My Professor Is a Total Fraud

From the diary of Penny Holloway, written a good deal later

I first saw him in a third-class carriage, in a cream suit that cost more than the train, reading a newspaper he had already read. He took three almonds and told me nothing about himself, which is against the rules. By Harrow Cross I had decided he was either a god or a demon. Clara said I was being dramatic.

He came to the College to teach first-years, which he does badly on purpose. He never drinks the glass he orders. He reads the advertisements at the back of the paper as if they were the news. He is polite to porters and rude to nobody. And the Headmistress, who has not been available for comment for eighty years, is suddenly available to him. I have opinions about this. Clara has asked me to keep them.

I know what he is. I have known since the train, and I have not written it down, because it is my diary and I can be as annoying as I like.

Everything that happened afterwards happened because of that year. I was seventeen and I thought I was watching a man pretend to be ordinary. I was watching a man be kind, very carefully, so that nobody would notice.

I have weighed the evidence. Here is my verdict.

My professor is a total fraud.