Cloaks in Autumn

Wednesday. Autumn holidays, and not one apprentice came without a costume today. I counted.

Cloaks made from curtains. Hats made from cereal boxes. A boy of eight in his grandfather’s dressing gown, belted with a skipping rope, holding a wand he had whittled himself and was very anxious I should admire. I admired it. It was an excellent wand.

Every one of them in closed shoes, too, because the stone floor of the corridor is unforgiving and the rule on the door is firm. A little girl argued that wizards wear slippers. I told her this is a school, not a bedroom.

Each class had the academy to itself. We never put strangers in with another family; the classroom, the corridor and the eclipse belong to one booking for the hour. The costumes, I suspect, are part of the reason. Nobody wants to be seen in a dressing gown by people they don’t know.