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Rorvan entered the classroom and saw that his desk was no longer there. Each of the desks had been replaced by a canvas on an easel, and a small stool which held various coloured paints and a palette.
Nervously standing beside the easel where his desk usually stood, Rorvan looked up at Professor Theta who was wearing his familiar, slightly mischievous grin.
“Well class,” he began, “None of you have shown a particular interest in learning about the concept of art. I believe the reason Time Lords dismiss this topic as primitive and uninteresting is because they only learn about it out of textbooks and leave any actual artwork to computers. Now, you have all learned about the various techniques and history, but today you are going to try your hand at actually doing it. I want everybody to submit a painting to me by the end of the class. It should show thought and feeling. Begin.”
Rorvan stared at his supplies in horror. He couldn't paint! Surely he couldn't! But if he wanted to have something to hand in by the end of the class he would need to get started right away. He picked up some paint tubes and looked at the colours hoping for inspiration. The tube of silver paint gave him an idea, he would paint a tree! That couldn't be too hard could it? Since he couldn't think of anything that would be easier he squirted some silver, orange, red and black paint into different areas of his palette. Remembering the techniques he had read about, he mixed the paints to get the various shades he would need.
Looking at the paints he suddenly felt more confident. That’s right, he reminded himself, I have read all the books so I must be able to do this. If primitive species could do it, why couldn't he? He dipped his brush in a dark orange intending to start with the trunk. He lifted the brush but stopped with it just in front of the canvas. Then he started to panic. He couldn't bring himself to apply the first stroke. The canvas was so perfectly white. He felt like it was staring at him. Once he put the first dab of paint on it, he was committed. He would have to keep going from there. What if it was the wrong spot? What if it was the wrong colour? Could he paint over a mistake? What kind of paint was this anyways?
His panic was increasing. What was wrong with him? Shouldn't this be easy? He looked around the classroom. No one else had started either. About half of the students were doing as he was, holding a paintbrush but clearly too afraid to begin. The other half had not even touched their brushes and were still staring at the paint supplies as though they couldn't understand what was happening.
Before he had decided what to do, Professor Theta suddenly bounded up to the window at the side of the classroom. Every student turned to watch as he pulled out a rather large paintbrush and some yellow paint and proceeded to paint a large smiling face on the window. He turned back to his students, “I thought I said begin.”
The shock of this blatant vandalism of academy property suddenly made putting paint on his canvas seem positively effortless. His brush contacted the canvas, leaving a stroke of orange on the white, and once he had started it seemed easier to keep going.
Pretty soon he realized that there was more to painting than the textbook had lead him to believe. As much as he had followed the techniques he had read about, his tree was becoming incredibly lopsided and did not look the least bit realistic. The silver that was supposed to be leaves looked more like an angry swarm of silver flutterwings attacking the tree branches. He looked at his neighbour's work. The boy to his left was painting a Time Lord who appeared to have slightly green skin and looked quite crazed by the fact that one eye was much larger than the other and the mouth appeared to stretch across most of the face. The boy was trying to reduce the size of the mouth by painting over the edges with the skin tone, an effort that was simply creating brown smudges as the pink and green paint mixed, giving the impression that the Time Lord was covered in something that Rorvan would rather not think about. The girl to his right was painting something very colourful that he could not identify. He wondered if that was supposed to be abstract art or if she was just a terrible painter. Suddenly he felt a lot better about his tree.
Rorvan was actually starting to enjoy himself when a kitten leaped out of one of Professor Theta’s desk drawers. Cats were a species native to Gallifrey that were now extinct in the wild. Long ago, changing climate on Gallifrey meant that they were all dying out. In an effort to save the species, the Time Lords introduced them into the ecosystem on the planet Sol 3. Nowadays, the few cats on Gallifrey were specially imported from that planet. Rorvan knew all this but had never actually seen a cat until he started taking classes with Professor Theta, who had seven kittens which he had apparently rescued from abandonment. What Rorvan could never understand was why his professor brought his kittens to class with him.
“No! No! No! Come back here Trouble!” cried Professor Theta, chasing after the orange cat.
Trouble did not do as he was told but bounded across a paint palette and then across the classroom, leaving green paw prints behind him.
“Catch that cat!”
Soon everybody had abandoned their paintings in order to chase around the evasive kitten, which was becoming steadily more covered in paint. The turmoil eventually calmed when Professor Theta managed to corner and grab him. Holding the now very colourful cat away from his robes, he called to his class, “I’ll give a triple alpha in this project to anyone who can tell me how to get paint out of fur!”
Everyone looked at each other. Rorvan didn't have a clue how to do that and from the look on everyone else’s faces, neither did they.
“Oh well,” Professor Theta said, “Class is dismissed. You will have next class to continue work on your paintings. Please leave everything as it is until tomorrow.”
As Rorvan left the room he looked back and felt a strange urge to laugh at the sight of the usually dull grey classroom so full of colours, with his professor standing in the middle staring intently at a cat that was struggling hard to get out of his hands.
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Professor Theta had a pile of black objects on his desk that Rorvan did not recognize.
“Alright class, please take out your essays and leave them on your desks. Then come up to the front of the classroom.”
They did as they were told.
Professor Theta handed each student a long black object that seemed to be a plastic rod covered in a thin plastic film. They all jumped when he pressed a button on the one he was holding and it suddenly shot open revealing a curved disk-like shape of thin plastic stretched over a spindly metal framework with a hard plastic rod protruding out of the concave side of the curved disk. Holding the strange object by the rod, Professor Theta placed it on his desk and asked the question, “What do you suppose is the purpose of this object?”
Each student examined the object in their hand, pressing the button as their professor had and trying to imagine what such a thing might be used for.
“It is a satellite dish,” one student said confidently, “They use these on some planets to send signals.”
“That can’t be it,” someone else said thoughtfully, “There are no power connections. It is obviously some sort of detection device. I imagine the metal conducts incoming electricity to the polymer, which changes colour depending on the voltage.”
“In that case,” another student chipped in, “it could be a pH detector or elemental analyzer. If you turn it this way you could pour a solution into it and read the results of the analysis off of this rod.” He looked at the end of the rod expecting to see a miniscreen and looked disappointed.
“Well it is obviously meant to hold liquid,” came another voice, “perhaps it is merely for measuring the weight of a liquid. If you attached the rod to a scale and allowed it to hang free you could pour a liquid in and use the weight and coefficient of gravity to calculate its density.”
“hmmm,” Everyone looked thoughtful trying to come up with any other possible explanations. Rorvan didn't think any of the theories sounded quite right but he couldn't for the life of him imagine what the real function might be, although it did seem likely that it would involve holding a liquid.
“Very interesting theories!” said Professor Theta, “some really creative ideas! However, I’m afraid no one has hit on the correct answer.” Professor Theta pulled out a small box with one button on it. “I will now demonstrate it’s true purpose,” he said and pressed the button.
Immediately, water started pouring out of small devices attached to the ceiling. Startled by the freezing wet liquid that was messing up his hair and robes, Rorvan instinctively lifted the object in his hand and hid under it. The object repelled the water and left a perfect dry area for him to stand under. Looking around, he saw other students doing the same thing. And then it hit him: this must be the purpose of these devices. They are simply for repelling water.
But his thoughts were interrupted by a sudden dread. His essay! The other students seems to have had the same thought. As one, they raced back to their desks and grabbed their essays under their umbrellas. Rorvan, remembering how he spent nearly half of the previous day completing the assignment, nervously inspected it. Thankfully it was still legible, if a bit damp.
“Excellent!” said Professor Theta, soaking wet and grinning at the front of the class. He pressed the button again and the water stopped. He started pulling towels out of a drawer and laying them on his desk. “Now, would you all place your essays on these towels. I would like a short essay by tomorrow about what the point of this class was. 1000 words. Class dismissed.”
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Rorvan yawned. They were taking notes in Professor Theta’s class for once. He told himself that this was a relief, but if he was more honest with himself he would have admitted that he was a bit disappointed.
Near the end of class, Professor Theta switched off his lecture screen. “Well that’s enough of the boring stuff!”
‘Oh no,’ Rorvan thought to himself, but perked up all the same.
Professor Theta pulled a drawer right out of his desk and placed in on the top. Inside the drawer seven kittens were sleeping peacefully, apparently unperturbed by their drawer being moved about.
“I need help naming my kittens,” the professor said cheerfully.
“This one is Trouble,” he said pointing at an orange kitten that Rorvan recognized from the paint incident.
“This one always looks smug so I call him The Cat of Rassilon,” he continued, “This is Toclafane, and this is The Other Kitten.”
As he spoke he stroked each kitten in turn, “That leaves these three, two female and one male. I want you each to think of at least one name, write it down with your name and hand it in to me. I will choose three names and give bonus marks to the ones who thought of them.”
Rorvan considered this. First he thought of names of famous Time Lords, but that would make for an annoyingly long name. If it was his cat, he considered, he would name it after a mathematical constant. But he soon abandoned this line of thinking. He would need something unique if he wanted the professor to like it. Professor Theta would tell him to think of something that other people wouldn't think of… but what? What name would the professor like?
His mind wandered and he found himself thinking of a class at the beginning of the term, in which Professor Theta has insisted they all try a primitive activity known as baking and actually consume the results. Rorvan had eaten his entire piece of cake and was surprised to have suffered no ill effects from food made out of such raw materials as sugar and flour. It was the first time he had eaten something not from the automatic food dispenser and he had decided not to tell his mother about it in case she sent him for decontamination.
What was it that Professor Theta has said at the time? When no one was willing to put the suspicious substance in their mouths he had pointed dramatically at them and proclaimed, “I am the evil Cakefiend and I demand that you eat your cake!”
That was it! Rorvan smiled and wrote down ‘Cakefiend.’
Professor Theta’s face was impassive as he read the names his class had submitted. Rorvan wondered if he was disappointed.
“Ok, I've chosen,” he said, “This one will be ‘Vesmaltrevlortanyous’. I’ll call her ‘Malt’ for short. And this one will be Tau.”
Everyone else must have been thinking of famous Time Lords and mathematical constants as well, Rorvan realized. He thought he understood now what Professor Theta meant when he said that Time Lords were infinitely predictable.
“And this one,” the professor said grinning happily and stroking a grey kitten, “Will be called ‘Cakefiend!’”
The whole class burst into laughter, no one had forgotten how they were terrorized into eating cake by the ‘Cakefiend.’ Rorvan couldn't believe it: an entire classroom laughing together! This did not happen at the academy! Professor Theta was looking at him fondly and he couldn't help feeling quite proud.
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Rorvan felt like he must be getting used to Professor Theta because he was not the least bit surprised to arrive in class and find a strange pattern of 9 dots waiting on his desk.
Earlier in the term he would have been confused and worried by this bizarre and cryptic note. But by now he would have been more surprised if there wasn't something different when he entered the classroom and he calmly waited for the explanation he knew would come.
“We Time Lords are very proud of our abilities in problem solving,” Professor Theta began once all the students were seated, “today you have a chance to show off these skills with a simple puzzle. I would like you to draw four straight lines through the nine dots without retracing and without lifting your pen from the paper. Begin.”
Rorvan looked down, for once in one of Professor Theta’s classes he felt confident. As the professor had said, solving puzzles was a Time Lord specialty. He started going over the possibilities in his mind. This really was too simple. There was a limited number of ways that lines could be drawn and by going over them all, the correct path would soon be revealed.
Twenty microspans later he was far less confident. He must have been through every possibility dozens of times and he couldn't figure it out! Why couldn't he figure it out? It really didn't seem like it should be difficult. He glanced around and was relieved to see that everyone else was also looking down at the dots just as frustrated as he was.
Then it occurred to him: it must be impossible! That was it! That was exactly the sort of thing that Professor Theta would do, giving them an impossible puzzle. He wondered how long the professor was going to let them sit here trying to work it out. Maybe if they all looked like they had given up the professor would admit that there was no solution. He relaxed back in his chair, staring lazily at the yellow smiley face on the window.
After another ten microspans, a few more students had given up and were staring around the classroom blankly. The professor looked up from some tests he was marking, “Has anyone solved it?”
Silence followed this question and Rorvan could have sworn the look on the professor’s face became very smug.
“There is a saying on Earth,” he said, “about thinking outside the box.”
With this comment he went back to his marking, still looking annoyingly smug. Rorvan felt like he had heard enough about the planet Earth, the colloquial term for Sol 3, for several lifetimes. Professor Theta seemed convinced that human beings in particular had a lot of lessons to teach Time Lords and based many of his lectures on their cultures.
This was also not the first time that the professor had used the ‘thinking outside the box’ reference. Rorvan remembered the last time he heard that phrase was when Professor Theta had asked his class to understand why someone would participate in the activity known as bungee jumping. Shivering at the thought of throwing himself off a bridge tied to a rope, Rorvan turned his attention back to the dots in front of him.
‘Think outside the box,’ he told himself. Aha! There was, literally, a box around the dots. Did this mean he was supposed to imagine that the box was not there? Perhaps that would help him solve the puzzle. If so, it made a lot more sense of the box thing, which he had never understood in the context of bungee jumping.
While he was still trying to figure out how removing the box would help to connect the dots, a girl on the other side of the class suddenly leaped up and shouted, “I've got it!”
Every eye turn to stare at her and she looked suddenly very embarrassed at her improper behaviour. Any other teacher would have kicked her out of class, but Professor Theta ran over to her excitedly and said, “Let’s see!”
She sat down and said, “I have found the solution sir,” doing a good job of holding on to her dignity despite her bright red face as she passed her solution to the professor.
The professor grinned and congratulated her heartily as he showed the solution to the rest of the class.
When he saw the solution it seemed so obvious! Why hadn't he tried that?
“Time Lords are good at problem solving, but are also limited in their thinking by imaginary boundaries. I want you all to write an essay by tomorrow about thinking outside the box. Any length. Bonus points for anyone who thinks outside the box for their essay.”
The next day Professor Theta was happier than Rorvan had ever seen him when one student submitted, instead of an essay, a painting of a kitten bungee jumping. The professor had awarded her a triple alpha, spent at least 10 microspans fawning over it and had finally hung it right at the front of the class.
Rorvan felt like he finally understood what ‘thinking outside the box’ meant.
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Rorvan ran down the corridor thinking that this might be one of the most ridiculous things that he had ever done. That wasn't true of course; he had done much more ridiculous things in Professor Theta’s classes but somehow if it was in that classroom it seemed normal. Now that he was outside the classroom, throwing aside the dignity of a Time Lord to race around like an irate vortisaur seemed totally unprecedented.
Professor Theta had brought his seven cats to class, which were no longer tiny kittens that fit in his desk drawer. In fact, Rorvan, who did not know much about cats, was quite surprised at how big some of them had gotten. He had asked his class to observe the cats and take notes on their behaviour and then gave each cat a strange sort of dried green leaf. Rorvan had to admit that it had a fascinating effect on them.
He had quite enjoyed the class, taking notes on the specific behavioural changes including increased leaping, purring, restlessness and aggression; and on the possible causes of the phenomenon, which he suspected was nepetalacetone binding to one or more olfactory receptors.
The class had gone surprisingly smoothly until someone made the mistake of opening a door. Perhaps they were not happy with being watched and prodded by the students, because as soon as an exit appeared they were off like a shot.
That was how their class activity had turned into racing up and down corridors chasing cats.
Rorvan bumped into Professor Theta while turning a corner. “The Cat of Rassilon is down this hallway!” he shouted, “You go down this way and I’ll loop around and try to head him off at the other end!”
He was thinking wildly to himself that one day he would tell people about how he had chased “The Cat of Rassilon” around the corridors of the academy and they would all think that he was mad. But Rorvan did as he was told and, thankfully, was able to herd the cat into his professor’s waiting arms.
Before long the cats were all rounded up and back in the classroom. Now that they were all sleeping happily around the room it was hard to believe how crazy they had been acting mere microspans ago.
Rorvan stroked Cakefiend, who was purring on his lap, as he added to his notes that the effect of the catnip has not permanent.
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Dance. An activity based on the movement of the body often accompanied by music. It is performed by almost every species across the universe for the purposes of art, entertainment, courtship, exercise, communication, or religion.
So far Professor Theta had simply taught his students an overview of the concept, the variations in different cultures, the history of famous dances and the psychological reasons that caused the activity to be so widespread. But Rorvan had a terrible sneaking suspicion that at some point they were going to be asked to do it themselves.
This was their third class since starting the subject and Rorvan held his breath as he entered the classroom, but let out a sigh of relief when he saw that the desks had not been cleared away. Instead there was a time-space visualizer at the front of the room. They spent the whole class tuning in to various planets and time periods in which there were people dancing. It was surprisingly interesting and certainly gave a better impression of what dance was really like than looking at step diagrams in books.
Near the end of class, Professor Theta turned off the time-space visualizer and the image of three bogglewogs wiggling out the ponpon dance faded away. “Tomorrow we are going to have a dance,” he announced with no preamble. Rorvans worst fears were confirmed. He couldn't decide whether it was better or worse being warned ahead of time.
“So make sure you all practice tonight!” he continued with a smile, “Class dismissed.”
Rorvan spent all evening reading about dance techniques. He focused mainly on Earth dances because those were the most likely to come up, especially since he would not have the flexibility for something like the ponpon dance or the correct number of limbs for any of the dances from Alpha Centauri.
He had trouble sleeping that night. He used to think that anything could be learned from reading textbooks, but that was before he had Professor Theta as a teacher. He wondered how much he would make a fool of himself the next day. His last thought before he finally drifted off was that he desperately hoped they wouldn't be breakdancing.
When he arrived for class the next day he was not surprised to find the desks cleared away and music playing but he had not anticipated that Professor Theta would have decorated the entire classroom. Stepping through the door, he felt like he might almost be in eighteenth century Earth. The amount of detail was astounding. There were even what looked like chameleon circuits wired into projectors aimed at the walls ceiling and floor, making them appear exactly like those he had seen in the time-space visualizer the previous day. That was a brilliant feat of electrical engineering. Professor Theta must have been up all night setting this up.
Professor Theta greeted them all excitedly at the door, “Welcome! Welcome to the first annual Gallifreyan masquerade ball!”
Rorvan was not sure whether he was serious about the “annual” part or if he just liked how it sounded. Gallifrey had a complicated orbit around two suns, making the word annual completely irrelevant. Even so, it was possible that this was going to become a recurring nightmare.
“Everybody take a mask,” the professor said, handing out colourful feathery objects that had eyeholes and elastic strings attached.
Following Professor Theta’s example, Rorvan put his mask on. He looked around at his classmates in their masks. Because they were all wearing the same academy robes, the masks rendered them completely indistinguishable from one another. He couldn't identify a single one of his peers. That must mean that he was also unrecognizable in this crowd. This sudden realization of anonymity gave him a weird feeling. He felt relaxed, and after some consideration he understood that it was because he had never been surrounded by so many people and less worried about how they were judging him. Time Lords have really long memories and the tiniest slip in composure might taint your standing forever, but with his face concealed like this no one would ever know it had been him if he made a mistake.
‘I wish we wore these all the time,’ he thought to himself. He was so distracted he completely forgot what was about to happen next.
“Everybody find a partner!”
Rorvan turned to the person next to him. He had no idea who he/she was, but was comforted by the facts that they also had no idea who he was as they started dancing together in an attempt to copy the moves he had seen on the time-space visualizer. Fortunately, this was one of the dance forms that he had studied from his textbook.
Deciding it was too complicated, he abandoned the footwork patterns he had read about and focused on being in the right place without stepping on anyone’s feet. Nobody really looked like they knew what they were doing, but they didn't care. They spun each other round and bounded across the floor. When they stumbled or bumped into each other it prompted only laughter. The classroom was a blur of bright colours and brighter smiles, the students arm in arm and moving to the music. Rorvan could not remember ever having so much fun in his life.
It felt like they had only just started by the time class was over. Rorvan was surprised how disappointed he felt when Professor Theta turned off the music to signal that they should all stop.
The students all ground to a halt and looked at each other, the atmosphere in the room becoming suddenly tense. Nobody wanted to remove their masks. After a pause they all rushed to the professors desk and took off theirs masks, quickly leaving them in a pile, looking around embarrassed as though worried that someone was checking which mask they had been wearing.
For the rest of the day they were all very quiet and avoided catching each other’s eyes.
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Rorvan had long ago stopped being surprised at whatever he saw when he walked into Professor Theta’s classroom, but this time he was blown away.
Professor Theta was standing in front of the window as proud and stiff as any ancient Prydonian. He was wearing his full traditional robes. It was the first time Rorvan had seen him actually wearing his collar. His long hair was tucked under a cap.
The rarely-used lecture screen was turned on, concealing the painting of a bungee-jumping kitten and for a moment Rorvan was certain that he had entered the wrong classroom. He made his way slowly to his seat and sat down. What was going on?
“You will solve this problem by the end of class.” said Professor Theta, indicating a formula and set of variables on the screen.
Rorvan recognized it as the formula for calculating the rate of information transfer during the telepathic contact of two Time Lords. It was easy enough to solve but it would take all class to account for all the variables. He pulled out his data pad and started inputting numbers.
Twenty microspans later he was still doing the same thing. This felt exactly like every other class at the academy, solving a tedious formula that a computer could solve in an instant just to show that they could, while a stiff-necked old Time Lord stood and watched them.
Why had Professor Theta suddenly decided to change his teaching style so drastically? Maybe he had been brainwashed! Rorvan realized he was thinking ridiculous thoughts. Isn't this the way academy professors were supposed to behave? Obviously Professor Theta had finally learned to be sensible.
Suddenly the door opened and none other than the High Chancellor himself strode in.
“My Lord Chancellor!” said Professor Theta sounding surprised, “What brings you to my humble classroom?”
The Chancellor sounded bored, “I know you weren't informed that I would be coming here but one of the duties of my office is to ensure a high standard of education and I have received several complaints about your teaching.”
“What sort of complaints?” Professor Theta looked a cross between shocked and indignant.
“Regarding the sort of things you are teaching your students.”
“Well I can’t imagine what that could be referring to. As you can see, today we are covering the Rangestal formula. If you wish, you may ask my students whether they feel any of the subjects that have been covered were inappropriate.”
“No, I don’t think that will be necessary,” the Chancellor sighed, “I can see that everything is as it should be. I often get these unfounded, paranoid complaints about everyone from council members to janitors, but I can’t ignore them just in case they turn out to be genuine. I wish people would realize that I am a very busy man and stop wasting my time with these trivialities. Carry on as you were.”
And with that he was gone. Professor Theta waited a whole microspan after he left and then let out a long sigh. He started struggling out of his heavy collar, and Rorvan realized that by wearing the collar and standing in front of the window, he had been blocking the yellow smiley face painted there.
“Well that’s a relief,” the professor said, flipping off the lecture screen, “you don’t have to bother finishing that boring equation.”
He rushed to his desk and pulled a clear pot containing a dark brown liquid from underneath it. The liquid was giving off steam and Rorvan wondered whether it was hot or had a particularly low vapour pressure. It looked like something that would be labelled as dangerous in a chemistry lab.
“Today we will be learning about caffeine!”
Rorvan couldn't help smiling. Things were business as usual.