Nell and Fiona soldiered on. Nell had reached the point where she could 
transcribe the old books all day long without actually absorbing a single word. 
During her first weeks in Supplementary Curriculum she had been frightened; in 
fact, she had been surprised at the level of her own fear and had come to 
realize that Authority, even when it refrained from violence, could be as 
disturbing a specter as anything she had seen in her earlier years. After the 
incident with Elizabeth, she became bored for many months, then furious for 
quite a while until she realized, in conversations with Duck and Purple, that 
her anger was eating her up inside. So with a conscious effort, she went back 
to being bored again.