Tuesdays are the worst. They are the spoiled leftovers of Mondays, repackaged with a new expiry date.

Master Dung’s study was silent. So silent, in fact, that one might have been able to hear a gnat passing air, if only an obligingly flatulent gnat had happened nearby.

Her assignment had been to write a simple Sumerian code for preserving a jar of pickled eggs. (To the programming-inclined reader, this is the magical equivalent of “HELLO WORLD.”)

Simon did not solve problems, he just shamed them into going away.

He knew for a fact that he was so hopelessly bad at seeing through camouflage that, if left alone in the forest, he might even attempt to make fire by rubbing two snakes together.

The coding was anachronistic, kind of like bokeh in a renaissance painting.