24 June 2025
Tuesday. School holidays approach, and with them, a smaller class of volunteer.
A young man presented himself at the desk this afternoon and announced that he was thirteen. He was holding a juice box. The staff asked, very politely, for proof. He produced a library card, which established only that he could read, and that he was twelve.
The rule is thirteen and over, and the company keeps it strictly: no younger assistants, not even with a parent beside them, and at Northbridge not even to stand in a corner and watch. My laboratory is dark, loud, full of jars and lit by lightning. I would not have let myself in at twelve. I barely let myself in now.
His older sister, who was fifteen, came in with her friends and did beautifully. Teenagers are excellent assistants. They are unshockable, they read quickly, and they have no respect whatever for my handwriting, which is the correct attitude to my handwriting.
In the margin, in pencil: HE CAN COME WHEN HE IS 13. I WILL WAIT. I AM GOOD AT WAITING.
— V. Frankenstein
