Common sense told Imp all these things, so he marched off firmly towards Ankh‑Morpork.

As far as looks were concerned, Susan had always put people in mind of a dandelion on the point of telling the time. The college dressed its gels in a loose navy‑blue woollen smock that stretched from neck to just above the ankle ‑ practical, healthy and as attractive as a plank. The waistline was some­where around knee level. Susan was beginning to fill it out, however, in accordance with the ancient rules hesitantly and erratically alluded to by Miss Delcross in Biology and Hygiene. Gels left her class with the vague feeling that they were supposed to marry a rabbit. (Susan had left with the feeling that the cardboard skeleton on the hook in the corner looked like someone she'd known...)

It was her hair that made people stop and turn to watch her. It was pure white, except for a black streak. School regulations required that it be in two plait's, but it had an uncanny tendency to unravel itself and spring back into its preferred shape, like Medusa's snakes.

And then there was the birthmark, if that's what it was. It only showed up if she blushed, when three faint pale lines appeared across her cheek and made it look exactly as though she'd been slapped. On the occasions when she was angry ‑ and she was quite often angry, at the sheer stupidity of the world ‑ they glowed.

In theory it was, around now, Literature. Susan hated Literature. She'd much prefer to read a good book. Currently she had Wold's Logic and Paradox open on her desk and was reading it with her chin in her hands.

She listened with half an ear to what the rest of the class was doing.

It was a poem about daffodils.