the Headmaster's anteroom: ready for the Show at fourteen, or a clinker by fourteen
If she starts at seven she’ll either be ready for the Show at fourteen or by fourteen she’ll start getting that burned-out look that makes you want to wave your hand in front of her face [...] then by fourteen she’ll be like old coal in the bottom of a backyard grill.
Context
Hal reads Echt's whole future off the intake, and it's the Show-as-fate ledger with only two entries. Start the body at seven and by fourteen you're either "ready for the Show" or you've got "that burned-out look" — "like old coal in the bottom of a backyard grill." The same seven years of regimen that could produce a pro produces, just as reliably, a clinker: a body run all day and reduced to fused residue. Precocity and burnout are the same fuel, spent two ways.