Peter, Katarina, August - three emotionally damaged children in Biehl's experimental school - were all borderlindes, that is, they were under assessment by the authorities to determine their futures: integration with "normal" children (under the Darwinian test for the survival of the fittest) or relegation to institutions for the mentally defective. They were alert to their guinea-pig status in Biehl's experiment, and determined to deregulate the clockwork mechanism which entrapped them in the school. which indeed trapped them in the uncontrollable grip of Time, her employed as sevant of the system. Their attempt to escape from the school abnd expose its oppressive mechanisms is at the centre of this deeply probing, sensitive and totally fascination novel.