If all went well, in twelve minutes to thirteen minutes and forty seconds, it would happen.

The happening would happen at the corner of Hill Street and the paved path that led to the college set back in its picturesque grounds of beech and carrier bag. Inside was Matthew Briggs, 17, who was supposed to finish his History of Art class at 14:30 but it would probably stretch to 14:31 as the teacher, Mrs. Blenkinsopp, usually forgot to give the homework until the last moment. As soon as class and the groans had finished, Matthew would pick up his red rucksack, descend the stairs and exit the building onto the little path, trot down to Hill Street and then fifty metres or so over to the sandwich shop across the road for a late lunch, before his Even More History of Art class at 15:00.

But today, a surprise would be waiting in his path.

It wasn't a terrible surprise, nothing that would delay him for any more than a few seconds. Colin wasn't a criminal or any sort of weirdo. And his careful research had only selected this particular boy to increase his chance of success, because the reptile hire company was crazy expensive. He didn't want to go to all this effort just for some boring randomer to say something mundane like "What the fuck?" or "What's going on?" Colin had collected those in the first few days of his observations, as a then-reluctant child following in the footsteps of a father eager to pass on the hobby to the next generation.

No, Matthew had been selected due to his inclination to deadpan precision when confronting the unexpected. According to Colin's notes, he was a prime candidate to express the golden question "Why is there a juvenile royal python wearing a party hat having tea with a teddy bear smoking a cigarette outside my college on a Tuesday afternoon?"

Colin closed his eyes, relishing the warm sunlight on his lids and the anticipation of a world tick off his dream list in rather unequal measure. He was currently second in the UK rankings for questions and fifth for overall all-time valid phrases of four words or more, and at twenty-five the youngest in the top ten for either. According to the amendments in Appendix B of the Official Collector's Handbook 2023 currently gripped within the stubby fingers of his right hand, mention of an exotic animal 'including but not limited to axolotyls, penguins and mid-sized alligators' more than two miles from the nearest pet shop or zoo would score two additional points on top of his ten-point 'tick'. It had been a tough fight, as at his preliminary inquiries at the North-East Observation Collectors' Office in Newcastle, a heated debate emerged between the assistant listings archivist and the chief rankings calculator regarding the significant rise in popularity pythons had enjoyed within the past twenty years and whether they would indeed be classified as exotic these days, but Colin's stirring words of ambition to be the best of the best by the age of thirty brought them round in the end. Add to that the indisputable three bonus points for a question over forty syllables and an overtaking of that pompous old-timer Stuart Smilesworth into fourth lay within his immediate future. Rants about the legitimacy of why-starters be damned, Stuart!

Abruptly, Colin roused himself from his reverie. People were starting to stare. Horns were honking as cars slowed down to take in the strange sight where the most unusual thing regular commuters had ever seen up to this point was a student melon-smashing flash mob designed to raise awareness of the abolition of art grants in Uganda. Then there was a flurry of more urgent gasps, at which point Colin became aware not of the art funds of Uganda but of his rented python, Artemis, abandoning her admittedly intimidating playmate Percy for the sun-drenched tarmac in the path of an approaching Volvo.

Just in time, the collector collected his collection device. And he was just in time, upon setting her down upon the pavement once more, to hear not the long-awaited dulcet tones of Matthew's dreamy elaborations, but the gruff barks of Brian, assistant editor of Collectors' Weekly North Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, from further off down the road.

"What on earth do you think you're doing?" barked Brian.

Colin shuddered. You would think, he thought, an experienced collector would have learned to transcend such banal simplicities at this stage of his career, to something better, more like "What are you doing with that juvenile royal python wearing a party hat by this college on a Tuesday afternoon?", which would be good, but at thirty one syllables would score a less-than-hoped-for twelve observation points.

"I'm collecting," called Colin to the rapidly approaching editor, who looked enraged to the point of beetroot hue and gremlin complexion, though in reaction to what stimulus Colin could not possibly comprehend.

"Me too," huffed Brian, parting bystanders with the threat of extreme abdominal compression. "Apart from I just listen. Like we're supposed to. You can't set things up like this! It's cheating!"

But Colin was ready. He wasn't just armed with the Official Collector's Handbook, for he had two hands, and he could dual wield. From his left pocket, he produced the flapping pulp of another magazine. "This," announced Colin, "is the Agenda of the National Council of Aural Observation Collection Associates, October 2021 meeting, annotated with my own extensive notes." He riffled his weapon beneath Brian's nose to prove his point. "As I'm sure you have read, the regulation of observer input into any situation resulting in new observations remains contested. At 18:21 on day 5, Chief Etiquette Officer Arnold Phillips specifically decreed, after much discussion, that currently all new observations resulting from said input shall stand indefinitely, a final decision on the topic to be made at the Annual Journal of Observation Code of Collection and National Guidance Conference for situations arising after midnight on 29th July this year." He gave the paper a final flourish. "I have footage too, if you're interested."

Brian was not. And neither were his friends, who had caught up after a potentially fruitful conversation around the corner about a bowl of rotting apples at the hairdressers that ultimately went nowhere. It took but a momentary glance from the older men's experienced eyes to determine that a cigarette smoking bear having tea with a royal python in a party hat was unlikely to be a natural occurrence, and by extension, that something terribly sinister was afoot. Add to that a young hobbyist, who they despised with all their beings when they were there and bemoaned the absence of as a sign of dark times filled with the proliferation of brain-melting video games and the death of wholesome activities like hiding in bushes and eavesdropping on young girls, and it was clear to all that they needed to exchange grimaces and grumbles and cross their arms and stare as quickly as humanly possible, which they did.

"I'm not interested," said Brian, which as we have seen, was already obvious. The finger came out next. "But what you might be interested in is that to register a new observation, the Newcastle office submits the claim to the British Registry Cabinet in Torquay. The Northern Constable of Potentiality there happens to be Nigel Worlsley, who I would call an old friend of mine because I met him once at a motorway services in 1986, long before you were born. I'm sure he would listen to some advice regarding young upstarts and their heinous uses of initiative from a gentleman veteran with absolutely none at all."

"How dare you!" Colin cried, taking a step closer. Then the words caught up with him. "Thank you, actually. But how dare you! I see no concrete rules or regulations whatsoever pertaining to the manipulation of objects in the real world. For must we all be passive bystanders in the world, speaking to no-one and doing nothing, to be humble journeymen in our art?"

"Even then," David Hogsworthy squeaked up from deep within the crowd of observers damming the path and causing a tutting blockage of students and pensioners on either side of the college. "EVEN THEN," he squeaked louder above the desperate scream of the brakes of a delivery truck as it howled to a stop five feet from a tiny old lady who had suddenly realised she had left the hob on and braved the road in search of the North-East Passage beyond the mob. "Even then, would our mere existence not influence the world around us in ways too subtle for our plodding minds to grasp? Are we doomed to exert our influence on the wonderful interactions of people who have actual lives all around us?" But, because David Hogsworthy was number one hundred and nineteenth in the UK, no-one was listening.

"But consider, young man," began Harry Crebbingsdale, adjusting his suit jacket with the deliberacy and precision of someone who unquestionably has their shit together, "That should we accept the hiring of ghastly beings from the plagued fathoms of the jungle in our dear country where we are just beginning to accept that a korma may be, on certain occasions, deemed pleasant, then that opens us to abuse of Guidance 23A from the Combined Board of Adjudicators of-"

But Harry didn't finish, because it was getting mighty late for lunch, and they still had to be getting off to Northallerton for that promising pot of babble arising from the opening of a common pound-shop over the road from Mrs. May's Finest Oak-Smoked Mackerel and Very Finest Thirty Year Matured English Cheeses Delicatessen, and because after all of that excitement he still had to go home and trim the eastern hedgerow before supper, and so Mr. Bentley, the Director of the General Observational Enquiries and Regulatory Advice Bureau for Northern England and Jamaica, who perhaps should have spoken up a while ago and actually done his job, instead chose this moment to pick up a handy brick from the crumbling wall by his side, yell, "Manipulate this!", and propel the crushing weight over the heads of his more esteemed colleagues in the general direction of Colin's skull.

It was, remember, only in the general direction, and as Colin was still shrieking and then sobbing and flapping over the wind-swept mess of the extensive notes he had dropped as the missile passed two feet from his head, the brick landed instead on a bystander's foot. The bystander turned out to be a quite burly-looking chap in a high-vis work-coat and hard-hat and, unfortunately for Mr. Bentley, nice protective steel-toed workboots. This assaulted gentleman then screamed "Oi, you bastard!" and plunged head-first into the assembled observers after Mr. Bentley, who was suddenly nowhere to be seen. Another brick flew by. Someone screamed. The sound of screeching brakes, which was by now becoming rather tiresome, occurred boringly again. The crowd scattered. Ladies came face to face with hideous reptiles and also Johnny Mason the Secretary of Exclamations, and swooned with roughly equal groans of disgust. A fellow in a flat-cap who had nothing to do with the collectors but who simply wanted a nice fight dived for Colin, who had just fended off a faceful of roses with only minor lacerations to show for it. Another red-faced lad who happened to be exiting the local drinking establishment directly opposite to see what all the fuss was about whooped for joy and promptly shattered the neck of his lager bottle against the nearest table. Colin, with no small amount of reluctance, accepted that it was possibly time to abandon his excruciatingly planned endeavours in favour of a meatball sub fifty metres down the road, a distance which he closed in about seven seconds flat, pursued by four regulation-hurling collectors, two public house-enjoying boyos that would not be able to legally operate heavy machinery for three days, and no pythons.

Pretty soon, the path outside the college was passable again. The remaining bystanders shrugged and laughed, grateful that no pieces of broken masonry had caved their heads in this time, decided collectively that the melon-smashing flash mob wasn't really worth talking about and what great bounding leaps through cloud cuckoo land did that symbolism take anyway, and moved on to other things.

Only a handful of angry collectors remained.

"The cheek of the youth!" blustered Brian, brushing the remains of a rotten apple from his shoulder and wondering if it had come from the hairdresser's.

"The world has gone too far!" croaked Horace Mealsarrow from his fusion-powered mobility scooter.

"Whatever happened to tradition?" squawked Harry Crebbingsdale incredulously. He was incredulous because some thug or other had scuffed his brand new professional observation trainers in the melee.

"Well, I think," said David Hogsworthy, and then he said some other words too, but no-one was listening.

It was a good job no-one was listening, or else they would have missed the voice of a seventeen year-old art student who had come up the path from his classroom at an even later than expected time, for Mrs. Blenkinsopp had until the last second quite forgotten about the end-of-year coursework that would allow them to seal the deal and become unemployed artists rather than just artists in training.

"Why is there a juvenile royal python wearing a party hat having tea with a teddy bear smoking a cigarette outside my college on a Tuesday afternoon?" asked Matthew Briggs. He blinked once, observed that both python and cigarette-smoking bear were still there and actually had nothing to do with the joint he'd just had behind the skip with Ben Hughes, and walked on towards the sandwich shop, which now had its own crowd of onlookers drawn by the curious sounds of a blazing argument erupting from within.

The assembled collectors stared at what Matthew had just laid out to them. Amazingly, the scene that the young upstart Colin had fabricated was still arranged undisturbed on the path. Not so amazingly, actually, when you considered that most people did not have the pressing need in their lives to anger sixteen-inch serpents or gangster teddy bears, especially not at the same time.

Together, the old colleagues considered what they had just heard. They considered for three minutes and eleven seconds before anyone said a word.

"Well, we didn't do anything," said Brian.

"We were just...here," agreed Roger Phillips, taking out a pen from his top pocket with one shaking, tentative hand.

They all looked at one person, standing by himself off to the side. He had been silent the entire time, and he remained silent now. But silent as he was, Wesley Archibald Rennington, Lord Supreme of the Disputes Court of Final Decisions in Aural Collections for Yorkshire and Humber, gave a slight nod. It was very slight, just in case the need to deny he had done so arose later, but it was a nod all the same.

One by one, not looking at each other, the observers took out their record books and began to write.