There was no teacher in the room at any time. They assumed that they were 
being monitored, but they never really
knew. When they entered, each one of them had a pile of books on her 
desk—old books bound in chafed leather. Their job was to copy the books 
out by hand and leave the pages neatly stacked on Miss Stricken's desk before 
they went home. Usually, the books were transcripts of debates from the House 
of Lords, from the nineteenth century.