There's a ping-pong table in the teacher's room. Actually it's a normal, elliptical wooden table with a little net strung across it. Artichoke, Aubergine, and I are dead-evenly matched.

From across the table, Aubergine looks like an exceptionally flexible marionette learning to dance on its own. His limbs look weightless as he bounces into position and softly slices the ball securely into the middle of my half of the table. The substance of his game is a bit monotonous, but the style is remarkable. It's like watching a particularly languid Iggy Pop performance.

Artichoke is mercurial. He'll hit the net six times in a row, then produce a string of unreturnable shots with deadly spin. He's more strategic and versatile than Aubergine, and I get winded trying to keep up. If I can hang on, though, he often ends up defeating himself.

I'm straightforward. I don't bother with spin. partly because I don't have the skill and partly because I don't find it relevant. If I can return Artichoke's shots, his own spin comes back and bites him. My shots are solid and direct and land around the edges, except when I hit it off the table to no one.