A Blank in the Record.

At the next math practice, Saeon went to the gallery. Sodam walked beside them, and Dure hugged the notebook. The handles at the last science station were behind them now.

Sodam had watched both cases and decided when to finish. Saeon remembered their friend's hand lowering. Could Saeon's own hands stop at the right time today?

Three silver trays stood on the dark blue stone table. Every one was empty. No blue cores anywhere.

The three little lamps around the edge were off, too.

Teacher Gwak Doeun pointed to the middle. One silver clock disk rested there. Its round-tipped hand was still.

A low cover ran around the edge. The tip of the hand showed, but the space below it was hidden. Saeon noticed the disk before the empty trays.

“We're not counting cores today.”

“This is a device's record.”

The teacher pointed to a display beside the disk.

Saeon read the short record. It showed how long the device had moved. It did not say whose hands had been faster.

Dure set the honey-colored notebook on the shelf. A wide hallway lay open behind them. The teacher waited beside the disk.

Ichan's voice came from upstairs.

“I'll show you my way at the challenge.”

Ichan stood straight behind the railing. Saeon looked up and opened an empty hand. Their conversation from the last math station continued.

“And we'll use our own words.”

Ichan lowered a hand. Saeon turned back to the table. Today, they wanted to fill the blank in the record with their own explanation.

A short question appeared below the record.

Saeon opened the triangular folding board. A finger drew a big circle across the blank face. If the device had moved for a long time, maybe a big number would work.

“About a hundred?”

Saeon pictured the disk finishing after a count of one hundred. Their finger reached the edge of the board's blank face. Saeon started moving the hand toward the disk.

Sodam adjusted the arm of their glasses.

“Hang on. Look at the units first.”

Sodam pointed to “minute” in the record, then to “seconds” in the question. Saeon looked between the two words.

“Same time. Different words.”

“We need to see how they change.”

Dure raised an empty hand in front of their chest.

“Not yet. Hear me out, too.”

Saeon closed the folding board. Dure was watching the disk. Decide on a hundred already, and Saeon would miss what their friend had seen.

Cloudy amber light wrapped around the disk's side. Two cream-colored gaps opened in the round knot. The hand and edge cover stayed as they were.

The teacher gestured toward the side.

“It's a device made from a mistaken idea.”

The light strands stayed on that one disk. They did not stretch toward the trays or children. With no mouth, arms, or legs, they wrapped around its side.

Saeon pulled back the hand approaching the disk. A hundred had come to mind, but there was no reason for it. The circle on the blank board had told them nothing, either.

Until the hand returned to its starting place. How far would it move?

Saeon turned toward Dure.

“Let's hear your reason, too.”

Dure lowered the hand from chest height. It stopped at the table's outer edge. A shallow recess opened right in front of it.

Saeon leaned forward a little. Inside were three little stone steps. The slot shaped like one more step above the highest one was empty.

Blue light pooled in that upper slot. An empty place remained beneath the lowest step, too. A little stone lay separately below it.

At the last math station, that stone had glowed, too. The gap between stone and stairs remained. Saeon watched that gap for a long moment.

This time, light from the upper slot traveled down. It passed the rounded step edges and reached the little stone. Two places that had glowed separately joined in one line.

“The light connected.”

Sodam kept a hand outside the recess. Dure's fingertips were together outside, too. The little stone did not move.

Light joined the stones. No new stone had filled an empty space. No letters or patterns appeared.

Saeon watched the line flow from top to bottom. If stairs were only for going up, why did this lead down? Their eyes followed it, but their hands stayed back.

The recess closed. The hand on the tabletop was still. They had not checked today's record yet.

The teacher opened the low cover around the edge. Little round notches appeared all around the disk. Instead of numbers, there were notches at equal distances.

The hand's tip lined up with one notch. A display beside it lit up.

Dure pointed beside the hand's tip without covering the notch.

“It starts here.”

Saeon looked there, too. They would not count the notch where the hand already rested. They would count each move to the next notch.

“One move is one second.”

Sodam pointed to the starting place, then the next one.

“One notch at a time. Equal spaces.”

The notches made six sections of ten around the edge. Saeon followed one section with their eyes. There was no wider gap between sections.

“It goes straight into the next one.”

Dure pointed to the start control at the table's edge. Once Dure's hand was down, Saeon tapped it with a fingertip. The hand moved to the next notch.

The amber strands twitched against the disk's side. The knot stayed its original size. Every notch and the hand's tip remained visible.

Saeon counted slowly, following the hand. Each move made one sound. After one section, it had moved ten times.

“Ten seconds.”

Without resting, the hand moved into the next section. Sodam moved a fingertip over the bare tabletop, keeping it out of the disk and the hand's path.

“One second per space. Let's keep counting that way.”

A thin cream-colored pin touched the strands on the side. Saeon kept their hands far from the disk. Silver showed between the loosened strands.

Twenty moves. Thirty. The hand passed the point opposite its start. Saeon almost stopped counting, then noticed Dure's finger.

Dure was still pointing beside the starting notch.

“All the way back to the first space.”

Saeon looked at the half still left. The finish was not the edge of a board where Saeon had imagined a big number. It was the notch where the hand had begun.

Forty moves passed, then fifty. Even in the final section, the notches were equally spaced. Dure's fingertip stayed still.

The sixtieth sound came. The hand's tip returned to the first notch. The device stopped. The edge of the disk was quiet.

Dure looked up.

“One full turn. Finished.”

Saeon studied the hand at its starting place. There were no moves left to wait for until a hundred. The full turn was already over.

Dure traced around the disk with a hand.

“One second each move. Sixty moves altogether.”

The fingertip returned beside the starting point.

“The same full turn as the record. Sixty seconds. One minute.”

Dure picked up the closed notebook, opened a page, and swept a hand once along its edge. The hand stopped at the end.

The final strand on the disk's side loosened. Amber light broke into cream-colored specks. The silver disk's hand stayed at its first notch.

All three lamps came on clearly. The trays were still empty. Saeon looked at the disk, then the record display.

They had counted one second for every space. They had finished a whole turn, returning to the first notch. The time they checked matched the recorded running time.

The same time, shown in minutes and seconds. Saeon looked down at the blank folding board where they had imagined a hundred. This time, they left it shut.

“I thought any big number would work.”

Saeon pointed to the hand's starting place.

“We don't need to wait for a hundred. Sixty moves make the whole turn.”

Sodam pointed to the two units in the record.

“Only the units are different. The time is the same.”

Saeon looked up at the teacher.

“Each move took one second.”

Dure looked from the disk to the teacher.

“Sixty seconds back to the first notch. That matches the one-minute record.”

The teacher waited until all three had finished, then nodded.

“Nice and clear.”

Saeon tucked the folding board under one arm. Dure closed the notebook, too. The disk's hand stayed still. Only the lamps shone.

“Record finished. Let's go.”

They stepped into the open hallway. Far away stood another practice arch. Two clock disks without numbers rested on round bases.

Saeon slowed to stand beside their friends. Today, Saeon had moved only after Dure finished speaking. Dure's words had shown them where to stop.

Passing under the arch, Saeon looked up. They were still on the lowest floor. The little stones stayed apart, but light connected them downward.

What was at the top?