Stepping Out of Class

Wednesday. A small apprentice decided, halfway through the final test today, that she had had quite enough of eclipses for one afternoon. Perfectly reasonable. I have felt the same.

There is a button in the classroom for exactly this. Press it, and somebody who has been watching the whole hour on a screen comes and opens the door, and out you step. The rest of the class carried on without her, while she sat in the foyer with her grandmother and a glass of water and told everyone what was probably happening inside.

Her grandmother, incidentally, had played the first half with a walking stick and managed beautifully. There is no crawling in my academy, no ducking, no squeezing past anything. The builders made it for apprentices with every kind of knee.

She has booked to come back at Christmas. She says she wants to see the end.