His voice was instantly striking, as she’d observed by the car. The drawn out vowel of ‘ask,’ and the bass tone dip of ‘why’, was not only a kind of Queen’s English seldom heard in a inner-city Northern school, but had a resonance of sincerity that went deep into the listener almost in a melodious rhythm. Natalia, still with head bent, had raised her eyebrows in piqued interest now back to Neary.

He replied benignly: 

‘Well, no, the report card monitors their attendance, deters it from happening again, you see Neill.’ 

As Natalia took back her card, her eyes ping-ponged back to the mysterious challenger.

‘Really.’ 

Neill cocked his head unimpressed. His eyebrows, which seemed to convey his feeling before anything else, we...

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