Chewing my fingernails is not

going to help the situation so I am going to try and ignore the fact that I have not heard from the young reader who was volunteered by his parent. The circumstances are such that I feel I cannot ask. He may not have read it at all. He may have read it and loathed it. He may just have resented being volunteered. I will not ask.
I hated being volunteered for anything by my parents, particularly my mother. My mother would often volunteer me for things I had absolutely no interest in doing, knew I would do badly or knew I would not be able to do. She also had a habit of volunteering me as a "friend" to "suitable" people in whom I had absolutely no interest and, of course, they had no interest in me either.
Parents have a habit of doing this sort of thing. They naturally believe that they know what is best for their child. Some parents also believe that they can make their children into what they want them to be. I rather suspect that the end result is a miserable child, a worse childhood and an adult working in a role they loathe but believe is "right" because it is the one their parents chose for them. They then turn around and do the same thing to their children - or try to.
The Young Whirlwind will be in and out for the rest of the school holidays. She could have gone to the holiday programme at her school. It would have been the "right thing" in that she would have been under the supervision of adults and had her choice of activities chosen largely by them. She would have been mixing with her peers. It was not what she wanted.
We are going to do the "wrong thing" and enjoy ourselves. Her father says he is happy about that. He is a wise man.