S2.2: A thoroughly depressing day

“It all happened over an evening and a morning late last summer. We had quite a good summer, last year, really. Quite a lot of dry days to be outside: for exploring and football practice. And even Hipparchus let me do my tutorials on the veranda, though that also meant I could see what I was missing. Anyway, it was a good summer. 

“But then at the end we had weeks of cloud and drizzly rain.” 

“A few days, perhaps.” pTravis suggests, reasonably.

“Weeks! It was interminable. Day after day, I looked out at the rain and couldn’t go out. As everyone knows, axolotls and water don’t mix. It was so boring! It was so boring that even though I had nothing better to do than homework for my lessons, I didn’t want to do that either. I didn’t want to do anything. Then Hipparchus shouted at me.” 

“I bet he didn’t! I’ve never heard Hipparchus shout at anyone or anything! The most I’ve heard him do is say, quietly, under his breath, ‘Bugger!’ Or, perhaps, ‘Buggeration!’” - Masongill. 

“You swore!” says Lottie, surprisingly charmingly. “Anyway. And then I was just kicking my football about a bit - quietly! - in the corridor and Alcock came out of his stupid ‘office’ (it’s just the breakfast area!) and told me to shush and take my ball outside and I snapped. And like a teacher (!) he called me into his ‘office’ to tell me off. Sheesh! 

“So I kicked my ball at his head. But that was stupid because, without saying anything, he put it on a shelf and just looked at me. So I went up to my bunk and got out Anduril: Flame of the West and went outside to hack up some old turnips. And that’s when it happened…”