Alex groaned as Slytherin had more points removed from them, what was with everyone this month? Just because they were in the lead didn't mean they could all act like idiots. Alex tried not to glare at the idiot that got 5 points removed. Instead she put down the drill and grabbed the hammer tapping a nail in gently but somehow still angrily.

"No sir professor, just a minor cut, I'll be fine." Zane said, showing him the mark. It looked like a little cross about a half inch deep in his palm. He thought it looked rather interesting, he was probably going to try and show it off later.

This....this she could do. She loved playing with this when she was at home and now she was getting to play with it again. Awesomeness! Unlike her classmates, she wasn't going crazy with the new power, cause she knew how dangerous things like these were. Putting the correct drill bit in place, she picked up the cross head screw and placed it into the drill like Lawson had showed them.

Turning on the drill, she let the power run for a bit, missing the use of electricity, before placing a hand on the wood far from where she was drilling. Then Arya placed the screw into the wood and began to drill on a medium level. This.....new found power made her oblivious to all that was going on around her. The yelling, people going crazy with their drills and wood, none of it phased her because she was having fuuuun drilling. Once finished with that nail she inserted another and began again.

Theo picked up his drill again and this time he looked more carefully at the pointy end of the unit and noticed that its end was indeed one of the "cross-cut" points the Professor spoke about. He looked at the small collection of metal things the Professor called "screws" laying on the table. Some of them had the same criss-crossed patterned but others had just one cut across them in a small straight line.

Picking up one that match his drill, Theo held it to the end of the drill and then panic slightly when it seemed to stick to the end of the point of the drill. After a quick question to the Professor, his intuition was confirmed that the end of the drill was "magnetic" and and supposed to do that.

Finally, he placed the screw with the cross-cut end neatly in the piece of wood and then placed the end of the drill against it. Pulling the trigger too quickly at first, it slid off and made a loud whirrrring noise as the screw rooled of the table and onto the floor.

"ooops," he said as he stoped the drill and set it down to get the screw back

his second attempt went much smoother as he practiced pushing the trigger much easier first before pushing it against the screw. When he matched uop the cross-cut and pushed the trigger, the screw wound itself neatly into the wood.

"wow, " Theo said in exclamation, "that was cool."

The power drill was heavy in Patroclus' hand. The batteries weighed down the base of the handle, but it was a good thing Patroclus found out.
Slipping the screw onto the tip of the drill, Patroclus was amazed to see that it was not only held in place by the corresponding dints, but also a weird force. Patroclus thought it was something he had heard Muggles mention before, Wagnetism. To him it seemed like the drill bit was accio'ing the screw.

With his finger Patroclus ever so slightly squeezed the trigger, and before his eyes the screw began to spin. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz, pushing hard to began to spin faster, ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ and the screw began to wobble on the tip of the drill. Releasing the trigger the spinning stopped, and Patroclus decided it was now time to drill into the wood.

Once again securing the screw on the tip, Patroclus used the weight of the drill, to push the tip of the screw into the wood. Squeezing the trigger and pushing down again the screw winded its way into the timber. Patroclus kept drilling even though it was as far in as possible, and the drill began to screeching noise.

oops.

Annnnnnd there it was.The word Sarah had been dreading.

Detention.

She hung her head as another screech came from behind her, and her best friend got told she was heading for the dungeons.What had possessed her, Sarah would find out.OH YES SHE WOULD.

But right at that minute, Professor Lawson was addressing her, and answering her question. "Okay, Sir, fair enough, thank you.I'll keep at it on this speed." And she would, because the last thing they needed was ANOTHER person in detention.

Shaking her head in disbelief at Miranda, Sarah picked up another screw and went about doing the whole process again.

ZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzZZzZZZZZzzzzzzz

Turn the screw into the wood.Hmmmhmmhmmmm.Yeah, the humming to herself helped her focus on the task.And kept away her desire to shout at Miranda.

"But, sir -"

But she couldn't concentrate, the way he kept shouting. That was what Gold wanted to say. But she decided that would be majorly impolite and, keeping back a little sigh, nodded. "Yes, sir." She picked up the power drill again, glad that the fall had not broken it. Of course, she could have fixed it with a simple "Reparo" but, when in the Muggle Studies classroom, do as the muggles do. AND muggles don't get to use charms.

So yes, Gold was glad.

She adjusted the power drill again, picking up a new screw, this time a flat-head one. Placing that against the piece of wood, pointed end down, she started the power drill and drove it in. Once it had been driven in, she raised a hand. "Can I switch the speed to fast, sir?" She asked. Slow was alright, but it was.... well, slow. "I've used a power drill loads of times, before. I don't think I'll make a mess," she added.

Though she guessed Professor Lawson might be cautious, anyway. Still, she hadn't made any messes. Yet.

Fallon looked up as Lawson set down something on her worktable. She saw that it was a battery. "Thanks."

She then looked down at the drill and tried to see how the battery came off in the first place. She spotted it and removed the battery. Then she went into placing the other one in its place.

Fallon put the drill back to the screw and pulled the trigger. This time the screw moved easily. She smiled and took another one, repeating the same process.

Selena nodded and picked up the screwdriver from her workstation. The professor looked reeeeeaaaaalllllly mad. She decided it was best to be a good little Slytherin and behave. She walked over to the front and looked at the Professor for further instruction.

Nymphy kept practing in sequence........Hammer, saw, drill........hammer, saw, drill; and was going to be convincingly prepared when he could do the whole thing twice in a row without messing up. The only problem was that he kept getting messed up on the hammer part. he wasn't very strong and by time he hit it the nail enought times to get it down, the nail bent. It was frustrating.....

He worked at it and worked out until he had done the sequence 40 times and could do three without messing up. The best things in life had to be worked for. He wondered what would be next....

Kylie looked anxiously down at the power drill. Things like this had never QUITE been her forte. She was good at things... many, MANY things. In fact, she was at least respectable at most anything. This? Yeah. Not one of those things. She bit her lip, not wanting to complain, carefully picked up the drill and began poking at it a bit. Nothing seemed broken... she held it well with both hands, at first (as the last time she'd handled a drill it went flying from her hands), and clicked the button. It whizzed about and she was relatively proud it hadn't gone soaring through the air. The professor spoke again.

Kylie's green eyes opened wide as they often did when she was learning. She lightly caressed various parts of the drill as Professor Lawson described them. After he gave them their first task, she took a deep breath and recounted everything the professor had just told them.

It's okay... you made it work before... nothing bad happened...

She took out the drill, with one hand this time, she was about to do as the professor had asked, when it suddenly came to her... weren't you supposed to do something to the wood BEFORE just trying to put the screw in it? Doing what he'd ask would, more likely than not, split the wood... And if her wood split... some of it might lodge straight into her eye. Or get jammed up her palm. Or... or... Maybe she'd drill straight THROUGH her hand...

"Professor? I think I remember something my brother told me about drilling a screw into a piece of wood... Aren't you not supposed to just do it? Like, you increase your chances of splitting the wood doing that? Aren't you supposed to do something first?"


She had no idea what the 'something' was that you were to do first... but if it could save her from a few days in the hospital wing, then all was well. She SUPER hoped she didn't sound like a stubborn brat. She looked around the room once to see if anyone elses wood had split.

Oh good. Celandine smiled in relief and headed to the front of the room. The screwdriver looked much less dangerous since it didn't have muggle moving parts. Just muggle still parts.

How Muggles got by without losing their bits was beyond Cela.

What in the world? That was ridiculous!

Scoffing, Evelyn stared at the professor in disbelief before looking over at Destiny. So what if she didn't know how to use the power drill thing! She herself didn't know how to use it still even though she saw the demonstration.

The thing was weird! All this little, things... connected and the buttons and the other stuff and the ZZZzzzZZZzzz noise....

Confusing!

However...whatever rant that was building up in her completely disappeared at her friend's words. Yea, she heard them from where she sat.

ROFLOLBAHAHAHA!

Covering her mouth so she could quiet down her laughter, Evelyn ducked her head, her shoulders shaking as she tried to stop laughing. What possessed Destiny to say that?!

Picking up the saw, a few giggles and chuckles escaping her, Evelyn tried to make herself look busy with finally trying to cut her board. It was a bit hard though.

Her hands and arms were shaking too much. Not to mention it was a little hard to see with the tears in her eyes...

"Make that forty five Upstead. You just lost five for messing around and acting foolishly. If I have to speak you again, it will be detention."

He gave the Hufflepuff another 'look.' Oh yeah the badgers were definitely on a roll in this class.

"Oh for the love of Merlin, will you two knock it off. This is not a competition to see who has got the biggest drill."

Teenage boys, were ridiculous.

Lawson looked at Simon and he was having this mental picture of walking over to the kid and throttling him which brought a small smile to his face. He shook himself out of his reverie when the kid asked him another question.

"Get another piece of wood" he drawled.

Marcus stared at Destiny and if he wasn't so frustrated with the class he probably would have laughed at what she had said.

Unfortunately he wasn't in the best of moods right now so her little piece of trivia went down like a ton of dragon dung.

"I shudder to think how you know this Destiny but right now I would prefer it if you would keep your mind on the job at hand and that is how to use a screwdriver. Do you think you can do that for more than five seconds?"

"MARIE!!" He yelled across the room after witnessing her screw fly across the room. "Do you need to come up to the front as well? Pay attention to what you are doing...please."

When this lesson was over he was going to his office and he was going to lock the door and sit under his desk and meditate or more like bang his head against the wall.

Lawson took out another container of cream and placed on the boy's worktable. "Try that. It will heal that cut right up."

Lawson's eyes went heavenward and he silently counted to ten once again. "No doubt you probably have Gold but if I let you use the fast speed and then everyone else will want to do it as well and as you probably have witnessed in this class." He looked at Gold and gave her a wry smile. "That really wouldn't be a good idea, now would it?"

"Okay Selena, Cela and Destiny when using the hand screwdriver we are going to have to pre-drill a hole into the wood first." Lawson gave her a quick reassuring smile, "Don't worry you don't have to use the power drill. I have a manual drill here. It looks a bit like a manual egg beater and works the same way." He held up the manual drill so that they could see what it looked like. "You just place the drill bit against the wood and you wind the handle until you have have the required hole that you need. Why don't you give it a go."



"Yes you are correct Kylie. In most cases you would need to pre-drill a hole in the wood first before screwing. But if you have proper wood screws like we do then it is not necessary."

Lawson waved his hand around the classroom, "As you can see we have some very impatient people in our class today so I figured it would be easier to just show them how to drill straight into the wood. If you are careful enough and don't apply excessive pressure while you are drilling then your wood should not split."


Walking up to the board, Marcus gave it a tap with his wand. "Okay on the board is your homework assignment. Be sure to take note of it please. Now there is still a little time left for you to keep practicing before the end of the lesson."

Now this was more like it. With a pleased smile, Cela examined the manual drill, nodding at the explaination except for the egg beater part, which made her frown. What the heck was that? Egg beater? Why would anyone beat an egg? That was soooo mean! Still worrying over this and trying to figure out how it related to the lesson, Cela picked up the manual drill and placed it against the wood. Okay.

She could do this.

It actually wasn't that bad. Cela gripped the thingy beater with one hand and cranked the handle thing with the other. She was pleased to see it was working and a whole bunch safer than the scary electric thing. She pulled it away to examine the hole left behind and glanced up at the board. She'd copy that down later.

Now what about the screwdriver thing?

Simon looked at the Professor and went and got another piece of wood, he quickly put it down on his desk. "Professor what do I do with the other piece of wood?" Simon wanted too know.

Simon quickly got a screw and started too screw it into the wood.

ZZZZZZZ-zzzzz

He started to put the screw into the wood and this time he was successful.

Simon did a little dance and said

"I DID." He went too pick up the wood but he couldn't he looked at the screw, it had gone too far in.

"EH Professor what do you do if you screw the wood to the desk?"

Selena nodded and took the pre-drill thingy and placed it against the wood. She then turned the handle. Selena took the pre-drill thingy away and saw a bit of a hole there. Wow. This seemed to be much safer than the power drill. And not as loud. She quickly wrote down some notes on this other muggle tool before taking note of the homework.

Quote:

Originally Posted by aussiegirl

Lawson waved his hand around the classroom, "As you can see we have some very impatient people in our class today so I figured it would be easier to just show them how to drill straight into the wood. If you are careful enough and don't apply excessive pressure while you are drilling then your wood should not split."


Walking up to the board, Marcus gave it a tap with his wand. "Okay on the board is your homework assignment. Be sure to take note of it please. Now there is still a little time left for you to keep practicing before the end of the lesson."

Scribbling down the assignment into his notebook, Patroclus had a question.

"Sir will there be a workshop we can come to work on our project, or will we all be issued with our own tool belt and tools, to work on it at own time?"

Patroclus had visions of himself strutting down the corridors with a personalized tool belt over his robes, whizzing his drill here and tapping his hammer there.....so cool!

Alex sighed laying her head on the desk, everyone was insane. This class was even crazier then Transfiguration and Care of Magical Creatures. This is what happens if you give children wea- uh tools to use. She sighed writting down her homework assignment, this would be impossible if this was how people reacted near the tools.

From her spot riiiiight next to Lawson, Destiny could hear laughing. What was SOOO funny? After all this, meaning the points being taken off of her, she needed a good laugh. Looking around the classroom, she found the source of the laughing. Just some boy she didn't know..laughing at HER! She narrowed her eyes at him until she heard his question.

With a quick glance towards Lawson, Destiny decided it best not to explain right now. She shook her head at the boy and mouthed the words 'after class'.

Yup. After class she would tell everyone who wanted to know how turtles breathe out of their butts.

It seemed Lawson was way too angry to discuss turtles right now. Perhaps he would meet with her and that boy after class and she could tell him more things.

BAHAHA! The job at hand..cause they needed to use their hands while using a screwdriver thingamabob. Oh that Lawson..so funny! She glanced around the room to see if anyone else caught the funny that was Lawson..no?..no one? Heh. "I think I can do that.." she mumbled, then racking her brain real fast she turned to the Professor and added, "I'm not a goldfish. You know they only have a memory span of FIVE SECONDS?"

So INTERESTING!

Yes! They were going to use an AWESOME looking tool.

As if she was proving that she was not a goldfish, she watched ever so carefully at the demonstration. It seemed easy enough..like a goldfish could do it..if they hand hands and stuff.

Picking the egg beater up, since that's what she thought it was called, she gave the handle a few winds to get the feel of it. Yeah, she could sooo do this! It was actually more fun then using that ZzzzZZZZzzz'ing drill, that's for sure. She placed the egg beater against the board and started to wind the handle.

Mwahahaha!

After a few winds, she removed it from the board to look at the hole. "That's a hole alright."

Was it time to use the screwdriver thingamabobs noooow!?

Aha. Ahahaha. Hahahaaa. Jake's sides were practically splitting from laughter.

Not.

"Whaaaaaaat?!" the boy dramatically gasped. "Wwwhat did I dddo?"

He'd done what needed to be done with only a fewwww problems. Wasn't his fault it ran out of battery.

And then a kid asked if they could get a tool belt and tools and Jake's eyes positively lit up. He doubted Lawson would allow that after this lesson but still... "Ooooh, yyyeah! C-c-can we? Thhhat'd be wwwell fun."




But really, losing five points? Jake wanted DETAILS.

Ahh. So Ellie quickly stowed away her drill. People were going to the front to work with manual drills, and she was following. The less electric things in a wizarding classroom full of teenagers, the better.

"Hi. Can I join you? Pleeeaaasseee?" Pretty please don't leave me there with those crazy kids with dangerous things.

She looked up and gave Cela a small smile and stood next to her.

Arya was having FUN with her drill. She didn't hear a word that Lawson said, not the points loss or the homework. Cause she was having a blast! By now she had drill four or five nails into her piece of wood. A few times she would drill the nail in and put the drill in reverse to pull it back out. Good fun, good fun.

Oh, of course. "Right, professor," Gold said with a little nod, as she placed the new screw she had picked up, down on her desk. It looked like it was time for class to wrap up, and they were pretty much at the end of the lesson. She might as well go over everything, again.

Picking up a nail, Gold tapped it into one of the pieces of the wood, the one she had not been working on, in fact. Then she slid the hand-saw through a groove in the mitre box, and sawed the piece of wood into two, uneven halves. Picking one up, Gold decided to work on it with the power drill. Because she had enjoyed working with it, today.

Well, more than she had enjoyed having to see Professor Lawson shout Miranda's name over and over again, at any rate.

Not that it was Professor Lawson's fault. Gold totally felt for him. He definitely needed hugs. Maybe from Jake?

Bwaha.

Switching the power drill on, she drove a flat-head screw inside, before placing the power drill to a side and, picking up quill and dipping it in PINK! ink, jotting down the homework on the board. Then she carefully placed the handsaw back into its appropriate place, to make sure it was out of harm's way for good, and returned the extra nails to their container.

Now, to have some more fun with the power drill! Switching it back on, Gold slowwwwlyy drove in another screw.

Sluggish, but fun.

"...Oh. Right..." Kylie had no idea there were special SCREWS to use. Ugh. She decided that Lawson saying that the students could continue to practice for a little bit meant to try it. She took a deep breath before setting up the drill and screw in the wood..

Bzzzzzzzzz.

Aaand, that's when there was blood. Lots of it. On her hand. The wood hadn't quite split, but it'd sort of chipped funny and a chunk of it went up into her hand.

Ow.

She sat patiently flinching every so often trying to think of something to mend her wound that didn't involve going to the hospital wing. She took out her wand and poked at it slightly, really unfamiliar with anything that would help her here.. Was there a spell to heal deep cuts? Kylie found herself in an unfamiliar rut. She'd never not known what spell to use... Frustrating.

But.. seriously... OW!