"No. Darren does not need to go to school. I educate him."

"Really? There was no mention in the forms of your being a qualified teacher."

"I am not a—"

"And of course," Blaws went on, "we both know that only a qualified teacher can educate a child at home." He smiled like a shark. "Don't we?"

Mr. Crepsley didn't know what to say. He had no experience of the modern educational system. When he was a boy, parents could do what they liked with their children. I decided to take matters into my own hands.

"Mr. Blaws?"

"Yes, Darren?"

"What would happen if I didn't turn up at Mahler's?"

He sniffed snootily. "If you enrol at a different school and pass on the paperwork to me, everything will be fine."

"And if — for the sake of argument — I didn't enrol at another school?"

Mr. Blaws laughed. "Everyone has to go to school. Once you turn sixteen, your time is your own, but for the next…" He opened the briefcase again and checked his files "…seven months, you must go to school."

"So if I chose not to go…?"

"We'd send a social worker to see what the problem was."

"And if we asked you to tear up my enrolment form and forget about me — if we said we'd sent it to you by mistake — what then?"

Mr. Blaws drummed his fingers on the top of his bowler hat. He wasn't used to such bizarre questions and didn't know what to make of us. "We can't go around tearing up official forms, Darren," he chuckled uneasily.

"But if we'd sent them by accident and wanted to withdraw them?"

He shook his head firmly. "We weren't aware of your existence before you contacted us, but now that we are, we're responsible for you. We'd have to chase you up if we thought you weren't getting a proper education."

"Meaning you'd send social workers after us?"