Home From The Sea: The Elemental Masters, Book Seven by Mercedes Lackey

did you do about his latest prank?”
    Nan described the rather one-sided conversation she’d had with the child, while Memsa’b listened intently. Then she sighed. “Well, you haven’t made things worse, but now he is not only going to devote himself to finding ways around what you told him, but to making it impossible for you to catch him. He’ll probably recruit a crony to help.” Her lips twitched a little in a smile. “You know that there are at least three of them who take great pleasure in outwitting you.”
    Nan groaned. “Only too well. There are days when I want to take some of those boys and dump them out on the street and let them live the life I used to, just so they will appreciate the one they have.” She grimaced. “Except that they would probably like it.”
    Memsa’b just sipped her tea. Nan gloomily reflected that she wasn’t much good at this teaching business. How did Memsa’b and the others manage?
    Her only comfort was that Sarah looked just as forlorn as she felt, when her friend came in. “Am I cursed with the thickest heads in the school?” she demanded, as she took her seat and reached for the cup Nan poured and handed to her.
    “No,” Memsa’b replied, her lips twitching again. “The cleverest.”
    Sarah stared at her. “But—we have gone over the same lessons every day for the past week and they
still
haven’t mastered it!”
    “Because, my love, you are too soft with them. Why should they have to tax their little minds with anything new if they can play at stupidity and convince you to go over what they already know?” Memsa’b asked.
    Sarah’s jaw dropped. She closed it with an expression of dismay. “I—I must be the worst teacher in the school!” she said bitterly.
    “No,” Nan contradicted her. “I am.”
    Memsa’b sighed. “Neither of you are very good,” she said reluctantly. “I am very sorry to say this, but… if you were not who you are, I should ask you to pack your bags and find another position elsewhere.”
    Nan reached recklessly for the jam and spread it thickly on her toast, eating it glumly. “I’d have to agree with you,” she said between bites. “Curse it all. I’m going on the stage.”
    Memsa’b only raised an eyebrow. They both knew it was a hollow threat. Although Nan would probably enjoy the stage very much, she was no beauty, and would probably not get very far—which would make it a far from pleasant career.
    Not to mention that being on the stage would make it very difficult to pursue occult studies.
    “I thought we had everything planned out so well,” Sarah lamented. “We’d be teachers here, we’d settle down to a quiet life like you—”
    “And when have you—or I, for that matter—had a quiet life?” Memsa’b demanded. “Did you think that life was going to go on in the same way forever? Did you really want it to?”
    Nan made a face. “Memsa’b, Sarah and I saved all of England before we were out of leading strings, practically,” she pointed out. “It’s rather difficult to—”
    This time it was Memsa’b who interrupted her. “Sahib and I have spent the better parts of our lives together saving England, or parts of it at least, over and over again. You can’t rest on your laurels when you have the sort of gifts that we have.”
    Nan grimaced. “When you put it in those terms…” She stared glumly down into her tea. “But that isn’t all the time. It isn’t even most of the time. What are we to do with ourselves otherwise?”
    “Well, you tried teaching. What else is there?” Memsa’b replied patiently.
    “Nursing?” Nan and Sarah looked at each other and shook their heads. They’d already had a taste of that in Africa and it hadn’t suited them. “Being a nanny or a governess… well I don’t imagine that would go any better than teaching. What else is there?”
    “What else do you want there to be?” Memsa’b countered. “Don’t accept the walls that other people want to place