The hammer rang once. A spark jumped off the anvil and did not go out. It waited. They followed.

On the last Saturday in August, Tara's mum drove her two hundred miles north with everything she owned in the back of a borrowed car.

There was not very much of it. A suitcase of clothes. A box of books. The green headphones from March, in their case. A kettle that had been a present from Danya, which he had chosen because it changed colour as it boiled. A lamp. A duvet in a bag. A saucepan, a frying pan and three plates, which her mum had insisted on, and a jar of the lime pickle from the shop on the Green, which Tara had insisted on.

And, in the front pocket of her bag, the folded plan.

It was very soft now, worn almost to cloth at the folds. Twelve months of pencil. At the top, still underlined twice: £127.50 a month, every month, for the deposit. Down the side, in twelve different pencils from twelve different months, a column of ticks. The last tick was from the first of August. Underneath it, in this morning's pencil, she had written: £1,530. Done.

She had paid the hall deposit and the first month's rent out of it in July. It had felt like the most grown-up thing she had ever done.

The halls were a set of red-brick buildings round a square of grass, five minutes' walk from the university. There was a queue of cars at the gate, and parents carrying boxes, and students in matching purple t-shirts directing everyone with clipboards. In the office at the bottom of Block B, a tired, kind-looking man with a lanyard that said Mr Okoro — Warden found her name on a list, smiled, and took a key from a board of a hundred keys.

"Room 214," he said. "Second floor, end of the corridor. Lovely room. Gets the morning sun." He slid a sheet of paper across the counter, with a pen on top of it. "Inventory. Just sign at the bottom and bring it back down when you've got a minute. Two hundred of you today, so no rush, but before tonight if you can."

Tara looked at the sheet. It was headed ROOM CONDITION — START OF TENANCY. Down the left were fourteen things: bed, mattress, wardrobe, desk, chair, shelves, window, curtains, walls, carpet, light, sink, bathroom tiles, door. Next to each one, somebody had already ticked a box that said Good. At the bottom there was a box labelled Tenant's comments, which was empty, and a line for her signature.

Room 214 was lovely. It had a big window looking over the square of grass, and a desk under it, and the sun was coming in exactly as Mr Okoro had said. Her mum stood in the doorway and said, "Oh, love," in a voice that made Tara's eyes go hot.

She put the inventory on the desk and picked up the pen.

"I was going to just sign it," Tara said.

She had the phone propped against the window, on a group video call to the back table of the Whetstone café. It was very strange to see it from here: the back table, two hundred miles away, with Danya at one end, and the others round it, and the sugar bowl in the middle. Danya had made everyone come, so that they could see the room.

"I was going to say it like this," said Tara. "It's a lovely room. Everything's ticked already. Mr Okoro's got two hundred people arriving today. I don't want to be the person who makes a fuss on the first day. So I'll sign it and take it down and start unpacking."

She had the pen over the line.

It felt good. It felt polite, and easy, and like starting off on the right foot.

Redline leaned in towards the camera. Redline marked up everything she signed with a red pen, including permission slips for school trips, and was never alarmed by anything.

"Never sign anything unread," said Redline calmly.

"It's just an inventory," said Tara. "It's a list of furniture."

"Then read it out loud," said Redline. "All of it. But don't read it at the desk. Read it standing next to each thing. And say whether it's true."

"It's ticked," said Tara. "It says good."

"It says good," said Redline. "Somebody ticked it. Was it you?"

"Says who it's wrong?" said Danya. "Maybe it is all good. It looks good."

"Nobody says it's wrong," said Redline. "That's why you read it. It might all be true. Then it's two minutes, and you sign."

Tara looked at the fourteen ticks.

"How do we know who ticked them?" Danya asked.

Nobody knew. That was the problem.

Tara carried the phone round the room, with Redline reading the list from a photo Tara had sent, line by line.

"Bed," said Redline.

Tara looked at the bed. Metal frame, a bit squeaky. "Good," she said.

"Mattress."

She pulled back the plastic cover. Clean. "Good."

"Wardrobe. Chair. Shelves. Window. Curtains."

Good, good, good. The window opened and closed. The curtains were a bit faded on one side from the morning sun, but that seemed fair.

"Desk," said Redline.

Tara looked at the desk properly for the first time, without the inventory on it. In the top right-hand corner, where somebody had obviously put something hot down, there was a brown ring, the size of the bottom of a mug, burnt into the wood.

"There's a scorch mark," she said slowly. "A big one."

"That one's ordinary," said Redline. "That one isn't. Keep going. Walls. Carpet."

The walls were fine. The carpet looked fine too, until Tara moved the chair, and then there was a stain underneath it, grey and spread out, as if someone had spilled a whole cup of coffee and tried to rub it in.

"Bathroom tiles," said Redline.

The bathroom was tiny, with a shower, a sink and a toilet all within reach of each other. Behind the sink, one of the white tiles had a crack right across it, from corner to corner.

Tara stood in the doorway of the bathroom with the inventory in her hand. Fourteen ticks. Fourteen times Good.

"Fourteen lines," said Redline. "Three of them aren't true. That's eleven good, not fourteen. Read the small print out loud. What does it say, just above where you sign?"

Tara read it. I confirm that the room and its contents are in the condition described above.

"So if you sign it as it is," said Redline, "you're saying the desk has no scorch mark."

Tara put the pen down.

Bartholomew was a student archivist who volunteered at the county record office and was delighted by old paper. He had been watching the whole thing very closely, leaning on his elbows.

"Who made this, and when, and why?" said Bartholomew. "That's what I'd ask of any document in our archive. So let's ask it of this one."

"The hall made it," said Tara.

"When?"

Tara turned the form over. In the corner, very small, it said Prepared: July. No day. No name.

"So somebody ticked fourteen boxes, some time in July, perhaps from a list of last year's rooms," said Bartholomew. "Look at the date before the words. That's not a record of today. That's a guess about today, written before you got there."

"So what's a record of today?"

"One made today, by someone who was there," said Bartholomew. "You. Now. Before you put a single thing of your own in the room." He smiled. "Take a photograph of the scorch mark. And the stain. And the tile. Your phone puts the date and the time on every photograph, without you asking. In June, if anyone says you burnt the desk, you won't have to remember. You'll have a picture, dated the day you arrived, with the room still empty."

"Every source was written by someone for something," said Bartholomew. "A photograph is a source too. Make yours today."

Tara took the photographs. Three of each mark, from close up and from the door, with the empty room behind them. Then, because it seemed sensible, she took one of each wall and one of the carpet, all the way round.

Cosimo was a history student who liked to lay every document out on the floor side by side. He had been thinking.

"One source is a clue," said Cosimo. "Two that agree is a start. Your photographs are one source. But they're on your phone. In June, the hall will have their form, and you'll have your phone. Two different stories."

"So what do I do?"

"Lay them side by side," said Cosimo. "Make them agree. Write the three things on the form itself, in the comments box, before you sign. Then the hall's own document says what yours says. And then send Mr Okoro a short email today, with the photographs, so the hall has the same pictures you do. Then there aren't two stories. There's one, and both of you are holding it."

"Did they copy each other, or see it themselves?" said Cosimo. "That's the question I'd ask in June. Make sure the answer is both."

Fee spoke next. Fee had paid an early-termination fee once, on a phone contract, and still talked about it, in a wry way, as if it had happened to someone else.

"Price the exit before you sign," said Fee. "What does it cost to leave this room in June?"

"Nothing," said Tara. "I get the deposit back."

"If," said Fee. "What's the deposit?"

"Two hundred and fifty pounds."

"Ask her," said Fee, looking out of the screen, past Tara's shoulder, at the open door.

A girl was standing in the corridor with a box of mugs, a second-year by the look of her, who had obviously been listening. Her name was Rhian. She lived three doors down and had come back early to get the good room.

"Sorry," said Rhian. "I heard you say inventory." She put the box down. "Last year I was in 220. There was a burn on the windowsill when I moved in. I didn't write it down. I didn't even read the form. In June they said I did it. They took a hundred and twenty pounds." She shrugged. "I couldn't prove anything. Nobody told me to check."

"A hundred and twenty out of two fifty," said Fee quietly. "That's forty-eight per cent. Nearly half. For a line on a form that nobody read."

"The fee is there to keep you," said Fee. "Or to keep your money. Add it to the total before you sign."

"Let me listen first," Tara said.

She sat down on the bare mattress with the inventory on her knee and the phone beside her, and wrote on the back of the folded plan, under £1,530. Done., three headings: what the form says, what the room says, who needs to know.

Under the first, 14 good. Under the second, 11 good; desk scorch, carpet stain, cracked tile; photos, today. Under the third: Mr Okoro, then the hall, then me, in June.

Then Mr Okoro knocked on the open door, because he was going round every room to say hello.

"All right?" he said. "Settling in?" He saw the inventory on her knee. "Oh, that. Don't worry about that too much. Honestly. We're fair. Two hundred of you today and we do our best. Most people just sign and bring it down." He smiled. "If there's something really bad, tell me. But we're not out to get anybody."

He meant it. He was tired, and kind, and fair, and he had two hundred people arriving.

Her mum was putting the duvet on the bed, and she looked up.

"Love, don't start off on the wrong foot," she said softly, when Mr Okoro had gone. "It's a lovely room. He's a nice man. A little mark on a desk. You don't want them thinking you're difficult on the very first day."

Her mum was not wrong either. Tara did not want to be difficult. She had spent the whole year learning to say things a little sooner, and it was still not easy, and it was harder still on the very first day, in a new place, with everyone being nice.

Rhian picked up her mugs.

"Nobody told me to check," said Rhian. "That's all. If someone had told me, I would have."

"I think we missed someone," Tara said slowly. "The person who has this room next year. If I sign it as good, the scorch mark becomes mine. And then in June, if they don't catch it, it becomes theirs. Somebody has to write it down. It might as well be the person who's actually looking at it."

Nobody on the call said anything for a moment.

On her knee was the inventory, with its fourteen ticks prepared in July, and its small print, in the condition described above, and a pen lying across the empty comments box. On her phone were twelve photographs of an empty room, each with today's date. On the call was the back table, two hundred miles away: Redline's never sign anything unread, Bartholomew's look at the date before the words, Cosimo's make them agree, Fee's price the exit. In the corridor was Rhian, with her box of mugs and her hundred and twenty pounds. In the doorway was her mum, holding a pillowcase, worried she would seem difficult. And in the front pocket of her bag was a plan, twelve months of pencil, with Done at the bottom.

Tara picked up the pen.

 

 

(Write what Tara puts in the comments box before she signs.)

 

The spark dimmed to a warm dot and settled back on the anvil. The Green was just the Green again.

Back on the Green

That afternoon, on the Green, Lan, who was seven, borrowed a library book about volcanoes. When she opened it at home, the back page was torn.

She took it back to the library the next morning, before she had read any of it, and showed the librarian.

The librarian wrote torn back page on a sticky note inside the cover, and put the date on it, and said thank you.

Lan read the book about volcanoes that night. She did not tear anything. But she was glad of the sticky note anyway.

Afterword. The idea in this case is that a record made at the start, dated and agreed by both sides, settles arguments at the end. When you rent a room, a flat or a house, you usually pay a deposit, which can be reduced at the end for damage beyond ordinary wear and tear. Whether a mark was there before you arrived is exactly the kind of thing people argue about months later, when nobody can remember. A form ticked in advance is not a record of the day you arrived. Read every line while standing next to the thing it describes; write down what is really there; take photographs with the date on, before your own things go in; and make sure the other side holds the same record you do. Here the Last Year strand ends, with a plan that says Done. You can practise reading what you sign in ClauseDojo, and asking who made a document, when and why, in ArchiveQuest.