What have you always been able to do without being taught?

See how a situation is going to go, well in advance.Take a broken thing apart and understand it.Be liked by a stranger inside four minutes.Hold a room without appearing to try.

Somebody is in trouble on the other side of a dangerous thing. You:

Are already going. There was no decision involved.Work out the one route that gets both of you back.Go alone, because that is faster and you prefer it.Take charge of the whole rescue and carry it.

What are you like when you are not picked?

Furious, briefly, and then unreasonably determined.Wounded in a way you will not mention for years.Genuinely thrown. You had assumed otherwise.Unsurprised. You were not expecting to be.

Pick where you would rather spend a whole day:

A workshop with the right tools and nobody in it.Twenty miles of country with no path on it.Somewhere quiet where the dead are, unbothered.In water, cold, further out than is sensible.

How do you apologise?

You make them something and hand it over.Charmingly, quickly, and possibly more than once.Precisely, having worked out exactly what you got wrong.With difficulty, and only when it is unavoidable.

What did you not get from the parent who was not there?

Anybody to notice when the light went off.Any reason to believe somebody would stay.A single explanation for any of it.An address. That is roughly the whole problem.

A group is falling apart. What do you do?

Take over. Somebody has to and it is going to be you.Work out which two people are the actual problem.Get everybody's attention and change the mood.Stand with whoever is being blamed.

Pick what you would find hardest to hear:

"You were wrong, and everybody watched.""You were not there. Again.""You never actually let anybody in.""You could have come out. You chose not to."

Which part of you do people consistently misread?

That the calm stretches mean there is no storm.That being quiet means you are not paying attention.That the seriousness is the same as being unhappy.That the confidence came free.

They finally turn up. What is the first thing you say?

Nothing at all. You would just look at them.Something performed, and funny, and not true.That you managed perfectly well without them.That they should have come a very long time ago.

Pick the thing you inherited that you are actually glad of:

Being able to see it before it happens.Being able to mend almost anything.Being welcome absolutely everywhere.Not being frightened of the hard parts.

Finish the sentence: whatever else is true, you are the one who

lifts the whole room and pays for it later.has never once needed anybody to come along.leaves something behind that still works.turns up exactly when it is interesting.