Warm buzzing white tubes buzzed above the faux-walnut Formica counter of the Bursar’s Office at Harrowby Technical College, lighting up brass-framed notices of term dates and stacks of carbon-copy enrollment slips. The room smelled of mimeograph ink, floor polish, and the mug of milky instant coffee cooling beside the cashier’s rubber stamps. Ada Morland stood squarely before the wicket, unzipping her leather handbag to lay a crisp bank draft from Tamsin’s foreign-bullion exchange account onto the counter.
As the bursar’s clerk checked the four-hundred-and-fifty-pound autumn tuition deposit alongside the seven-hundred-and-fifty-pound full-year guild workshop bond, Ada felt a knot between her shoulder blades—one she had carried ever since her late sister’s funeral three winters ago—quietly unclench and drop away. Her calloused thumb smoothed the yellow copy of the equipment lesson plan. Meanwhile, Ben stood by the doorway hugging a cardboard carton containing his new navy-blue boiler suits.
She ran her carpenter’s pencil down the forced first-year apprentice tool list, checking every specification against forty years of trade standards. One twelve-inch drop-forged adjustable wrench, a twelve-piece set of chrome-vanadium combination wrenches, a heavy-duty wheel pipe-cutter for half-inch to two-inch copper and iron tube, a brass line-weight bob, and steel-capped ankle boots compliant with British Standard safety codes.
