The train was forty minutes late and by the time Max dragged her two bags through the doors of Hartwell's main building her shoulder was screaming and she had missed the welcome talk and the campus tour and apparently also the memo that the housing office closed at five.

It was five twelve.

She stood at the closed window and looked at the sign that said *Office Hours 9am — 5pm* and felt the specific exhaustion of someone who had been travelling since six in the morning and had eaten half a cereal bar on the platform at Birmingham New Street and had been holding herself together through sheer will...