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Taki's ears were pressed once again to his skull, and his tail hung limply, as well as all the color draining from his face, leaving him spectacularly pale. A quiz? But he barely knew his numbers...

Dr. Darnell obviously chose not to comment on Shade's name. "Thank you. Manuela?"

Manuela had gotten to her feet quickly at the teacher's request, hurrying around the room with the stack. When her name was called she hadn't yet gotten back to her seat, and simply waved her hand saying, "Present." But what to say about herself. She thought about it for a moment, Antony had said something about his dad, so maybe they were supposed to talk about home. "And um, I live above a church," she added, instantly deciding she could have thought of something better."

"Thank you," Dr. Darnell said, obviously marking Manuela down on the roll. "Riley?"

"I am charmed at your candour," said Dr. Darnell dryly. "Nonetheless, it is a rule in my class that if you communicate while other people are talking, you will do so in a way that is both not disrespectful and means I do not hear it. I have an excellent sense of hearing, so you and Ignacio will drop the volume unless you want to be separated, which would mean you want to be here even less. Taki?"

"Thank you." Beatrix tapped on the sheet. "And out of alphabetical order due to lateness - Ignacio."

"Yet another fascinating anecdote," Dr. Darnell said, but it looked as though she had at least been slightly amused by the candidness of Riley and Ignacio both. "All right, rollcall is over. Please turn over your tests and start. No talking; you have ten minutes. Thwomp will be observing you."

Thwomp immediately bounced over their heads until shot a glare by his mistress for being distracting, and settled for a slow floating patrol to make sure nothing untoward was happening.

The first question on the test appeared to be nothing more complicated than:

Please list in order from biggest to smallest the numbers from 1 to 10

carrying on to

If Betty has two sweets and Johnny has one, how many sweets do they have altogether?

and picture sums,

How many balls are there?

The first half of the paper was much in the basic addition and subtraction vein. The rest of it was a little more complicated: a picture of a blank clock face asked them to draw the hands on it of what it would be if it was half past two and a second, quarter past twelve. Subtle multiplication started to slip in - what are two groups of four? - and then a fraction.

"Ahh, that's no big deal," Riley assured him in a whisper, though it still wasn't a very quiet one. Obviously Beatrix's complicated way of explaining no or little talking didn't reach her very well. "I break windows all the time," she grinned. It wasn't something to be proud of, really, so she really had not right to smile as such.

She had completely ignored her "test" until the teacher brought it up again, very loudly, and with Thwomp now floating about. And yet for the first two minutes while she tried write on her paper she instead about herself staring at Thwomp from the corner of her eye curiously. Finally she managed to write her name in slapdash letters and went on to the problems.

This was probably to be her most successful moment in school academically. And only because Liam had been so bent on teaching her the basics of everything. Even if it had taken forever to get her to understand math beyond addition and subtraction. Though she knew how to do many of them, wrong answers slipped onto the paper due to carelessness and her lack of concern over the whole thing in general. And when a couple of the last problems confused her, she glared at them fiercely and then skipped them completely. Maybe now she could have fun and talk to her classmate instead!