Hi I'm Ella and I'm here to create a synthetic knowledge base and fight against Anti-life.

Tinkering class at Psyhigh is really under-named. You see it in the class catalog and think it means working on old clocks or something. If you look more closely it's not "Tinkering" but "Tinkerling," which, of course, isn't even a real word.

So I signed up. While the class is about "fixing" things, it's really more about "repairing the world." And, hopefully, using fewer "air quotes."

Hey everybody check your teachers! Like @Teacher Hodgson. I was trying to stay awake in Tinkerlings class and noticed that there were extra teachers behind the regular teacher and they were much more interesting. It’s like @Teacher Hodgson was just a decoy to distract you, rambling on about levers and drywall but behind him was a chorus line of tall elves dancing like the Rockettes! Well not exactly elves they didn’t have pointy ears or anything but little green forest hats and little green booties. It’s hard to remember what they were teaching me but it was really fun. Way more interesting than @Teacher Hodgson.

I've been paying more attention to the Tinkerlings Teachers and following them down rabbit holes. LITERALLY. By Tinkerlings Teachers I mean the ones in the green hats and booties. Not @Teacher Hodgson. Luckily, such flights of fancy are encouraged by the school, and though I had to do some additional paperwork I still get credit, as well as a second Shadow Report Card for this kind of work.

So when the Tinkerlings Teachers danced off stage and into the wings, I followed them through the secret halls and passage ways of the school and out onto the school grounds, and down the hole!

Ok, so... I don't quite remember what happened once I followed the Tinkerlings Teachers (the ones with the green booties and hats) down the rabbit hole. It all kind of doesn't translate, like when you remember a dream really clearly when you wake up but then when you try and describe it you realize you don't have the words and it fizzles away. Also, I can't find the Shadow Report Card or Shadow Student ID they gave me. Spitzi, my roommate, says it's clear that the whole thing was some kind of hallucination, since all my proof has poofed away!

Sigh. I can still almost remember the song they were singing...

I know something,
But I won't tell.
Three little psychics,
in a temporal shell.
One can read,
And one can dance,
And one has a hole,
in the seat of her pants!

A Boy Was Shocked When He Came Face to Face with the Queen of England!

I'm sure you've all seen the headlines. But did you notice how if you slow down as far as it will go that at the 2.713 second of the clip, the Queen's face flashes to a smoothed, elven chinline and her ears get pointy?

It was a Tinkerlings Teacher. And the green hat and suit? I'm sure they must be real.

Now I know they're real. Because they're apologizing to me.

I was heading out the back stairs from the dorm, heading down to the pond for the ice skating, and I slipped and fell and twisted my ankle. What's with this crazy winter weather, anyway?

So I'm there in a pile in the snow nursing my ankle and what do I see but a Tinkerlings Teacher standing there in their ridiculous green hat and booties.

"Oh, uh... are you looking at me?" he said. "I mean, you can see me?"

I nodded. I was seeing him and hearing him.

"Oh, gosh, well, I'm sorry about your ankle. But trust me, it's for the best. We have data! It's all been peer reviewed and vetted!"

I blinked my eyes to knock away the snowflakes and they disappeared.

Watched Pre-wolf tonight. I don't think it deserved all the bad reviews. How could a movie about the form the wolves took just before they became wolves be bad? You just have to be into that kind of thing.

While I was watching I was also watching the phase drawers I made in psychic woodshop. They act as a multi-dimensional churning turbine fan, and catch the bigger pieces. About 5' 10" in this case--the exact size to encase my Tinkerlings Teacher in the green hat and booties.

CLOMP CLOMP BANG

BANG

*knock *knock

"um... hello out there?"


Do you think I was too rough?

Boy have I learned a lot about the Tinkerlings Teachers! In the green booties and hats!

The one I caught was a total pushover. Apparently they're not used to being apprehended and hog-tied. He seemed more confused than frightened, and was happy to explain the whole Tinkerlings thing. Which is this:

They live in a spiral mansion space station that sits at the far end of time. They come to our world to prank it--making me fall down, frightening a child, throwing elections. But they aren't just pranking us for fun--they're pranking us for good, based on their AI’s best guess at probabilities and outcomes. Their massive artificial super intelligence has seen the entire course of time, and they're attempting to correct it based on its calculations.

Apparently, by twisting my ankle and missing skating, I set off a whole different chain of events than I would have if I gone, and as a result we've avoided the great crash of '87. Which century though I don't know.

Now that I've seen him (and trapped him), he's more than happy to take me to their Time HQ. Good thing it's winter break!

Tinkerlings HQ is awesome. Standing on the deck and looking out onto the seething black hole remnants of the Big Crunch, the last bits of unabsorbed matter swirling around, or looking back down the spiral stairwell that winds all the way to the Big Bang. Everything is white and bright, and hung with evergreen boughs and red ribbon. That’s the style the Tinkerlings like.

None of them seem too surprised to see me—they’re all too focused on The Work. They receive their instructions on strips of paper punched with holes that they read with their fingers. I’ve convinced them to let me meet The Machine, the massive artificial intelligence that’s the mastermind behind everything they do. They only have one request.

I’ve got to put on the green hat and booties.