Lex was willing to admit that she needed to better focus. She couldn't spend the entire lesson fixating on something that wouldn't be changing without some outside help that she obviously wouldn't be getting in this lesson in the first place. Finally letting the lock she'd been fiddling with fall back with the rest of her hair she gave Professor Hadley her full attention.

You know, she should have specified if she wanted something short or long distance. Lex would have been able to answer accordingly. Mhm.

As for what they used to use...there weren't many things and those that were used were mostly already mentioned, yeah? She tried rattling her brain for something that wouldn't lead to repetition. In the end the girl was drawing a blank and simply sat there staring. All that staring reminded her....where was the food and why didn't they have any? Not even this term? Would it ever happen? S'mores last term were amazing but they didn't come until the end. She needed something for this time in the class when questions were asked and she could use the excuse of a full mouth to not answer.

Sophie sort of half raised her hand then started nodding. "Walking." Yup "I'm going with that one. You can't get much earlier than good old primitive walking around," she said.

There really wasn't much else she could say. Walking was pretty much common knowledge with everybody alive, so there wasn't anything to add or enlighten anybody on.

Yup, walking. She was sticking with that. Nevermind the fact that these days, she seemed to be walking waaaaaaay slower than usual. Maybe she just needed more exercise. Quidditch should help.

Class had begun & the Professor had already gone to ask her first question. Josette listened to every answering all around her. Practically saying everything that she might or wished she'd have said to answer the Professor's first question. Instead of repeating what everyone else said, she made sure to jot every thing down on her parchment that everyone was saying, just before she heard the Professor go onto ask her next question.

Walking! That was definitely the earliest ways of transportation!

She couldn't help but think of one other way one could have traveled aside from walking let alone running. But wasn't there something even earlier then that? Just then, her eyes widened & she cautiously raised her hand looking at the Professor. "Um..Professor? Walking & running are the earliest methods of transportation..But couldn't there be something even earlier than those two?" She bit her lip, "Like..Crawling? Like a baby? Wouldn't that be something...you'd need to learn first...before even standing to walk...or run? It's not the fastest way to move...But...wouldn't that be the earliest? " Her hand immediately went back down onto her desk.

Sander listened patiently as the other students gave their answers before he raised his hand and gave his.

"Professor back in Egyptian times, the rich were carried around in litters. They would sit inside and four people would carry them around wherever they wanted to go."

Had someone else given that answer? Sander couldn't remember.

Air-planes? No, Hadley, she was talking about ARROWplanes.

The professor obviously wasn't following.

"I think water transportation was invented before horses were domesticated," Alice offered. Hadn't she read that somewhere? "Dugout canoes? Like hollowed out tree trunks? Logboats and stuff. Those are really early."

And they didn't involve any of that weird Muggle elektristy, so she was understanding just fine. Mhm.

Yes, that's what she meant, carriages pulled by horses. Bev just chose not to elaborate because that meant going into details and she felt shy about it. As for the next question, she couldn't think of anything else besides carriages, but she'd already said that.

Hmm. What else? She raked her brain for something she could have possibly read about on this subject.

"Swimming?" she asked nervously as she raised her hand. It'd been on her mind earlier and it was a method of transportation, but was it one of the first? She'd find out.

Mitchell could not believe what he was hearing. People had some pretty crazy ideas about what was dangerous.

Also. Most of the ones were taken. So he had to think of something new. After a second he raised his hand. "Ski lifts." he offered. Those were fun. "Skiing too actually." Since they were on the topic.

Bart listened to the other answers. Transportation was kind of cool, but why care about it when you had something as awesome as apparation. Really who cared about bikes and segwigs or whatever they are. He still tried to listen, but noticing his shoe untied he bent down to do that.

Once tied he looked back up and heard people answer the next question. Wouldn't they have the same transportation they do now? Did muggles even change that much. He didn't think so. "Wouldn't they have the same transportation they do now? " He was super confused by this and wasn't even sure if he cared that much, but why not ask.

Wrinkling her nose, Adrienne slowly took her feet off of the table. Buzzkill. And now they were talking about muggle methods of transportation, which she knew very little about. There were incredibly inefficient, in comparison to magical ones, that much she knew. Muggles still hadn't figured out how to get from one place to another without crossing all the distance in between, something that apparation did easily. Not that Adrienne had ever apparated, but hey, she knew the theory. Maman apparated everywhere, but for some reason Papa preferred Floo Powder.

And everyone was mentioning horses. Adrienne raised her hand. "Outside of Europe, people rode other things too." Given that they weren't the centre of the world, as much as it might have seemed so sometimes. "Goats and cows and things." Probably other large animals, but none were coming to mind at the moment, so she left it at that.

Muggle transportation, ay? Hazel used to live out in the country, so she was unfamiliar with many muggle transportation devices. But, she did remember asking her father about one...

"Didn't people ride horses or something? It doesn't take the place of a broom, but it's faster than walking, I suppose. I hope they didn't mistreat them." That wouldn't be fair, to hurt the poor little horsies and then make them carry you. She made a mental note to be extra nice to the next horse she met.

More ground transportation. Marigold was a bit disappointed that she couldn't articulate her ideas to words as well as she wanted to, so she thought for a bit more before coming up with an answer. "Well, I think that walking and horseback riding were pretty early," she said. Well, walking duhhhhhh. But what about water? "Canoes! Like, native people used canoes waaaaay long ago." RIGHT.

Nothing like talking about muggles to put Hannah in a good mood... NOT! She didn't care and honestly she didn't want to know. She still wondered if it was worth trying to get a good grade in this class. Who really needed muggle studies anyways? Hannah didn't bother answering the whole "what's what with you" question because she was trying very hard to convince herself that nothing was wrong, and that this all will simply pass.

The first question was one that she never put any thought to. "Perhaps they walked." Who knows, who cares. She waited while everybody answered and then she could see the professors lips moving showing that she was indeed speaking and most likely asking another question, but Hannah couldn't quite make out any words. She looked around to see if anybody else seemed to be having any issues with this. "Professor, I can't hear you." This was only making her more annoyed.

Sarah raised her hand... the idea of litters had already been said, but she has another one, "people would use logs which would roll, sort of like wheels, in order to push heavy objects, such a stone. The stone was placed on a few longs and when pushed the logs would roll and so the heavy object would move." She had seen it in a picture somewhere. It was pretty cool

Josephina listened as the students listed what they thought to be one of the first methods of muggle transportation. They weren't terribly naive on this information, at least, which was good. Definitely good.

"Yes. Horses and oxens carrying goods and supplies were definitely some of the main early forms of transport utilized. This dates back close to 1600 years ago ... so quite a long time."



"Yes! The invention of the wheel definitely played an important industrial role for increasing trade of goods and transport. Without the wheel, you wouldn't have carriages, carts, automobiles, planes ... or really anything we take for granted today." Hadley nodded in concurrence.



Walking. Running. Of course. "Naturally, yes, before we developed anything ... people walked or ran places they had to go, which was limited in where they traveled to. They stayed within their own communities, generally." Which probably had its disadvantages, not being able to go very many places. Especially if someone got sick or needed something that the community couldn't produce. Disasters were probably extremely common.

Hmm. What was that that Hannah said? "Miss Lockwood. You may move to a closer desk if you're having trouble hearing back there." Because clearly the girl was sitting too far away and unable to focus. She wasn't speaking that softly.



Hadley simply made a silent nod of acknowledgement towards the two prefects who were content with the answers stated by their classmates; at least to the point where they didn't have anything new to add.




Surprise time!

"SO ........... I don't know if any of you heard of this, as its a classic from roughly 90 years ago." Pretty old. "But through some extensive research, I've gone and resurfaced the infamous Mrs Frizzle Magical School Bus!" It was quite extraordinary.

"So everyone have on their adventure caps?" Without further ado or waiting for arguments, Hadley bent behind her desk and opened the desk drawer and pulled out a miniature school bus. Tapping her wand against it ... it magically enlarged into full-grown magic school bus.

"Everyone aboard!" the door to the bus opened and Fina waited ...


ooc: Going to open a bus thread veryyy shortly, but post climbing aboard the bus and then we'll be off! ;D

WHAT? Was that thing safe? If it was made by muggles Caleb had serious doubts. But Hadley wouldn't put them in danger...right? He hoped not. She was a Puffer after all.

So, standing up slowly so he didn't hurt his back anymore than he already had, he headed over to the bus and took the leap, boarding before everyone else.

Oooooh!!

Delilah grinned excitedly as she nearly jumped out of her desk, all her tiredness forgotten for a moment. This was oh-so exciting! They were going to be going on a trip. This was going to be awesome.

The girl slung her bag over one shoulder and boarded the bus almost immediately. She flopped down on the first seat, sitting next to the window.

.... Could they leave already, please?

Sander blinked in surprise when out of thin air, a real bus appeared out from a small picture on the board. He grinned and made a mental note to himself to ask the Professor how she had done that.

Slowly getting out of his chair, and slowly straightening up, he walked over to the bus and pulled himself inside. There used to be a time that he would have been able to jump on without any problems but lately, that seemed to be impossible to do.

Sander settled inside keeping a seat for Tessa, Lux and Bay.

Mrs. Frizzle what now?

Toby had no idea what that was, but he didn't have to wonder for long, because soon... there it was. A bus. A BUS. In the classroom. How had she gotten it so small to begin with? That seemed like a useful spell to know.

But they were getting inside? Cool. There were loads of buses where Toby lived, so he didn't this would be any different to one of them. He got up out of his seat, walked to the bus, and climbed aboard.

OHMYGOSH.

Okay, this was another reason why Muggle Studies was her favourite class.

She knew about The Magic School Bus, and she approved of Professor Hadley taking them on a ride in one. And not just any Magic School Bus, it was the Magic School Bus.

SHE WAS SO EXCITED.

Eagerly, she hopped inside near Sander and waited for her other friends to arrive.

Who, what, when, where and WHY!?!?! Did the professor hear what she had said? "What?" She was able to hear her perfectly earlier, but all of a sudden it was as if somebody turned the volume down to low. She manged to hear bits and pieces and she could hear the students closest to her, but that was about it.

Then a bus appeared... what in the name of merlin was going on around here? That was it, she was not going blindly on a bus without knowing just what exactly was happening. The seventh year walked up and sat herself down at the very first seat. "What's with the bus?"

Talk about random and relevant. Nigel had no idea who this Mrs. Frizzle was, but just hoping on a random magic bus would be the highlight of his day so far. It was pretty boring up to this point.

Nigel did not question it and just got up and followed everyone onto this Magical School Bus.

Very Zen.

A classic of 90 years ago?

Ben had no clue as to what Professor Hadley might be getting at, not even when triend to expain further. Mrs Frizzle's Magical School Bus? What was that? Who was Mrs. Frizzle? He could be adventurous though...he was a Gryffindor after all, it kind of came with the territory. Even if the sudden enlarging and thus appearance of a big yellow school bus in the classroom and being told to get aboard as they prepared to go somewhere was causing a mixture of curiousity and caution to go

Regardless, he gathered up his notes and quill into his bag for safe keeping, not sure what would happen after their little adventure. He might as well follow along to see just what the woman had in store for them. Getting up with a groan, his body protesting the movement, he followed a few students to the now opened door along the side. The boy climbing aboard as directed, used to bus transportation from times spent in the city with his parents.

"I'm sure you could row on the ground too, professor," Alice said earnestly. It was possible.

Now... classics? Wait, were they talking books? She loved the old stuff, like the old old stuff. Leo Tolstoy and Jane Austen and Victor Hugo and.... who was Mrs. Frizzle?

She let the other kids go before her, just to make sure that there wasn't anything weird in there, then boarded the bus.

The infamous whose what? Adrienne was totally lost, which she supposed wasn't surprising in a class about muggles. Why exactly was she taking this, again? She supposed she'd thought it would be interesting, although it seemed like now she was realising that it was just weird. Not as weird as Arithmancy class was last year, but still pretty weird. And now that she thought about it, did they even have Arithmancy this year? She shook the thought out of her head and got up slowly.

Was that bus safe? It had just been a tiny model, and besides, she wasn't sure she wanted to step into anything that had been owned by someone named 'Mrs Frizzle'. Still, the rest of the class didn't seem to have a problem with it, so Adrienne cautiously stepped up onto the bus behind her classmates. This was such a weird class.

Sarah could not believe her eyes. They were shining so brightly now. She though that it was only her family that knew about these awesome books. "I love those books! We have the water works one at home, I love how it explaines muggle things to us.. and the senses and digestive system books were cool too! Our books are well worn, but we love them anyway. And the teacher wears the awesomest outfits" Maybe she can give Airey ideas.
"MY mom loves those books as she says they are entertaining and educational." Sarah was still grinning from ear to ear as she boarded the bus of her dreams. She missed her childhood, she was soon to be of age and that scared her