The neighboring house study grows still around the surviving fragments. Goldy remains in the corridor under watch, while Alexander stays beside the table and the prefect copies the date and seal.
The Neighboring House Prefect
The evidence was placed in your care and destroyed during your custody. The surviving mark may implicate a prefect, but your conduct cannot be ignored.
Alexander Pavlovich Romanov
The paper was already damp, torn, and in a dog’s mouth before Lewis recovered it. Judgment should distinguish negligence from an accident.
The prefect compares the fragment with his ledger. The partial seal matches the neighboring house, while the date corresponds to a punishment entered without a named author.
The Neighboring House Prefect
That omission is now more serious than the ruined notice. Someone wished the punishment recorded, but the responsible hand concealed.
Alexander Pavlovich Romanov
If the seal identifies this house, the missing name may protect an abuser or expose the prefect who concealed him.
The prefect closes the ledger and turns toward Lewis, cane still resting against the writing table. Alexander watches without intervening, leaving judgment poised between punishment and inquiry.
“I tell them that I have no interest in ledgers nor in notices, and I ask them if they would like to compete in a swimming competition where we will all be skinny dipping.”
SUCCESS (Legendary Humour, rolled +0)
C. S. Lewis
I have no interest in ledgers or notices. Would you care to compete in a swimming race, without clothes, all three of us?
The proposal hangs in the study’s stale air. The prefect’s pen stops, and Alexander’s eyes narrow as Goldy gives a questioning bark from the corridor.
The Neighboring House Prefect
Absolutely not. This is a school, not a bathing pond, and you will not turn an assigned inquiry into an indecent spectacle.
Alexander Pavlovich Romanov
Your contempt for the records is noted, Lewis. Your suggestion has also made you conspicuous, which is a cost you should have anticipated.
The prefect strikes the cane once against the floor, making Goldy retreat behind the doorframe. He draws a fresh line in the ledger beside Lewis’s name.
The Neighboring House Prefect
You will remain clothed, silent, and under observation. The surviving fragment is secured, and your conduct will be recorded as insolent frivolity.
The swimming contest is refused outright, while the concrete consequence settles over the room: Lewis loses his freedom to leave and must endure the prefect’s renewed scrutiny.
The Blood or prefect inflicts corporal punishment upon the younger boy.
− Story Quest Removed
Determine whether the prefects’ record was altered
− Story Quest Removed
Identify the prefect responsible for the altered punishment record
The cane struck once, and the room settled into its final order: paper secured, ledger closed, Lewis watched.
Alexander Pavlovich Romanov
You have made a poor jest of a serious matter, Lewis.
C. S. Lewis
Perhaps. But the serious matter remains.
The Neighboring House Prefect
Clothed, silent, and under observation. Your name is entered.
Lewis inclined his head, accepting the narrow victory and the narrower sentence.
The damaged notice lay sealed beside the ledger, its partial mark and nameless date preserved against convenient forgetting. Lewis remained beneath the prefect’s eye, unable to leave, while Alexander’s rebuke faded into the stale air of the room. Nothing had been repaired, but the truth had not been erased, and the chapter ended there: under watch, under restraint, and not entirely defeated.