"Maybe you should ask," she says. "To make sure it's not important."

"If it is are you going to start learning the boring things so you aren't badly educated?"

"I don't know!" she says. "I like learning the fun things. Maybe I can just be really well educated about things that I like."

"My uncle says that's not how it works."

"But he never said what's so bad about being badly educated?"

"No, just that being not-badly educated has to do with knowing lots of different things even if the things are boring."

"That's weird," says Helen. "Does that mean you're badly educated if you don't know any boring things?"

"I guess so!"

"What if you like everything, then are you just badly educated no matter how much stuff you know?"

"Maybe not. I'm not sure. Sometimes when I say something is boring he says it's not. He's wrong though."

"Sometimes stuff that's boring for one person is fun for somebody else," says Helen. "Maybe lots of things are fun for your uncle and that's why he doesn't care that they're boring for you."

"Maybe," says Shura. "Whatever, I don't have to do it a lot. I can just learn magic and stuff most of the time."

"Magic is fun!"

"Yeah!" agrees Shura brightly.

"And so is cake. I wonder if there are spells about cake?"

"There are spells to warm stuff up!"

"Maybe you can bake cake with some of them! I wanna find out," she says. "Who should I ask?"

"I dunno. Maybe my mom knows."

"Let's ask your mom!"

Off they go in search of Shura's mom!

"Hi, Shura's mom! Are there spells you can use to cook stuff when you don't have an oven?" says Helen. "Like cake?"

"If you don't have an oven, you can cook with magic," says Shura's mom. "It would never be worth the trouble if you did have one, though. Lot of runes."

"I want to learn how!" she says. "I like cooking and I don't have ovens all the time!"

"You're not up to runes yet," says Shura's mom. "Too fiddly for little witches. You'll start them when you're nine or ten depending."

"Awwww," says Helen. "Not even if I try really really hard and learn really really well?"