When I was a lad, every so often I would skive off school. It wasn’t a chronic problem, for the most part my parents ignored it and my teachers didn’t seem to notice. All except one teacher – he taught English and French, had the features of a hawk and a crew cut to match. He would always sniff the air before he made a withering comment about my previous day’s absence. Sometimes I was actually legitimately absent; he still didn’t care. Once a schoolmate broke into his desk and uncovered a trove of little notes written about us. The note about me said that I was “naively aimiable”....
