I did it! I did it! I did it!
I snuck up on Charlie! He'd asked me to, of course, but I did it for real. I surprised him.
I had discovered that though he is very aware of everything around him, he tends not to look behind him much--if he sees a place and notices it's unoccupied, then passes it, he doesn't check behind him visually to see if it has become occupied in the last ten seconds. He does listen, though, and keep track of animal behavior and so forth. The question was how to take advantage of that?
I've been watching him, and in addition to noticing where he puts his attention, I've also learned his habits. He doesn't have many--he makes a point of not falling into unthinking ruts, not going on autopilot when he can help it. But he does have a few, patterns of behavior that are fairly consistent because they make sense. And this winter, he'd developed a new one. His laptop died and he hasn't replaced it yet, so he's been going to the computer lab for an hour or two a day. And because he's trying to avoid students (all the masters do at this time of year), he does it when we we're all eating dinner, since then we're pretty reliably all clustered in the Great Hall and the adjacent Bird Room and Great Hall Kitchen. He walks up to the front door in the office, usually from the direction of the greenhouse, and goes into the office and from there into the computer lab without entering the Great Hall. And he does it around 5:30, sometimes a little earlier. It's almost dark when he comes, probably because he wants to be hard to see. Of course he does not use a flashlight.
Yesterday, I waited for him.
I took advantage of the darkness, standing almost behind one of the columns of the porch off the office. I could see him because he was moving, but I did not move, so he didn't see me.
When he turned to come up the steps, the column was momentarily between us, so I silently shifted my position so that when he passed me I'd be behind the column. Once he passed, I silently shifted back, putting myself in full view, illuminated by light shining through the windows in the office door--if only he'd looked behind him. He didn't.
"Hello, Charlie," I said, as he opened the office door.
He actually visibly startled.
"Daniel. You got me," he acknowledged, and then went inside without turning around.
In the morning, as I went out for my walk, he caught up with me.
"I suppose I ought to try to sneak up on you, now," he said. "Just to see if you can keep me from doing it."
The original assignment was not only to sneak up on him, but also to make myself un-sneak-up-able by him.
"I'm not convinced you haven't tried," I answered. It's true he hasn't successfully snuck up on me since he gave me the assignment. I can't prove that he was trying--I never spotted him literally tip-toeing along behind me, but of course that's not his method--but that doesn't mean he wasn't. Anyway, my suggestion made him laugh. "I'm sure you can," I added. "I'm not better than you are. But I think you'd find me harder to sneak up on than I used to be. I know where you aren't."
"Good enough for me," he said. "Remember to be aware of other people, too."
And he bid me good morning and left. I suppose he's busy starting to prepare for graduation, now. They'll start interviewing graduating novices in a few days--and whatever happens with graduating candidates will start happening t me.
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