‘Ah, Sweeper,’ he burbled, awkwardly tossing aside a yellow ball and brightening up. ‘And how are the mountains? Wanna bikkit wanna bikkit!’
‘I’m definitely getting vulcanism, reverend one. It’s very encouraging.’
‘And you are in persistent good health?’ said the abbot, while his pudgy little hand banged a wooden giraffe against the bars.
‘Yes, your reverence. It’s good to see you up and about again.’
‘Only for a few steps so far, alas bikkit bikkit wanna bikkit. Unfortunately, young bodies have a mind of their own BIKKIT!’
‘You sent me a message, your reverence? It said, “Put this one to the test.”’
‘And what did you think of our want bikkit want bikkit want bikkit NOW young Lobsang Ludd?’ An acolyte hurried forward with a plate of rusks. ‘Would you care for a rusk, by the way?’ the abbot added. ‘Mmmm nicey bikkit!’
‘No, reverend one, I have all the teeth I need,’ said the sweeper.
‘Ludd is a puzzle, is he not? His tutors have nicey bikkit mmm mmm bikkit told me he is very talented but somehow not all there. But you have never met him and don’t know his history and so mmm bikkit and so I would value your uninfluenced observations mmm BIKKIT.’
‘He is beyond fast,’ said Lu-Tze. ‘I think he may begin to react to things before they happen.’
‘How can anyone tell that? Want teddy want teddy wanna wanna TEDDY!’
‘I put him in front of the Device of Erratic Balls in the senior dojo and he was moving towards the right hole fractionally before the ball came out.’
‘Some kind of gurgle telepathy, then?’
‘If a simple machine has a mind of its own I think we’re in really big trouble,’ said Lu-Tze. He took a deep breath. ‘And in the hall of the Mandala he saw the patterns in the chaos.’
‘You let a neophyte see the Mandala?’ said chief acolyte Rinpo, horrified.
‘If you want to see if someone can swim, push him in the river,’ said Lu-Tze, shrugging. ‘What other way is there?’
‘But to look at it without the proper training—’
‘He saw the patterns,’ said Lu-Tze. ‘And reacted to the Mandala.’ He did not add: and the Mandala reacted to him. He wanted to think about that. When you look into the abyss, it’s not supposed to wave back.
‘It was teddyteddyteddywahwah strictly forbidden, even so,’ said the abbot. Clumsily, he fumbled among the toys on his mat and picked up a large wooden brick with a jolly blue elephant printed on it and hurled it clumsily at Rinpo. ‘Sometimes you presume too much, Sweeper lookit ’lephant!’
There was some applause from the acolytes at the abbot’s prowess in animal recognition. ‘He saw the patterns. He knows what is happening. He just doesn’t know what he knows,’ said Lu-Tze doggedly. ‘And within a few seconds of meeting me he stole a small object of value, and I’m still wondering how he did it. Can he really be as fast as that without training? Who is this boy?’
Tick
Who is this girl?
Madam Frout, headmistress of the Frout Academy and pioneer of the Frout Method of Learning Through Fun, often found herself thinking that when she had to interview Miss Susan. Of course, the girl was an employee, but … well, Madam Frout wasn’t very good at discipline, which was possibly why she’d invented the Method, which didn’t require any. She generally relied on talking to people in a jolly tone of voice until they gave in out of sheer embarrassment on her behalf.
Miss Susan didn’t appear ever to be embarrassed about anything.
‘The reason I’ve called you here, Susan, is that, er, the reason is—’ Madam Frout faltered.
‘There have been complaints?’ said Miss Susan.
‘Er, no … er … although Miss Smith has told me that the children coming up from your class are, er, restless. Their reading ability is, she says, rather unfortunately advanced …’
‘Miss Smith thinks a good book is about a boy and his dog chasing a big red ball,’ said Miss Susan. ‘My children have learned to expect a plot. No wonder they get impatient. We’re reading Grim Fairy Tales at the moment.’
‘That is rather rude of you, Susan.’
‘No, madam. That is rather polite of me. It would have been rude of me to say that there is a circle of Hell reserved for teachers like Miss Smith.’
‘But that’s a dreadf—’ Madam Frout stopped, and began again. ‘You should not be teaching them to read at all yet!’ she snapped. But it was the snap of a soggy twig. Madam Frout cringed back in her chair when Miss Susan looked up. The girl had this terrible ability to give you her full attention. You had to be a better person than Madam Frout to survive in the intensity of that attention. It inspected your soul, putting little red circles around the bits it didn’t like. When Miss Susan looked at you, it was as if she was giving you marks.
‘I mean,’ the headmistress mumbled, ‘childhood is a time for play and—’
‘Learning,’ said Miss Susan.
‘Learning through play,’ said Madam Frout, grateful to find familiar territory. ‘After all, kittens and puppies—’
‘—grow up to be cats and dogs, which are even less interesting,’ said Miss Susan, ‘whereas children should grow up to be adults.’
Madam Frout sighed. There was no way she was going to make any progress. It was always like this. She knew she was powerless. News about Miss Susan had got around. Worried parents who’d turned to Learning Through Play because they despaired of their offspring ever Learning By Paying Attention to What Anyone Said were finding them coming home a little quieter, a little more thoughtful and with a pile of homework which, amazingly, they did without prompting and even with the dog helping them. And they came home with stories about Miss Susan.
Miss Susan spoke all languages. Miss Susan knew everything about everything. Miss Susan had wonderful ideas for school trips …
… and that was particularly puzzling, because as far as Madam Frout knew, none had been officially organized. There was invariably a busy silence from Miss Susan’s classroom when she went past. This annoyed her. It harked back to the bad old days when children were Regimented in classrooms that were no better than Torture Chambers for Little Minds. But other teachers said that there were noises. Sometimes there was the faint sound of waves, or a jungle. Just once, Madam Frout could have sworn, if she was the sort to swear, that as she passed there was a full-scale battle going on. This had often been the case with Learning Through Play, but this time the addition of trumpets, the swish of arrows and the screams of the fallen seemed to be going too far.
She’d thrown open the door and felt something hiss through the air above her head. Miss Susan had been sitting on a stool, reading from a book, with the class cross-legged in a quiet and fascinated semicircle around her. It was the sort of old-fashioned image Madam Frout hated, as if the children were Supplicants around some sort of Altar of Knowledge.
No-one had said anything. All the watching children, and Miss Susan, made it clear in polite silence that they were waiting for her to go away.
She’d flounced back into the corridor and the door had clicked shut behind her. Then she noticed the long, crude arrow that was still vibrating in the opposite wall.
Madam Frout had looked at the door, with its familiar green paint, and then back at the arrow.