Late summer baked the valley roads into hard clay. It was exam season in the new district schools, yet classrooms sat half-empty; pupils kept sneaking out to ride. Headmistress Aleni marched to Riverbend in exasperation.
"Your contraptions," she scolded Sharath, "have turned honest scholars into roaming minnows!"
Sharath laughed, then grew thoughtful. "If they flee the classroom, take the classroom to their pedals."
Within a week a plan hatched: **The Rolling Academy.** Teachers received lightweight panniers filled with slates, chalk, and the new "Primer on Gears and Grain." Lessons happened under oak canopies midway to market; arithmetic drills used mile markers and spoke counts; geography classes traced trade loops they rode themselves.
Parents fretted until test results arrived. Scores in arithmetic—measured by merchants' coin-weighing accuracy—jumped twenty percent. More astonishing: absences vanished. The children now raced to lessons, literally.
The Crown Courier published sketches of helmet-capped tutors leading laughing swarms of riders. Other provinces copied the model. Scholars called it "experiential pedagogy"; the children just called it fun.
One dawn, Sharath pedaled alongside a class of forty singing multiplication tables to Jeren's tune. He realized they were the first generation whose earliest memories included wheels beneath them and knowledge tied to motion. A quiet thrill—half pride, half awe—settled in his chest. The future would have strong legs and curious minds.