That day at school for Tobia and Olivia went by pretty smoothly, as they all did after all; at this point the siblings had got used to how school worked in the ordinary world, and seeing that Sorcery School was ten times worse, they could not but be thankful for not having to step foot into it again.

Of course it wasn't always all fun and games at ordinary school either, but the twins soon figured out how to behave in that environment.

During the two-week break between their arrival to town and the beginning of the school year, the twins did some research about the habits and traditions of the Ordinary. They knew that if the magic world had decided to abandon them, they couldn't just keep wallowing in grief and regret, as their dad seemed to be doing. And since they didn't want to start off unprepared, especially at school, they came up with a list of Dos and Don'ts, based not only on theoretical research, but also direct experience from their first days in the new community:

DOs

· Get yourself the latest mobile phone. They do everything with that here.

· You can dress as you want. They have no restrictions on colour matching (just don't get carried away with the colours, you don't want to look like a parrot).

· You are allowed to have as much sugar as you want, even in your tea or coffee (Don't get carried away here either, it isn't properly the healthiest choice. And don't eat much of that before bed time, you might end up feeling too energetic to fall asleep).

· Young people can easily address older people without much formality.

· Bread is really good on this side of humanity, especially the one they make in the morning in little shops.

· People eat a lot of different things: it is ok to experiment with food.

· People like to ride bycicles, you might consider getting one.

· People often take public transportation, like buses and trains, but remember that you have to buy a ticket to get on one. Also, remember that it will be packed and possibly smelly, so take that into consideration.

· Another thing about public transport: you can smile at people sitting around you, but don't talk with everybody like you are a big family, apparently people don't like that and will get annoyed easily.

· Eat as much stracciatella ice-cream as you can. It's so good.

· It is ok to talk to cats. Surprisingly, the Ordinary do that as well and they don't consider that weird.

DON'Ts

· Don't befriend spiders and snakes among the Ordinary, they scare the hell out of them.

· Don't ask for Stramonium at the supermarket, they'll look at you like you're crazy.

· Don't take broomsticks that don't belong to you (apparently broomsticks are personal properties in the ordinary world, so if you take one that is not specifically yours, they would consider that as an act of stealing).

· Don't ask people for directions to the Divination Centre, they don't have that kind of building here.

· Don't recreate ghostly holograms in front of children, they will run away screaming (instead, you can try with animal holograms, but not minotaurs or hydras, go for unicorns or cute cats).

· Don't purify a public environment with either smudges, onyx or obsidian stones, the Ordinary will stare and think you're being weird.

· Don't ever, ever eat crickets in front of the Ordinary (not even fried), they will make you feel like you're the most disgusting person on Earth.

· Don't exaggerate with sugar and sweets, or else you'll get lots of pimples on your face.

· Don't trust people stopping you on the street with a paper and pen in their hands, asking you when was the last time you were happy. They don't care about you. They just want to sell you stuff. Do as the locals do instead: don't make eye contact and keep walking.

· Don't go to bed too late and don't sleep in in the morning. Everything starts earlier in the ordinary world and you'd better get used to that as soon as possible.

On their first day of school, Olivia and Tobia thought nothing could go wrong. They had prepared themselves for days, they had their list of Dos and Don'ts with them, they thought about what to say and how to introduce themselves to teachers and classmates; they were fully conscious of their abilities and they knew that their teachers and classmates would be happy to welcome such brilliant students in their school. What they didn't expect was that high school, in the ordinary world, is... how to say... quite of a hot mess, especially if compared to magic school.

Students running in corridors, teachers coming late to class, spitballs flying all over the place, walls covered in writing, students eating during class, using their phones all the time, talking back to teachers whenever they were scolded... it goes without saying that Tobia and Olivia were pretty shocked.

Where they came from, school was still a serious thing, probably even too serious. Teachers would be almost revered, and students could talk in class only when teachers gave them permission to, and only for school matters (this was not always the case, but they knew what they were going to risk, if they were surprised chatting about personal affairs).

The school facilities were spotlessly clean, and it was the students who would take care of them, in turns. When it was your turn, you had to stay longer after class and tidy everything up, wash, cleanse, even scrub, everything would have to turn out immaculate. Needless to say, this was all possible because they were helped by magic: brooms sweeping on their own, buckets of water and rags flying all over the place and, most importantly, skeletons from the class of Fundamentals of Magic Healing that came to life and restlessly went back and forth holding a vacuum cleaner in one hand and a bubbly sponge in the other... God, those skeletons really were some hard workers.

None of those things would be possible in Triora's ordinary school. Ordinary kids were just extremely spoiled, and they had no respect toward adults. It was quite of a surprise for the two siblings to discover that in the ordinary world young people could easily speak to adults in the way they spoke to their friends. In the magic world, there was still an uncompromising hierarchy of respect of the young toward the adults: of course you could talk to them, but you would have to show them an extreme level of politeness, and you could never address them in the way you would address your peers, as it seemed pretty common to do in the ordinary society.

Furthermore, kids here seemed to have no willingness to study, learn or discover new things: Olivia and Tobia noticed that their classmates were always tired, bored, annoyed by everything. Is this what it really feels like to have no magic powers? Is life as an Ordinary so terrible? Does it just suck in all your curiosity and eagerness?

Tobia, who has always been a very empathetic kid, could actually imagine himself becoming just as vile as most of his ordinary classmates if he didn't have his powers. What would be left of him without his magic? He thought about this a lot, and he came up with the answer that yes, he probably would have felt miserable, he probably would have turned into a dreadful human being, maybe even much worse than the majority of his classmates... it would have definitely sucked.

Another thing that left Tobia and Olivia puzzled is how important appearances are in the ordinary world. The best thing you could be as a girl is being pretty, popular and, as strange as it may sound, being arrogant and self-entitled are qualities to be proud of almost. And it works pretty much the same for boys, except that boys are generally more impelled to show aggressiveness, and even violence, in order to prove their value and strenght to the world.

Is this really the best that the Ordinary have? Maybe when you don't have magic powers, you feel so desperate to show everybody how worthy you are, that you actually can't see how much of a jerk you can be... it is sad and pathetic at the same time, that's what Tobia and Olivia ended up thinking after a couple of months living among them.

Tobia and Olivia never had to show off during their lives, as the world of witches and wizards just did not work like that. Tobia and Olivia are well aware that Maleventum is not a healthy community anymore: a lot of witches and wizards have become too strict and rigid, extremely dutiful and corrupted at the same time. But one of the very few things that they miss about Maleventum is that nobody has to give themselves airs and graces there, nor exhibit anything or pretend to be better than others, as it seems to be the norm in the ordinary world.