Deni finished school at ten past nine. The rest of her class had until three.
Her screen showed a green circle. Under it, Flint, the school tutor, wrote: All required lessons passed.
She zipped her bag loudly enough for people to look up.
“You can keep the chair,” she told Paz.
“I have a chair,” he said.
“A better chair.”
He looked at the cracked seat under her. “You have very strange gifts.”
Deni had a bicycle stand to open. A customer was paying extra for a noon appointment, and that extra would cover most of the electricity bill her mother had stuck to the fridge. She had learned the course after supper, using Flint on her mother’s old screen. Sometimes she studied while her mother slept beside her on the couch. It was a good system. Nobody had to wait for Deni to catch up, and now she did not have to wait for anybody else.
Ms. Orla stood in the doorway with three empty boxes.
“Congratulations,” she said. “Are you taking the workshop placement?”
“Of course.”
“Then you need the group exercise.”
Deni stopped zipping. “Flint says all required lessons.”
“For the certificate. Placement has a separate exercise. You signed up for it.”
Deni had signed up for everything that sounded like work. She remembered a small box on a long form.
“How long?”
“Until your group has a plan it can explain.”
“Is there a time limit?”
“Yes. Three.”
Paz made a soft choking noise. Deni refused to look at him.
Ms. Orla set the boxes on a table. Each held wooden shapes standing for parts in an imaginary workshop. There were six wheels, four handlebars and a stack of job cards. Deni counted them before the teacher finished speaking.
“Nothing gets built,” Ms. Orla said. “This is planning. You have more customers than supplies. Choose the jobs, arrange appointments and explain what you’ve promised.”
“Easy.”
“Your group has to agree.”
Deni pulled a chair over. Paz, who was nineteen and returning to school after a long illness, brought his screen. Lotti came with a lunch bag, though it was nowhere near lunch. Lotti did not like going into uncertain situations without food.
Deni spread the cards out. She asked Flint to sort them by earnings. Three bright columns appeared on her screen.
“That one, that one, and the two-wheel job,” she said. “We make the most money and use everything.”
Paz was reading the smallest card. His lips moved, then stopped when Deni leaned over him.
“That’s only a check,” she said. “There’s no money in it.”
“I know.”
Lotti took a cracker from her bag. “Do we get paid for agreeing?”
“We finish. That’s better.”
Deni entered the plan. Flint checked the numbers. No parts were counted twice. All the selected customers had appointments. A second green circle appeared.
Ms. Orla came over.
“Tell me about the person you left out.”
“Which one?”
“The check.”
“No parts needed,” Deni said. “Low fee. We could put it next week.”
“Read the whole card.”
Paz slid it across without looking at her.
The customer used a chair to get around. The workshop was checking whether its doorway and work area would fit the chair before accepting a larger order. That larger order was not in today’s pile. The customer could visit only on Friday morning.
Deni looked at Flint’s green circle. She had asked it to maximize today’s earnings. It had done that.
“All right,” she said. “Friday morning. Ten minutes.”
“It says forty,” Paz said.
“Forty for a doorway?”
“And trying the work area. Talking about what the customer needs.”
“We can talk while we do another job.”
Paz pushed his chair back.
“I would leave,” he said.
Deni thought he meant their table. She moved her bag out of his way.
“No. If I were the customer.”
Lotti stopped chewing.
Paz kept his eyes on the card. “When somebody talks over my head while I explain something, I stop explaining. Then they guess. Then I have to come back.”
Deni had a sentence ready about efficient use of time. It would have sounded good. Flint might even have helped make it shorter.
She looked at Paz’s screen instead. His lesson was still open at the part he had been reading when she announced she was finished.
“Does Flint do that?” she asked.
“No. Flint waits as long as I need.”
Ms. Orla nodded. “It does. That’s one reason we’re keeping it.”
Deni had thought the teacher wanted to prove the machine useless. That would have been an easier argument.
“What do you want us to do?” Deni asked.
“Work out what you are promising actual people. In this case, imaginary actual people.”
Lotti smiled. “They are the most difficult kind.”
Deni checked the time. Ten forty-eight. Her customer lived across town. She needed to leave soon to prepare for noon.
“We can do the rest fast,” she said.
Paz laid the little card flat between them.
“Not if you keep doing that.”
Deni stood. Both of them looked disappointed, which annoyed her more than being told to sit down.
“I have to make a call,” she said.
In the corridor she explained to her customer that she could offer a later appointment. She did not say school had trapped her, or blame a slow person at her table. The customer said four would work, but the rush fee would not apply.
“Yes,” Deni said. “That’s fair.”
It did not feel fair when she hung up. The bill on the fridge remained exactly the same size.
She went back in. Lotti had arranged the cards in a row. Paz was explaining why the check had to happen before the larger order could be promised.
Deni sat down without offering her cracked chair to anybody.
“Start again,” she said. “I missed why the larger order needs a visit first.”
Paz did. He took longer than Flint. He used his hands to show the doorway, and Lotti put two boxes together so the narrow space was visible. Deni asked whether they could shift one appointment. Lotti found the card for a customer who had said afternoon was fine. Paz noticed that moving it left time for the check without removing a paid job.
The paid jobs still fitted. So did the check, with enough time to hear the customer.
When Ms. Orla returned, each of them explained part of the schedule. Flint checked the figures after they had agreed what mattered. This time Deni knew what the green circle meant.
They finished just after one. Lotti gave Paz the last cracker and refused Deni because, she said, Deni had already consumed a full hour of her life.
Deni laughed, then asked to keep the remaining group sessions on her schedule.
“You’ve passed,” Ms. Orla said. “You don’t have to.”
“I know.”
Outside, Deni could hear the bus coming. She put one foot through the doorway.
“Deni?” Paz called. “How did you decide which appointment to move?”
She watched the bus pull up. The next one would be twenty minutes.
Then she came back and pulled the job card toward them both.
“Show me where you got stuck.”
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