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Susan always made no sound. The teachers had all remarked upon it. It was uncanny, they said. She was always in front of you when you least expected it.
'Ah, Susan,' said Miss Butts, a tight smile scuttling across her face like a nervous tick over a worried sheep. 'Please sit down.'
'Of course, Miss Butts.'
Miss Butts shuffled the papers.
'Susan . . .'
'Yes, Miss Butts?'
'I'm sorry to say that it appears you have been missed in lessons again.'
'I don't understand, Miss Butts.'
The headmistress leaned forward. She felt vaguely annoyed with herself, but . . . there was something frankly unlovable about the child. Academically brilliant at the things she liked doing, of course, but that was just it; she was brilliant in the same way that a diamond is brilliant, all edges and chilliness.
'Have you been . . . doing it?' she said. 'You promised you were going to stop this silliness.'
'Miss Butts?'
'You've been making yourself invisible again, haven't you?'
Susan blushed. So, rather less pinkly, did Miss Butts. I mean, she thought, it's ridiculous. It's against all reason. It's- oh, no . . .
She turned her head and shut her eyes.
'Yes, Miss Butts?' said Susan, just before Miss Butts said, 'Susan?'
Miss Butts shuddered. This was something else the teachers had mentioned. Sometimes Susan answered questions just before you asked them . . .
She steadied herself.
'You're still sitting there, are you?'
'Of course, Miss Butts.'
Ridiculous.
It wasn't invisibility, she told herself. She just makes herself inconspicuous. She . . . who . . .
She concentrated. She'd written a little memo to herself against this very eventuality, and it was pinned to the file.
She read:
You are interviewing Susan Sto Helit. Try not to forget it.
'Susan?' she ventured.
'Yes, Miss Butts?'
If Miss Butts concentrated, Susan was sitting in front of her. If she made an effort, she could hear the gel's voice. She just had to fight against a pressing tendency to believe that she was alone.
'I'm afraid Miss Cumber and Miss Greggs have complained,' she managed.
'I'm always in class, Miss Butts.'
'I dare say you are. Miss Traitor and Miss Stamp say they see you all the time.' There'd been quite a staffroom argument about that.
'Is it because you like Logic and Maths and don't like Language and History?'
Miss Butts concentrated. There was no way the child could have left the room. If she really stressed her mind, she could catch a suggestion of a voice saying, 'Don't know, Miss Butts.'
'Susan, it is really most upsetting when-'
Miss Butts paused. She looked around the study, and then glanced at a note pinned to the papers in front of her. She appeared to read it, looked puzzled for a moment, and then rolled it up and dropped it into the wastepaper basket. She picked up a pen and, after staring into space for a moment, turned her attention to the school accounts.
Susan waited politely for a while, and then got up and left as quietly as possible.