She felt that, through her own mistakes, she had ruined her life at Miss 
Matheson's Academy. Until recently, Miss Stricken's classes had been nothing 
more than a routine annoyance—an ordeal that she had to sit through in 
order to experience the fun parts of the curriculum. She could look back on a 
time only a couple of months ago when she would come home with her mind aglow 
from all the things she had learned in Brilliance, and when the Joy part was 
just an indistinct smudge around the edge. But in recent weeks, Miss Stricken 
had, for some reason, loomed larger and larger in her view of the place. And 
somehow, Miss Stricken had read Nell's mind and had chosen just the right 
moment to step up her campaign of harassment. She had timed today's events
perfectly. She had brought Nell's most deeply hidden feelings out into the 
open, like a master butcher exposing the innards with one or two deft strokes 
of the knife. And now everything was ruined. Now Miss Matheson's Academy had 
vanished and become Miss Stricken's House of Pain, and there was no way for 
Nell to escape from that house without giving up, which her friends in the 
Primer had taught her she must never do.