Since he had signed the waiver form for the Tech centre, Michael figured he should probably go down and check it out. He was kinda hoping that there were some car parts in there. He was pretty good at putting those together.

He entered the room and was pleasantly surprised to see just how much stuff was actually in there. He gave the other people in the room a small smile before making his way over to where the phones were sitting and picked up a cellphone. He had seen muggles using these but there's were so much smaller than these ones.

Muggles used to use these? They must have made short telephone calls because their arms would have fallen off from the weight.

Just because they both so happened to be in the very same place at the very same time, did not mean she was stalking, following or creeping on Michael Toussaint. No. What she was doing was far more important and it may have started ever since the train ride to Hogwarts. And what she was doing could even be considered helping, but Rhodes didn't like to use that word, so she would never tell him that that's what she was doing.

Observing. Michael Toussaint smelled. Really bad, too. And she needed to know why he smelled the way he did. Was he not bathing? That.. was actually something she didn't know. And really didn't want to know. But all his other 'daily activities'? She could totally find those out!

Which was the only, the ONE and ONLY reason why she was standing in front of the door of the muggle tech lab. She didn't know what any of those fancy technological things inside were, but she could sure pretend to. Or ask alot of questions. She was going to go with the latter. So, making her way inside the room, Rhodes ignored what everyone else was doing, and stopped when she was standing right next to Michael. She then pulled out a piece of folded up parchment and a quill and began writing.

"Touched muggle thing.. What did you eat today?" Because she couldn't see what he had been eating. When she had been so cleverly hiding under the table while he was eating.

Michael was too busy with the phone to notice that Rhodes Merivel stalking standing beside him. He pushed one of the buttons on the phone and then held it to his ear and heard the distinct sound of a dial tone. The only reason he knew what a dial tone was because his grandfather had showed him how a telephone worked. It was quite fascinating how muggles communicated with each other.

He was just about to punch in some random numbers when a voice spoke beside him almost causing him to drop the phone in his hand. "For the love of Merlin." The girl was so exasperating. Not to mention slightly creepy. "Why do you want to know what I have been eating?"

He put the phone down onto the bench and gave the Slytherin a look. "You are so weird." His father would probably be scandalised if he heard his son being so rude but Rhodes was not a person you could be nice to.

Well, how come NO ONE mentioned they could listen to music in this place, eh?? That was, like, the first thing you tell Lottie. It took forever to find this piece of information, by the way, so she was devastated about not finding sooner, but super excited about coming at the same time.

Merlin, so many muggle things.

The Hogwartian could recognize CDs, though, MIND YOU. She'll have to visit Professor Hadley at some point and ask her if her own iPod could work here or if the spells were lifted for the equipment in the room only. She hoped it would work, but since it was at home there was no way of knowing for sure. In the meantime...

...we'll just search for CDs, Hadley had to have The Beatles in here. She had to. She needed music so badly.

On one of her usual 'I need to get out of the crowded Common Room or else I'm going to hit someone' trips, Olly had pretty much stumbled across this extra room, located close to the Muggle Studies classroom. Not literally stumbled across it obviously but you know. Anything was more interesting than roaming the castle on your own, right? Not really but somehow the idea of a Technology Center with Muggle devices had appealed to her.

So Olly had stepped inside, trying hard not to attract any unwanted attention. Somehow people had a habit of just talking to her out of the blue here.

It was quite irritating.

Allowing her eyes to wander across the room for a moment, they fell on what appeared to be the music related part. With CD walkmans and stereos and everything. Not a HUGE assortment but it was fine. So that was where she went. Only once she'd arrived there did Olly realize that there was already somebody else there. Somebody who she vaguely knew from the feast and the Common Room.

Olly gave her a nod in greeting, her eyes lingering on the other girl with interest for a moment longer before she dropped them down to the CD collection. Now, what have we here?

Text Cut: Olly!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lislchen

On one of her usual 'I need to get out of the crowded Common Room or else I'm going to hit someone' trips, Olly had pretty much stumbled across this extra room, located close to the Muggle Studies classroom. Not literally stumbled across it obviously but you know. Anything was more interesting than roaming the castle on your own, right? Not really but somehow the idea of a Technology Center with Muggle devices had appealed to her.

So Olly had stepped inside, trying hard not to attract any unwanted attention. Somehow people had a habit of just talking to her out of the blue here.

It was quite irritating.

Allowing her eyes to wander across the room for a moment, they fell on what appeared to be the music related part. With CD walkmans and stereos and everything. Not a HUGE assortment but it was fine. So that was where she went. Only once she'd arrived there did Olly realize that there was already somebody else there. Somebody who she vaguely knew from the feast and the Common Room.

Olly gave her a nod in greeting, her eyes lingering on the other girl with interest for a moment longer before she dropped them down to the CD collection. Now, what have we here?

Not that she was bad at finding things, but... she should've found something about The Beatles in here, yeah? I mean, it's not like this was a record store or something. There were very few of those in the muggle world, anyway.

We'll complain to you, Hadley, if what we're looking for isn't in here.

Her eyes immediately went to the one source of noise (only footsteps) close by. Heeeey, Lottie knows her, right? All the smirking at the feast, that's why the girl recognized her. Lottie nodded back and gave her a quick smile. It wasn't easy, was it? Handling an excitable first year. Tobias was probably just as excitable, but no longer a firstie, and he seemed... easy to handle. All you had to do was say the right words. Lottie was good at those.

Speaking of words...

...she might as well get some help with this in case she has to go to Hadley's office soon. "If you find any Beatles, let me know, yes?" Nod. If the girl had any Hufflepuff in her... this wouldn't be much of an issue.

Oh a smile? She'd got a smile too. Olly gave the fellow Hufflepuff a sort of half-smirk back. In a friendly way, though, of course. Somehow she felt like there was no need to dislike this one. Not so far anyway. Not until she gave her a reason anyway. And so far she hadn't. So there.

She'd just brought her eyes back to the CDs in front of her without actually looking for anything in particular when the girl next to her spoke again. The Beatles? That earned her a curious look. "You like The Beatles then?" Olly hadn't actually answered her question but was simply regarding her instead, waiting for a reply from her. Even though the question was probably a little redundant since she was looking for the Beatles. So unless she was looking for a CD for somebody else, the answer to her question was very likely to be 'yes'.

So maybe just maybe Olly was somehow trying to strike up a conversation. Sort of. Possibly. Okay, yes.

Anastasia had heard of these fellytone things and for a long, long time, she had wanted to try one out. She heard Muggles could talk on them, send owls through them, order pizza with them, surf with them...

She really wanted to try surfing with them, personally, but was boggled with how such small devices could DO that. So here she was, waiver signed, ready to explore some Muggle techknowledgeoledy.

The redhead stole into the room furtively and eyed the corners of the room, just to make sure there was no one here who could make fun of her. She wandered toward one of the celly fellytones and picked it up, pretending to push a few buttons on it as though she knew what she was doing.

Which one even turned it on????????

Thank Merlin. She was okay without knowing the detail of who Luke was. That conversation could probably last an hour. At Least. What fascinating muggle technology would they look at next? It seemed more people were entering the room. Could not blame they. It was a pretty awesome room. Nigel walked with her over the the CDs. Which looked like disks you could throw. That sounded like fun. Nigel was torn from his thought by a simple question. But hard question to answer. Favorite Types of music.

"Well. I like Ska and some Rock. Recently got into Foo Fighters." Nigel blamed Ascanius for that. Even though they were good. He watched as she picked up the Elvis cd. Nigel knew him as one guy everyone liked to impersonate. Famous Rock and Roll Star and all that.

"So, You like Elvis" Nigel said grinning. And was that the Headmistress by the telephone. Interesting.

Text Cut: OLLY!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lislchen

Oh a smile? She'd got a smile too. Olly gave the fellow Hufflepuff a sort of half-smirk back. In a friendly way, though, of course. Somehow she felt like there was no need to dislike this one. Not so far anyway. Not until she gave her a reason anyway. And so far she hadn't. So there.

She'd just brought her eyes back to the CDs in front of her without actually looking for anything in particular when the girl next to her spoke again. The Beatles? That earned her a curious look. "You like The Beatles then?" Olly hadn't actually answered her question but was simply regarding her instead, waiting for a reply from her. Even though the question was probably a little redundant since she was looking for the Beatles. So unless she was looking for a CD for somebody else, the answer to her question was very likely to be 'yes'.

So maybe just maybe Olly was somehow trying to strike up a conversation. Sort of. Possibly. Okay, yes.

Haha! Smirk!girl.

No idea why the girl was smirking, though, but that wasn't her problem and we don't care. Her own smile turned into a tiny smirk of its own. That's how you answer to smirks, giving one of your own. EXCEPT... with Ascanius, because she's taking to winking at him when he smirks. That's a lot of winking.

Her words. So, that meant she was going to be looking for the Beatles or not? Hufflepuffs and confusion go together. Did she not hear Lottie? Or was she just making conversation? Because you could do BOTH. You could look for a CD and talk at the same time. Much like Lottie was doing right now. "The Beatles are my favorite," she smiled, a reminder of Professor Airey's last lesson flashed through her mind. "John Lennon, too. Can't say the same for Paul McCartney, though." Not really, no. Sorry. Of course, this was said thinking that the girl knew a bit about the Beatles.

"Do you?" Like then? Or have at least listened to one of their songs? Lottie was still looking...

Ska? Schuyler had never heard of this band. Unless it was a genre of music, but... yeah, she still had never heard of that either then. "I've heard of the Foo Fighters," the Gryffindor commented. Although she couldn't think of any songs by them. She only knew of the band's name. Her attention returned to the CDs, though now she searched for these Foo Fighters he spoke of.

She? Liked ELVIS?

Schuyler turned to the boy, eyebrow raised. Oh. He was grinning. "Pfft." She gave him a light shove on the shoulder and stifled a grin herself. "No, I don't care for Elvis. But, I am happy to introduce you to some excellent, non-rock bands." Yes, she would take much pleasure in that. Although she wasn't sure how much HE might actually like it.

Click click click. The clicking sound that was the pressing of buttons rung into Schuyler's ears, and when she moved to see who it was, she found that it was the Headmistress herself. Huh. After glancing at the blank, dark screen, Schuyler tried not to grin when she realized that the cell phone wasn't even on. "Headmistress.." She took a few steps closer and nodded to the phone in her hands. "May I?"

Oh. She was now looking for Foo Fighters cds. Wonder if the school had any. It would be pretty awesome. Though how do you use a walkman. That is the real question. Nigel kept grinning as she realized he was not serious about her liking Elvis. "Oh.. Excellent non rock bands, Huh. Might have to take you up on that"

Nigel heard the same clicking that Schuyler did and saw out of the corner of his eye that it was the Headmistress. Was that a cellphone she was playing with. And even Nigel could tell if was off. The Prefect walked with Schuyler over to the cellphone and Headmistress.

"Hello Headmistress."

Best not tell her the phone was not on.

Okay, so Sophie had to admit it--Muggle technology had her slightly interested. She wasn't sure how she'd like Muggle Studies, but she could at least give it a try, right? Her family was made up of mostly purebloods, so she hadn't had much experience with the non-magical ways of living. She doubted she'd actually try anything today, but she wanted to at least look.

Stepping into the technology center, Sophie took a long look around. There was pretty much nothing in here that she'd had any experience with, and she basically hadn't even heard of...whatever all this was. She started making the rounds, eyeing this thing and that. Finally, her eyes rested on not a piece of technology, but...the Headmistress.

*GULP*

This was the lady Aunt Sierra had warned her about! Apparently, she hated people just for the sole purpose of hating them! Sophie had been slightly afraid of her ever since, even though they'd really never met. She had kind of thought it'd be best to face her fears and see for herself just how this woman was, but she didn't expect it to be so soon. Still, she couldn't just NOT say anything...

Umm... "Hello, Headmistress," she said, trying to sound as confident as possible.

Convinced she was going unnoticed by the others in the room, Anastasia continued, quite determinedly, pushing buttons on the cellular fellytone. She looked up only when she heard two people call out her title, and hurriedly put the phone up to her ear to avoid having to converse with them.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cedric

Click click click. The clicking sound that was the pressing of buttons rung into Schuyler's ears, and when she moved to see who it was, she found that it was the Headmistress herself. Huh. After glancing at the blank, dark screen, Schuyler tried not to grin when she realized that the cell phone wasn't even on. "Headmistress.." She took a few steps closer and nodded to the phone in her hands. "May I?"

Quote:

Originally Posted by Meizzner

"Hello Headmistress."

Best not tell her the phone was not on.

"Hello? Hello?" The redhead pretended to gab into the phone. "Oh yeah hi oops um sorry, WRONG NUMBER." She had been holding the phone both upside down and backwards to her ear, though she didn't know that, and hung it up by slamming it down onto the table.

It was a miracle she hadn't broken it yet.

Why were they staring at her though? Wasn't that how one hung up a phone? "Be my guest," the redhead replied stiffly, tossing the phone to the Gryffindor girl. She gave the prefect a nod of greeting too.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anna Banana

*GULP*

This was the lady Aunt Sierra had warned her about! Apparently, she hated people just for the sole purpose of hating them! Sophie had been slightly afraid of her ever since, even though they'd really never met. She had kind of thought it'd be best to face her fears and see for herself just how this woman was, but she didn't expect it to be so soon. Still, she couldn't just NOT say anything...

Umm... "Hello, Headmistress," she said, trying to sound as confident as possible.

Okay what was this, some kind of staring party? Bunz had come here to learn something make a very important fellytone call, people, she had not come here to be gawked at!

"Hello." She eyed the little girl with the big eyes. Why did she look so familiar... maybe Bunz had had a doll like her when she was a child... yes, that was it.

Soo..

..this was going to be alot harder than she thought it was going to be. Of course, she didn't think Michael was just going to come right out and tell her what he had eaten throughout the day, although she didn't know why he wouldn't. She thought he would be the type of person who liked to talk about that kind of stuff, but she didn't expect him to be this difficult about it. Didn't he know the more he avoided the question, the more she was going to bother him about it!?

She supposed she was just going to have to annoy it out of him. Or smell his breath. But that would mean getting even closer to him, and considering she was trying to figure out why he smelled the way he did, getting closer was not something she wanted to do. At all. "I'm not the weird one." she stole a quick glance at the technological thing he had been holding before raising her eyebrows at him. He was touching that thing. He was the weird one.

"What is that thing anyway? What does it do?" What did you eat for breakfast!?!?!

Pfft...she was too the weird one. You didn't see him stalking people and then ask them what they had been eating. If he had known that she was going to come around asking about his dietary habits, he would have eaten the garlic bread at lunch.

It was his turn to raise his eyebrows at her question and he stole a quick glance the cellphone before looking back at the Slytherin. She had absolutely no clue about muggle stuff, did she?

Oh this was going to be fun.

Michael picked up the phone again. "This." he said with a grin. "Is a metal detector. You press the numbers for the type of metal you want to detect. So like gold is number one, silver is two and so on. You also have to run it over a person's body." He looked around and lowered his voice a little. "See this button here." He pointed to the hashtag. "Press that and it acts like a magnet."

He held the phone out to her. "Try it out on the Headmistress." He gave her a challenging look. Would she dare?

Oh..., so she didn't bite after all?!

Well, Aunt Sierra hadn't exactly said she did that sort of thing, but in Sophie's mind, she'd had the woman out to be the type that just might. Sophie sort of lingered awkwardly for a moment, waiting to see if the lady would say anything else, but she never did. At least, not for now.

Sophie managed a small smile then said, "I'm Sophie Newell. It's good to finally meet you, Headmistress Truebridge." She should just keep it short and sweet. Apparently, this woman knew her mom, dad, aunt, and...probably several others. Maybe the last name would ring a bell? Or maybe the woman was just too engrossed in figuring out all this technology to notice.

How did he know so much? Forrest shrugged. It wasn't a mischief of his--he'd always been the victim. "I've had to deal with many of them." Being the 'weird' kid at school, that earned him many fans. All was past though. He was welcome here, so it was much easier to talk about his past.

ANYWAYS.

He nodded enthusiastically at Kahlan. She knew so much about muggles, actually! "'hold on' means 'wait'." Juuust a quick summary of her words, and he eyed the telephone greedily.

His mother. YESSSSSS.

Maybe not so quick 'Yes'.

He blinked at Professor Airey dumbly. Watch? What was there to watch about a phone call? "Sure," he said in the end, and reached forward to get the phone. He dialed the international Saudi Arabian number--he'd had to memorise it there just in case--and waited... waited... waited... nothing happened. Why? He'd heard someone speaking, so it WAS connected! His whole face fell, and he panicked. Did he dial it wrongly? He fumbled with the phone, and dialed it again. And again. It just didn't connect. But he had just heard--

"This doesn't take international calls?" he addressed them. That had to be it. To be so close to hearing his mother's voice but not obtaining it--his face was of a child that had just been told his biggest dream was impossible. And it was. Who just wouldn't connect it to international calls?!

"I'm sorry. I have to go." His eyes burnt and he didn't want them to see him like that, so he quickly walked to the door and exit.

Couldn't he get what he wanted in this school?

Eliza couldn't help but grin when asked how the other students and herself knew so much about prank calls. She hadn't really ever made on herself, but she'd been a party to it before. She smirked slightly and said with an innocent eye flutter, "Welll....let's just say I have a few neighbor kids my age and summers get boring sometimes." They'd never done mean calls though, she'd made sure of that. It was all in good fun!

She nodded as both a girl she didn't know really and Forrest explained what it meant to 'hold' on the phone. She added, "Mhmm, so to hold means wait - and then the expression 'Hold the phone!' refers to operators telling people to hold while they connected you to the person you wanted to call. I think. But that was a long long time ago when phones worked that way." Her dad was full of all sorts of tidbits about things like that, so that's how she knew.

Speaking of parents, she smiled as Forrest tried to dial his mother, hoping she could try next. Frowning now though, as she saw the call was not going through for some reason, she felt sad for the young boy and thought it would be insensitive for her to try her house now. She tried to tell him maybe he had to dial something special to get to a different country, but he was already heading out of the door by the time she could think of why it may not have worked. A little empathy went a long way for Eliza, so her face was a bit crestfallen when she looked back to her professors who were eagerly waiting to watch a full phone call in motion. "Poor Forrest," she said quietly to them. "I wish I knew how to make it work for him," she remarked with another glance towards the door. "Erm, maybe I'll go help him get to the owlery or something. And....you two could try calling...um..." She racked her brain for any numbers she may know and finally had an idea. "101. Dial that. It's Scotland Yard. I'll bet they'd talk with you!" She began to make her way towards the door to find Forrest when she thought of another thing. "But don't make any false police reports, you two!" she called back to them with a smile and playful wag of her finger.

She walked into the center, where she'd signed up to join in the muggle studies fun. Her mum had insisted she had to learn more about muggles and though despite her protests had been basically forced to take the class. Brilliant. She'd wanted to go to Beauxbatons but was denied and now had to take a class she really didn't want to take.

Seeing a bunch of students playing with some phones she just stood there watching them. She knew they were phones and knew you shouldn't yell into them to be heard. Okay right, she wasn't that daft when it came to muggle items! Though most of the items in the room she recognized she probably hadn't used even half of them even once in her life.

Olly allowed her eyes to rest on the other girl for a second longer before returning them to the CD assortment before her. It wasn't that big or versatile but it was fine. She knew most of the artists, however, wasn't exactly too thrilled by any of the CDs she'd so far encountered. None of them were worth listening to. And yes, she was also looking for The Beatles, of course. She wasn't a bad person. Not always anyway.

Her favorite? At this Olly just nodded slowly to acknowledge that she'd heard the other Hufflepuff. "Yeah?" And then she went on about the individual members, or well, two of them anyway. The main ones. Okay, Ringo too. But people tended to forget about George Harrison. Or at least that's what her dad used to say. He was the main reason she even knew who the Beatles were. Plus, background information on the members.

Did she? The fifth year just shrugged vaguely in reply and was about to open her mouth to say something when..."Here." She'd come across a quite old and to be honest quite gross-looking version of the Let It Be album. Olly held up the CD with two fingers only, turning slightly so she was facing the other girl. She was being terribly social today, wasn't she? What was up with that?

Minerva walked into the technology center. After the term she was having she needed something comforting and what was second to comfort than her Reese Cups and Diet Coke? Her muggle toys, but since you couldn't use muggle toys throughout school her Ipod was useless. If she didn't think Professor Hadley was super disappointed in her for getting yet another detention and failing horribly right she would give the woman a huge hug for bringing computers and music into the school.

Looking around she saw other students there and didn't want to disturb them. So she found an empty computer and started it up. She didn't care that it was older than dirt, she just wanted something familiar that wasn't really a part of here that would remind her of how horrible she was failing this term. Looking through it she tried to see if there were any games or something fun to forget about everything else. She half wondered if they could get on the internet with these and was about to when she noticed an icon on the screen. Sims.. She knew that game. Smiling a bit she decided to play. .

Hadley was AWESOME.

A big grin spread across the seventeen year old's face as he stepped into the Technology Centre and took a look around. AWESOME. Now he'd have a place at Hogwarts to listen to his iPod and do homework. See, that didn't sound bad. It was certainly better than sitting in the dead silent library or the extremely packed common room. Were they allowed to bring food in here? Because that was important too.

... Although... looking around at all the technology items, probably not, right?

Shrugging, Alec moved away from the door and started walking around, taking in each of the items properly. Some... seemed old. Like REALLY old. Like older than his grandparents old, whom he had actually never met for reasons. Frown. ... And were those BRICK phones? The boy picked up one and flipped it open, startled at the way it lit up. So... he could call home? REALLY? GRIN.

Still holding onto the phone, the boy was about to head over to an empty table when his grey-blue eyes landed on a head of blonde hair. He moved over towards her, secretly hoping that she wouldn't mind being disturbed. Except... he was her brother so... brotherly perks? Yeah? Awesome. "Hey Minnie! What are you up to?" he asked, helping himself by sitting down on the empty seat next to the girl. ... And these computers were also really old. MAN.

Minerva was busying playing the came and wasn't really noticing who was in the room anymore. No she was making her little people and enjoying some nonthinking, nonprefecting, nonfailing time. This was exactly what she needed just time to be muggle if that was what you wanted to call it. The only frustrating thing going on at the moment was the slowness the computer was having with loading. She sighed a few times at the machine. She wondered if her grandparents would owl her, her own if Hadley would let her use it. Oh and her cell she wondered if it would work as well.

That could wait though her game was focus at this point in time. Jumping a bit when she heard her name Minerva turned her blue eyes on the person that sat down next to her a small smile crossing her lips. "Hey Alec, come to enjoy the room?" Who cares if the stuff was older it was great to have. What was she up too, look what she was up to. "Playing a game. I found it on the desktop, it's a really really old version, but oh well it's still fun. The Sims you've heard of it, right?" She thought he might, but she figured she'd ask anyway. "So what are you up to, anything fun?" Taking a moment to glance around the room her eyes fell back on him. "Oh I bet you can talk to your family from here can't you?" She didn't think his numbers were to long distant right? Not like her that had an ocean plus in between.

Alec was starting to feel really really bad. Sometimes, he took liberties when it came to going up to his friends, or his pseudo siblings, and just talking to them. Or helping himself to their food, if their name was Tag 'Fredrick' 'Sweetcheeks' Kildare. But he did feel bad for making Minnie jump like that so... "Erm... sorry, I didn't mean to startle you..."

... At least he could move onto her questions? "Yeah! I thought it would be interesting to take a look around," And it did turn out to be interesting! Just look at all this stuff! He grinned at the girl before looking over at her computer screen. Sims, eh? "Yeah, I've heard of it!" he said, nodding, "But... I've never played it before. Erm... what do you do?" There seemed to be characters and... that's all he knew about it.

What was he up to? Grey-blue eyes snapped back towards the blonde girl. "Erm... nothing fun... just trying not to study," ... BLINK. MAYBE he shouldn't have said that to, you know, his OLDER SISTER PERSON. He cleared his throat before continuing, "Yeah, I can! But... I think Dad's at work and he might be busy so... I might wait a bit before calling him," That sounded like a plan. "Do you want to call your grandparents...?" He even held out the phone towards her, just in case.