Outside the window, workers were pounding the foundations into place with gusto. Inside, the children gazed at Professor Swaro with shining eyes.
The professor was staying. The children's fickle feelings had instantly shifted from "What will we do if the professor leaves? Waaah!" to "Why won't the professor leave already? Waaah!"
"Did you write this?" Mr. Swaro raised his gloomy face.
The sounds of construction outside could not penetrate the old schoolhouse's magical barrier.
"Uh-huh." Cathy was unusually well-behaved.
"Cathy, you have a real talent..." Mr. Swaro closed the exercise book and said to Cathy, who had lifted her chin and puffed out her chest, ready for praise, "Don't waste that talent on studying."
"Next."
Cathy returned to her seat with her exercise book, baffled. She quietly asked Ivana, "What did he mean?"
"Let me see."
Ivana took the exercise book. After a glance, she said, "Every answer is wrong."
Cathy was struck dumb. She had spent three hours begging Annan to do that homework for her—
"But Professor Swaro said I had talent..."
"He was calling you an idiot."
"Professor Swaro is wrong!" Cathy stared at Mr. Swaro as he checked another student's homework at the lectern. Grinding a loose tooth, she said, "Daddy Annan can't be wrong!"
Many people in Free City shared that simple conviction: Lord Annan was always right. Even if he was wrong, that did not mean you were right.
Convinced Professor Swaro was wrong, Cathy punished him in her own way: everything he said went in one ear and out the other.
After checking the homework, Mr. Swaro began the day's lesson.
Every student looked as though they were listening attentively, Cathy included. Whether she was imagining herself fighting an evil dragon to rescue a princess or becoming a hero who saved the world