Apathy Jack writes:

So my little hypochondriac has finally been invalided out of school. All I really need to get her back is ten minutes with her away from her mother's Munchausen-By-Proxy deathgrip. Having failed to procure this by any other means, I enlist her step-brother.

"Yeah, about that," he tells me. "She doesn't want to come and see you, because she knows that you'd talk her into coming back to school."

This is notable only because he is the second student who has said this to me – in almost exactly the same words – about a drop-out older sibling.

I think I'm developing a reputation...