The Body Hour desk at the Manehattan Seal Annex licensed Pebble Hart, age seven years and two months, to teach the Still Hour. The stamp went down at 11:40. The form was Instructor Docket 4-C. The finding line read: "Minimum met."
Clover Margin entered it. She is the clerk on the morning window. She read the age line, the hour line, and the sponsor line. She read them again. The roll's age column starts at twelve. Under that figure the paper is blank. She drew a square in the margin, wrote the figure, and initialed the square.
"The docket was complete," Margin said. "I do not grade the age line. I enter it."
The hour line said forty. The rule on the back of Docket 4-C requires forty hours under a licensed lead, a one-minute demonstration, and a sponsor when the applicant cannot sign the oath. Pebble is seven. Ada Hart, her mother, signed the sponsor line at 08:17. The oath box carries the clerk's note: "Applicant present, mark witnessed." The mark is a small hoof. Nim Whitlow, the hall timekeeper, set a second stamp beside it so the mark would show on the copy.
The demonstration was at 11:22 in the East Mat Room. The required pose was the low fold, held for one minute. The cushion on the instructor list is cut for a grown pony. Pebble went behind it. Whitlow kept the count off her breathing, the only part of her still in view. His time slip says, "Applicant obscured, count kept. Minute complete."
That minute made the record. The annex book keeps a line for the youngest instructor on the Still Hour roll. The previous line was sixteen, entered three years ago, a colt from the dock schools. The deputy's office sent the book down at 11:36. Margin wrote seven in the new line. She wrote the figure and her initials.
Lotus Greave, Deputy of the Body Hour, read a note from the crown desk at 11:41. The note called the license proof that a vocation can begin before the usual age of apprenticeship. It asked the annex to "treat the hour as a smaller sun." Greave read that sentence aloud. The room held six ponies, two mats, and a tray.
"This is the Seal recognizing early harmony," Greave said. "The crown expects the schools to study it."
Margin numbered the license 4-C-1881, pressed the annex seal, and put the copy in the out basket. The license covers instruction in a registered room. The key log is a separate sheet. It requires an adult signature and a lease. Ada Hart holds the lease on a side room over a button shop on Third Rail. The key log names Ada. The license names Pebble. At noon Greave's aide asked whether the book could say "youngest in the realm." Margin said the book could say what the line said.
Sedge Harlan teaches the Still Hour in a rented room over a tack shop two streets east. His petition is 214. He filed it on the third of First Month. His forty hours were already signed by a licensed lead. His demonstration took fourteen minutes, because the cushion fit. His number slip is worn pale at the crease.
"I have the hours and the number," Harlan said. "They called her docket. They have not called mine."
He was at the window at 09:00. The slate above the grill sets the order: new filings and record stamps, then open petitions. Harlan's sheet stayed in the tray. He watched the stamp. He asked, once, whether 214 had a defect. Margin checked the face of the sheet. She said the face was clean.
Greave's note named one age. The crown desk lists the seal. Greave held the license at Pebble's height for the minute his aide requested. The seal sat near his knee. Pebble looked at the cushion. Ada Hart said, "She likes the count. She likes when the room is quiet." Then Ada took the key. The door answers to the key log.
By 14:40 the East Mat Room was reset. The adult cushion was back on the rack. Whitlow filed the time slip under Docket 4-C. Margin closed the roll at 15:05. The youngest line read seven, initialed in the square. Petition 214 was in the tray. The number on Harlan's slip was still 214.
