The waiting room does the Buddy-arithmetic

texture · 10 Nov YDAU

• When: 10 Nov YDAU — the discipline wait outside the Headmaster's suite.
• What: With the Eschaton principals waiting for punishment, the jurisdictional fact everyone knows goes unmentioned: "everyone in the waiting room except Ann Kittenplan is keenly aware that Lord and Postal Weight are Pemulis's charges, Penn and Ingersoll Ax-handle's." The main text restates the both-ways custody in the same breath as Hal's conscience: "Though Ingersoll's informally in Hal's Big Buddy contingent, he's technically in Axhandle's, they're both aware; and Hal's a little uncomfortable about his relief that none of the real Eschaton casualties were technically his Buddies."