But I had rescued them, from the evening wind and morning dew. I had rescued them from Mr. Crane’s negligence. It was he who could not be trusted.

I separated one of the slips from the others. A quotation but no author, no book title or date. It would be discarded. I folded it and put it in my shoe.

The rest of the slips went back inside my book, and when the bells of Oxford rang out five o’clock I went to join Da in the Scriptorium.

He was alone at the sorting table, a proof in front of him, slips and books spread all around. He was bent to the page, oblivious to my presence.

I fingered the pages of the book in my pocket and removed the Distrustful slips. When I reached the sorting table, I added them to the disorder of Mr. Crane’s workspace.

“What is she doing?” Mr. Crane stood in the doorway of the Scriptorium, his features hard to make out against the afternoon light, but his slightly stooped frame and thin voice unmistakable.

Da looked up, startled, then saw the slips under my hand.

Mr. Crane strode over and reached out as if to slap my hand away, but seemed to flinch at its deformity. “This really won’t do,” he said, turning to Da.

“I found them,” I said to Mr. Crane, but he wouldn’t look at me. “I found them near the fence where you lean your bicycle. They fell out of your satchel.” I looked to Da. “I was putting them back.”

“With all due respect, Harry, she shouldn’t be in here.”

“I was putting them back,” I said, but it was as if I couldn’t be heard or seen; neither of them responded. Neither of them looked at me.

Da took a deep breath and released it with a barely noticeable shake of his head.

“Leave this to me,” he said to Mr. Crane.

“Of course,” said Mr. Crane, then he took up the pile of slips that had fallen from his satchel.

When he had gone, Da removed his spectacles and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

“Da?”

He returned his spectacles to their usual place and looked at me. Then he pushed his chair back from the sorting table and patted his knee for me to sit.

“You’re almost too big,” he said, trying to smile.

“He did drop them; I saw him.”

“I believe you, Essy.”

“Then why didn’t you say anything?”

He sighed. “It’s too complicated to explain.”

“Is there a word for it?” I asked.

“A word?”

“For why you didn’t say anything. I could look it up.”

He smiled then. “Diplomacy springs to mind. Compromise, mollify.”

“I like mollify.”

Together we searched the pigeon-holes.

MOLLIFY

“To mollify, by these indulgences, the rage of his most furious persecutors.”

David Hume, The History of Great Britain, 1754