one they were still a source of fascination. Before Trudy could answer Isis eagerly approached the closest chest and opened it.

It seemed to contain clothes for some sort of exotic play or dance. Everything was brightly coloured, and reminded her of a book about wizards in North Africa she'd once looked through. There were robes, but they were different styles, one coloured base with a different coloured top over them. Isis couldn't resist, she pulled one over her head just as Trudy asked what was in her chest.

"Cool, huh?" she asked, giving a little twirl and almost tripping over clothes that were clearly designed for someone much taller. Then she remembered what they were meant to be doing and bit her lip, primly walking to the next chest and looking in that one, still dressed in the green and gold takchita. Here, there were more normal clothes, though they looked to be of a style that her grandparents would have chosen to wear. She pulled out a 1950s-style dress in a red and orange print and held it up for Trudy to see. "What do you think? This stuff's more like something a regular person would wear, huh?" she asked hopefully.