I didn’t want to wake Mary, so I went around to the back door and tapped on the window. Renata opened the door, touching one finger to her lips. “She’s still asleep, Markie,” she whispered.
“No kidding? Gee, the day’s half-over.”
“Quit trying to be funny. Do you want some coffee?”
“Thanks, Twink, but I’ve had four cups of Erika’s already, and that’ll probably keep me wired until about midnight.”
“Is her coffee that strong?”
“Industrial-strength. I just came by to tell you that I’ll pick you up about twelve-thirty. Our class starts at one-thirty, and that’ll give us plenty of time to get there.”
“You don’t have to do that, Markie. I’ve got my bike.”
“Yes, Twink, I know all about the bike. This is the first day of class, though, and I want to show you exactly where Padelford Hall’s located, where my office is, and how to find the classroom. After you’ve got the lay of the land, you can pedal around in the rain all you want.”
“Oh, all right.” She sounded peevish about it.
“What is your problem, Twink?”
“Everybody’s treating me like a baby. I’m a big girl now.”
“Save the declaration of independence, Twinkie-poo. I just want to make sure you’ve got the lay of the land before I turn you loose to roam around campus by yourself.”
“Twinkie-poo?” she said. “Are we going back to baby talk?”
“Just kidding, Twink. I know most of the trees on campus by their first names, so I can save you a lot of time by showing you shortcuts and places where the traffic piles up at certain times of day. Let’s just call this ‘show Twinkie the ropes day.’ I’m not trying to insult you or infringe on your constitutional right to get hopelessly lost down in the hard-science zone. Just humor me today, OK?”
“Yes, Master,” she said with a vapid expression. “Yes, Master.”
“I thought we’d gotten past that stuff, Twink.”
“The old ones are the best, aren’t they? If you want to baby me, I suppose I can put up with it for a day or so. But don’t make a habit of it.”
“Oh,” I said then, “as long as I’m offending you today anyway, let’s get something else off the table. Don’t get too carried away with how you dress. The kids here are pretty laid-back when they go to class. Blue jeans and sweatshirts are just about the uniform of the day—every day. You probably wouldn’t want to wear fancy clothes in the rain anyway, and it’s always raining here in muck and mire city.”
“Aww,” she said in mock disappointment. “I was going to make a fashion statement.”
“Save it for a sunny day, Twink. A lot of freshman girls try that on their first day of class, and they get pretty embarrassed when they find out that they’re overdressed.”
“What books am I going to need?”
“I’ll give you some of mine. I’ve got lots of spares.”
“I can afford to buy my own books, Markie. I’ve even got my very own checkbook. Les made a big point of that. There’s oodles of money in there, and someday I might even be able to make it balance.”
“Never turn down freebies, Twink—particularly when you’re talking about books. I’ll see you about twelve-thirty, then. I’m going back to the boardinghouse now to start rummaging around in Paradise Lost, and I’m not looking forward to it very much. I don’t think Milton and I are going to get along well at all.”
“Aw,” she said, patting my cheek, “poor baby.”
“Oh, quit,” I told her. Then I left and drove back to the boardinghouse to dig into Milton. John-boy irritated me right from the git-go. He was such a show-off. All right, he was gifted, he was intelligent, and he’d been a member of Cromwell’s government. Did he have to keep rubbing my face in it? Writing sonnets in Latin is probably the height of exhibitionism, wouldn’t you say?
I hung it up about eleven o’clock and went downstairs to slap a sandwich together. Erika was there, brewing another pot of coffee. “Hi, Mark,” she greeted me. “Coffee’s almost ready.”
“Thanks all the same, Erika, but I’m still trying to shake off the four cups I had at breakfast.”
“Suit yourself.” She was wearing a heavy-looking pair of horn-rimmed glasses that made her look older and more mature. They seemed to complete her. That deep auburn hair and golden skin had made her seem somehow almost unreal to me.
“Are the glasses something new?” I asked her.
“No, they’ve been around for years. I’m just giving my eyes a rest from the contact lenses.”
“Trish says you’ve got an outside job,” I said, rummaging in the refrigerator.
“At a medical lab,” she told me. “It’s not challenging, but it pays the bills. What are you looking for, Mark?”
“Sandwich makings. I’ve got the munchies.”
“Go sit down. I’ll fix you something.”
“I can take care of it, Erika.”
“Sit!” she commanded. “I hate it when people tear up the kitchen. Aunt Grace was too timid to scold the party boys, and the mess they made used to drive me right up the wall.”
“James told me that you were living here before your aunt got sick,” I said, moving out of her way and sitting down in the breakfast nook.
“I was strapped for cash,” she replied. “I’d been working at a lab over near Swedish Hospital, and the headman there was a groper who couldn’t keep his hands to himself. I cured him of that, and he fired me.”
“Cured?”
“I threw a cup of scalding coffee in his face.”
“Ouch,” I said.
“He felt pretty much the same way about it,” she said with an evil little grin. “Anyway, Aunt Grace had an empty room, and she let me stay here until I got back on my feet.” She started putting some sandwiches together. “That’s what set off our ‘serious student’ program. You wouldn’t believe how noisy it used to be around here. After Aunt Grace had her stroke, I yelled for help, Trish came running, and we clamped down.”
“James told me about that when I first found the place,” I told her. “He said he backed your decision all the way.”
“Oh, yes. And nobody in his right mind crosses James. Truth is, I had to nudge Trish to persuade her to put that ‘no drinking on the premises’ policy into effect. She was a little timid about it.”
“Timid? Trish?”
“She was worried about the rent money. That was all that we had to pay Aunt Grace’s medical expenses. I told her not to be such a worrywart. I knew that sooner or later we’d get the right kind of people here, and things would turn out OK.”
“You’re putting a whole new light on things around here, Erika,” I said. “I assumed Trish was running the show, but you’re the one calling the shots, aren’t you?”
“That’s been going on since we were kids, Mark. Trish wants people to notice her. I don’t need that, so I let her stand around giving orders. As long as she gives the orders I want her to give, I don’t interfere.” She came over and handed me a plate with two fairly bulky sandwiches on it. “Here,” she said. “Eat.”
“Yes, boss,” I said obediently.
She let that pass. “I’ll bring you a glass of milk.”
“I’ve sort of outgrown milk, Erika.”
“It’s good for you,” she said. She poured me a glass of milk and brought it to the table.
This girl was going to take some getting used to, that much was certain.
After I’d finished eating, I went back to Mary’s place to pick up Twink. I was fairly sure that Mary was still asleep, so I went around to the back door again to avoid waking her.
Twink was waiting for me, and she had one of those black plastic raincoats that always seem to make a lot of noise. They keep the rain off well enough, I guess, but they crackle with every move.
“Did you bring my books?” she asked.
“We’ll pick them up at my office,” I told her. “I don’t keep my spares on my own bookshelves. Th
ey take up too much room. Let’s hit the bricks, Twink. I want to get in and out of my little clothes-closet office before the suck-ups get there and go into the usual feeding frenzy.”
“Suck-ups?” she asked.
“The ingratiators. The second-rate students who swindled their way through high school by laughing at the tired jokes of third-rate teachers, and the personality kids who’d really like to be my friend so that they can smile the C-minus they’ll earn up to a B-plus.”
“You’re in a foul humor,” she accused, as we went out to my car.
“It’ll pass, Twink,” I told her. “I always come down with the grouchies on the first day of classes. I know for an absolute fact that I’m going to come up against a solid wall of ineptitude, and it depresses the hell out of me.”
“Poor, poor Markie. You can cry on my shoulder, if you want. Maybe if I mommy all over you, it’ll make you feel better.”
I laughed—I don’t think I’d ever heard “mommy” used as a verb before. “When did you get mommified, Twink?” I took it one step further.
“Probably while I was in the bughouse,” she replied. “Dockie-poo Fallon always prescribed mommification—or daddyfication—when one of the bugsies went brain-dead. He’d either mommify us or embalm us with Prozac. And believe me, if you really wanted to, you could probably calm a volcano down with Prozac.”
We clowned around all the way to the campus, and I realized as I pulled into the Padelford parking garage that Twink had banished my grumpies. I was supposed to be taking care of her, but she’d neatly turned the tables.
“Where do you want me to sit when I go into your classroom, Markie?” she asked me when we climbed out of the Dodge. “Since I’m not a real student yet, am I supposed to hide under a desk or something?”
“Pick anyplace you want, Twink. The other people in the class won’t know that you’re only auditing, and I wouldn’t make an issue of it. Just blend in.”
“What am I supposed to call you?”
“Mr. Austin, probably. That’s what the others are going to call me. Let’s keep the fact that we know each other more or less under wraps—the other kids don’t need to know. Doc Fallon says that you’re here to get to know more people—’broaden your acquaintanceship,’ he calls it. I may not altogether agree, but let’s play it his way for now. I’ll give you some time for the after-class chatter before we go back home. Try to keep it down to about a half hour. Oh, don’t get all bent out of shape about some of the things I’ll say today, OK? It’s a little canned speech I picked up from Dr. Conrad. It’s called ‘thinning the herd.’ My life’s a lot easier if I can scare the incompetents enough to make them go pester somebody else.”
“You’re a mean person, Markie.”
“God knows I try.”
Inside the building, I showed Twink where my office was, gave her the books she’d need, and led the way to the classroom. “Hang around out here in the hallway until the place starts to fill up,” I advised. “Then drift in with the rest. Don’t sit up front, but don’t try to hide at the back of the room, either—that’s where the hopeless cases usually are. Try to blend in as much as possible.”
“You sound like a bad spy novel,” she accused. “Next you’ll be talking about code words, disguises, and invisible ink.”
“Maybe I am being a little obvious,” I admitted.
“Real obvious. I’m a big girl, and I know all about blending into the scenery.”
“OK. Today’s class won’t be too long. We’ll do the bookkeeping, I’ll deliver my speech, and then I’ll split before anybody can pin me to the wall. You mingle a bit, then go back out to the garage. I’ll be in the car.”
“Why not wait in your office?”
“Because I don’t want to spend the rest of the day here. The suck-ups will home in on that place like a pack of wolves. Are you going to be OK here?”
“I’m fine, Markie. Quit worrying.”
“OK, I’ll see you after class, then.”
I went back to the garage to gather up the official-looking junk I had in the backseat, then I ran over my canned speech to make sure I’d hit all the high points. The first class session sets the tone for the rest of the quarter, so I wanted to be sure I had it right.
I kept a close eye on my watch and hit the classroom door at precisely one-thirty. I went directly to the desk, opened my briefcase, and took out the stack of papers I kept in there. Then I faced this year’s crop of freshmen. “Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen,” I said briskly. “This is section BR of English 131, Expository Writing. My name is Austin, and I’ll be your instructor. Please pass your enrollment cards to the left, and I’ll distribute the course syllabus when I pick them up.”
There was the usual stirring around while they tried to find the enrollment cards among all the other papers they’d been given on sign-up day.
“Quickly, quickly,” I nudged them. “We’ve only got an hour, and we’ve got other fish to fry.”
It didn’t do any good; it never does. It still took them the usual ten minutes or so to get the cards to the end of each row. Then I gathered the cards and distributed the course descriptions.
“All right, then,” I said after that was finished, “Let’s begin. For most of you, this is your first day of college. You’ll find that things here are quite a bit different from what you’ve been accustomed to. You’re adults now, and we expect more from you. You’re here to study and to learn. You’re not here to occupy space; you’re here to work. If you don’t work, you’ll fail, and then you’ll get to do it all over again. This is a required course, and you won’t get your degree until you’ve managed to get a passing grade from me or from one of my colleagues. Our goal is to teach you how to write papers that your professors can understand. Writing was invented several thousand years ago as a way to pass information back and forth between humans. Since most of you are human, it’s a fairly important skill.” I paused and looked around. “Nonhumans, naturally, aren’t required to take this course, so all nonhumans are excused.”
It got the same laugh it always got. It was a silly thing to say, but a few laughs never hurt.
“Would you define ‘human’ for us, Mr. Austin?” a young fellow near the front of the room asked.
“You’ll have to take that up with the folks in anthropology,” I told him. “I operate on the theory that anybody whose knuckles don’t drag on the ground when he walks is probably human. But we digress. As students, you’ll need to communicate with your professors in a way slightly more advanced than grunts and whistles. That’s why you’re here. I’m supposed to teach you how to write, so we’re going to write—at least you are—and you’re going to start now. Your first assignment is a five-hundred-word essay, and just for old times’ sake, why don’t you take a run at the ever-popular ‘How I Spent My Summer Vacation’? Since you’ve all probably been working on that old turkey since about the fifth grade, you should have a head start on it. You’ll be graded on grammar, spelling, punctuation, and thought content. It’s due on Wednesday, so you’d better buckle down.”
There were sounds of serious discontent.
“Hey, gang,” I said, “if that makes you unhappy, the door’s right over there. You can walk out anytime you want.”
There was the customary shocked silence when I dropped that on them. Teachers at the high-school level almost never invite their students to leave.
“I’m not your friend, people,” I told them bluntly. “I’m not here to make you happy. If your papers aren’t up to standard, you’ll get to do them over again—and again—and again. You’ll keep doing them over until you get them right, and that won’t alter the fact that you’ll be writing other papers as well, and you’ll probably beriting those also. Things will definitely start to back up on you after a while if you keep turning in tripe.”
“How much credit for class participation, Mr. Austin?” the young fellow who’d asked for a definition of human asked in a slightly worried tone. I g
et that question every quarter—usually from speech majors who’d sooner die than actually put something down on paper.
I shrugged. “None. You’re here to write, not to talk. If you want to say something to me, write it down. Then type it, because I won’t accept handwritten papers. Use pica type and standard margins. You might want to pick up a copy of the MLA style sheet. That’s the final word on academic style.”
I saw the usual look of blank incomprehension. “The Modern Language Association,” I translated. “Try to write complete sentences; incomplete ones irritate me. Oh, one other thing. You’ll encounter people out there who’ll try to sell you papers. Don’t waste your money. I’ve already seen most of them, so I’ll recognize them. If you try to foist a secondhand paper off on me, you’ll be taking this course over again, because I’ll flunk you right on the spot. You should probably know that my flunk rate doesn’t even come close to the bell curve. If I happen to get an entire class of incompetents, I’ll flunk the whole bunch. Now, then, if you want to drop the course or change instructors, go to the Registrar’s Office. Don’t pester me with your problems.”
I let that soak in just a bit. “Any questions?” I asked.
There was a sullen silence, and I was fairly sure that my deliberate mention of the registrar was ringing a few bells.
I looked around. “Not a word?” I asked mildly. “Not even a few whimpers? Aw, shucky-darn.”
There was a nervous laugh. Evidently I’d gotten through to most of them. “You seem to have grasped my basic point, then,” I told them. “The policy here is ‘my house; my rules.’ As long as you remember that, we’ll get along fine. Class dismissed.” I scooped up the enrollment cards, stowed them in my briefcase, and was out the door before any of the suck-up crowd could get in my way. A strategy of abruptitude works quite well when you want to make a clean getaway during those early sessions. Shock and run cuts the sniveling short; linger-longering just encourages it.
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