I stopped and immediately pulled up my terminal window to cover the cat. Petting her had become muscle memory. I avoided Louise’s eyes, tried to salvage my dignity.

“What are you going to teach me, Professor?” She looked all too eager at her seat, hands clasped together, smiling wider than ever. The classroom was clearly a comfortable place for her too.

I took a breath, inhaling all the power the space would give me. My hands easily took their place on the keyboard. I told her I would be teaching git rebasing.

Her eyes fogged over.

“You’ll like it,” I promised. “Do you remember what git is?”

“From your video for the freshmen?” She leaned back in her chair. “It’s for version control, right? Like every time you make a change to your code, you mark it with a git commit, and then you can always rewind and go back to that commit if you need to.”

I was impressed. I had planned to go over everything in my video again, but she had retained it and was even able to explain it back to me. She noticed my pause and winked.

“I’m a good student. You’ll have to try harder than that if you want to trip me up, Professor.”

I had to look away from her again. It thrilled me to see this academic side of her that matched mine in a way that was so easy. I pulled up my lecture notes to remind myself how I wanted to start.

“Let’s use an example,” I said, opening a text editor. “Normally git is used for code, but really it can be used for any type of file. So today, let’s use a regular text file and write a story. I’ll start.”

I typed out:

Once upon a time, there were two girls who went on an adventure.

I saved the file, then switched back to my terminal window to make the git commit.

“Commit messages are important because they tell you what the code you are introducing does, and, if it’s a good message, why you are introducing the code. So we’ll give this one a message of ‘Add opening of a story.’ ”

I committed the message, then pulled up the git log. “Add opening of a story” was the only entry there, along with a timestamp and my name.

“Let’s keep writing the story,” I said. My hands were flying now, settled in and comfortable. “It’s your turn.”

She didn’t have her computer, so I typed for her.

“Hm, alright,” she said. “The first girl was kind and pretty. She had never been on an adventure before, but she was eager to go, especially with her friend by her side. She was a careful person and had all the bus routes and passes ready. And of course, she had her trusty steed, Bike.”

“Is it a steed or a bike?”