#go figure...

For a while Jane, deep in an article on the virtues of the Finnish educational model, did not notice that she was being stared at. Then she looked up and stared at her employer directly.

"What?"

He pushed his sunglasses further down his nose to observe her over the top of them. "It must get you lots of likes. Being here."

Jane looked carefully around her. The deck of the Thornfield with its pristine bar and elegant lounge chairs. The sparkling sea all around them. The rugged coast of a sun-drenched Greek island on the horizon. "I don't know what you mean."

"On Instagram. Or tiktok. Or whatever it is you young people use."

Jane glanced down at her phone and smiled slightly. "I don't use social media."

One raised eyebrows. "Curious! You interest me. Why not?"

"It's brain rot. I loathe everything about it."

"Well, you are a barrel of laughs, Jane!" He took a swig from his bottle. "Have a beer."

"No, thank you, sir. Anyway, you don't pay me to be funny."

"Good thing too, it would be a poor investment. So you are not funny, you post nothing to social media. Tell me, then, most slippery Thetis, what do I pay you for?"

She stared at him. "You pay me to get Adele into Cambridge."

"So I do. I had forgotten. And how does the little rascal?"

Sitting up straighter, Jane parroted, "Adele is making very good progress in most areas. In English, her core attainment is now at a grade 6 and in Mathematics, I am pleased to report that she is developing her understanding of the main features of trigonometry. Her French is of course-

"Enough!" He waved his hand at her. "I was right, Jane, you are not at all amusing. Continue with whatever it was you were doing."