Quote:
Originally Posted by
MsMorgan 
Turning to Lasca as she heard her laugh and felt her hand on her shoulder, Mariel said, "Oh, right, Muggle pictures... Sarah tried to tell me about those." Suddenly memories of her unnerving accidental visit to the Muggle Studies office came flooding back to her.
Shuddering, she turned her attention to Nathaniel as he explained. "So just a Muggle invention for a bubble-head charm." That was easy to understand if difficult to picture. "But why didn't you just use the charm?" Nodding as he reiterated what Lasca just said, she added, "Well, I would like to see those pictures." At least she could better understand that.
Glancing over to Lyra as she contributed to the conversation, Mariel offered her a smile. "Do you really get to go to places like that? That sounds amazing. I've never been outside Britain." She was always fascinated to hear of places people have travelled.
"Oh, well you have to sometime. It's so different, even the land, the food. I don't really get to interact with the locals. My dad's always afraid I'm going to have a magical explosion or something. Lyra rolled her eyes. Partly because her dad was too worried about everything and partly because she hadn't had any magical abilities until she was nine and magical mayhem wasn't exactly a treat during most of their trips. Not that she'd ever admit that to her friends. She didn't want them to automatically think she was bad at magic.