Robyn Hoodie, the Virgin Diaries - Chapter 15: Another Day at School
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Chapter 15: Another Day at School
This morning at school, it was clear that nobody got enough sleep after our performance last night. I could see the Twins surreptitiously working on their smartphones during Maths class. A pair of old spare phones was neatly lodged in the pockets of the mandatory phone parking lot in front of the classroom. From the corner of my eye I tried to figure out what they were doing, but I got brutely interrupted by the teacher asking me to calculate the probability of passing the exams without proper sleep. Apparently it was that bad. Maybe I should have changed into fresh clothes after last night and cleaned the mascara smears off my face.
On the way to the next lesson, Portia informed me that they had a lead on the wife of the sad landlord and that they would tell me the details during lunch break, in order to come up with a recovery plan. Two more hours to go through. The first was about good citizenship. I had some trouble with that because the Digiboard was making attempts to move out of my field of vision in two different directions. This resolved itself once I knocked my forehead on my desk, leading to more teacher attention. As far as I can remember, the following sermon detailed that, contrary to common practice in certain Asian countries, it is 'not done' to sleep during meetings, even if you are able to answer questions after you have been revived and the question has been repeated. The teacher in the next lesson, our mad History teacher, took early control and put me in the pillory block that she had ordered the first years to make (probably under duress), as a project and as a warning. Pouring a glass of water over my head at least solved the runaway eyes issue but not the mascara and it was better than the recent case of a deodorant attack on one of my male classmates, which had him banished from the classroom until after a shower and fresh (borrowed) clothes, proving that there is something like too much deodorant. (The Chemistry teacher was very quick to come down and deny any involvement).
When the lunch break finally came, I joined the Twins in our designated corner of the auditorium, water still coursing down my neck. My current state of vagueness clearly stemmed back from this morning, because opening my lunchbox revealed a combination of ham, chocolate spread and sugary aniseed sprinkles on one of my sandwiches and nothing on another one.
Star had set up her laptop, showing a blocked landscape and a crude representation of the Taj Mahal.
'Bingo! We found her!' Portia exclaimed.
'It looks like somebody needs some help building this thing.' concluded Star. 'If this is the result of over five years of building. . . '
In the meantime, Portia had magicked aerial views and blueprints of the real Taj Mahal on her screen. ' Maybe we can divide the work? I'd love to do the fine detailing. Can you do the structural stuff? I suppose Star wants to deal with the landscaping.'
I proposed adding some other building somewhere over the horizon, to see if we could pique the wife's curiosity and get into verbal contact. 'I could do an Eiffel Tower...?'
The answer didn't come before the buzzer sounded, indicating that lessons would resume momentarily.
After surviving the remaining classes (barely), I got home to find the links and instructions for the building plan in my mailbox, so I retreated to my room right after dinner. Judging from the extent of the instructions, Portia probably hadn't paid too much attention to the lessons today. My Eiffel Tower plan had been scrapped in favour of wildly romantic scenery with Rococo bridges, flowerbeds and pastel trees. Sigh.
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Looking at the detailed plans of the Taj Mahal, and all the fiddly bits of architecture that Portia had committed herself to, I could only conclude it was a relief. Technically speaking it was relief all over. Reading about the 17-hectare garden increased my inner smile even more. It seemed like I was the lucky one, so I started off making the huge square (digital) marble pedestal in ten seconds straight.
