The Winds of Marble Arch and Other Stories

by Connie Willis

  I know I broke restricks because I remember sitting out under the cottonwoods and thinking what a wonderful sense of humor Old Man Moulton had. He sent up Christmas lights for the bare cottonwoods, and the cotton and the brittle yellow leaves blew against them and caught fire. The smell of burning was everywhere. I remember thinking clearly, smokes and fires, how appropriate for Christmas in Hell.

  But when I tried to think about the tessels, about what to do, the thoughts got all muddy and confused, like I’d taken too much float. Sometimes it was Zibet Brown wanted and not Daughter Ann at all, and I would say, “You cut off her hair. I’ll never give her back to you. Never.” And she would struggle and struggle against him. But she had no claws, no teeth. Sometimes it was the admin, and he would say, “If it’s the trust thing you’re worried about, I can find out for you,” and I would say, “You only want the tessels for yourself.” And sometimes Zibet’s father said, “I am only trying to protect you. Come to Papa.” And I would climb up on the bunk to unscrew the intercom but I couldn’t shut him up. “I don’t need protecting,” I would say to him. Zibet would struggle and struggle.

  A dangling bit of cotton had stuck to one of the Christmas lights. It caught fire and dropped into the brown broken leaves. The smell of smoke was everywhere. Somebody should report that. Hell could burn down, or was it burn up, with nobody here over Christmas break. I should tell somebody. That was it, I had to tell somebody. But there was nobody to tell. I wanted my father. And he wasn’t there. He had never been there. He had paid his money, spilled his juice, and thrown me to the wolves. But at least he wasn’t one of them. He wasn’t one of them.

  There was nobody to tell. “What did you do to it?” Arabel said. “Did you give it something? Samurai? Float? Alcohol?”

  “I didn’t…”

  “Consider yourself on restricks.”

  “It isn’t beasties,” I said. “They call them Baby Dear and Daughter Ann. And they’re the fathers. They’re the fathers. But the tessels don’t have any claws. They don’t have any teeth. They don’t even know what jig-jig is.”

  “He has her best interests at heart,” Arabel said.

  “What are you talking about? He cut off all her hair. You should have seen her, hanging onto the wallplate for dear life! She struggled and struggled, but it didn’t do any good. She doesn’t have any claws. She doesn’t have any teeth. She’s only fifteen. We have to hurry.”

  “It’ll all be over by midterms,” Arabel said. “I can fix you up. Guaranteed no trusters.”

  I was standing in the dorm mother’s Skinner box, pounding on her door. I did not know how I had gotten there. My face looked back at me from the dorm mother’s mirrors. Arabel’s face: strained and desperate. Flashing red and white and red again like an alert band: my roommate’s face. She would not believe me. She would put me on restricks. She would have me expelled. It didn’t matter. When she answered the door, I could not run. I had to tell somebody before the whole place caught on fire.

  “Oh, my dear,” she said, and put her arms around me.

  I knew before I opened the door that Zibet was sitting on my bunk in the dark. I pressed the wallplate and kept my bandaged hand on it, as if I might need it for support. “Zibet,” I said. “Everything’s going to be all right. The dorm mother’s going to confiscate the tessels. They’re going to outlaw animals on campus. Everything will be all right.”

  She looked up at me. “I sent it home with her,” she said.

  “What?” I said blankly.

  “He won’t…leave us alone. He—I sent Daughter Ann home with her.”

  No. Oh, no.

  “Henra’s good like you. She won’t save herself. She’ll never last the two years.” She looked steadily at me. “I have two other sisters. The youngest is only ten.”

  “You sent the tessel home?” I said. “To your father?”

  “Yes.”

  “It can’t protect itself,” I said. “It doesn’t have any claws. It can’t protect itself.”

  “I told you you didn’t know anything about sin,” she said, and turned away.

  I never asked the dorm mother what they did with the tessels they took away from the boys. I hope, for their own sakes, that somebody put them out of their misery.

  In the Late Cretaceous

  “It was in the late Cretaceous that predators reached their full flowering,” Dr. Othniel said. “Of course, carnivorous dinosaurs were present from the Middle Triassic on, but it was in the Late Cretaceous, with the arrival of the albertosaurus, the velociraptor, the deinonychus, and of course, the tyrannosaurus rex, that the predatory dinosaur reached its full strength, speed, and sophistication.”

  Dr. Othniel wrote “LATE CRETACEOUS—PREDATORS” on the board. He suffered from arthritis and a tendency to stoop, and the combination made him write only on the lower third of the chalkboard. He wrote “ALBERTOSAURUS, COELOPHYSIS, VELOCIRAPTOR, DEINONYCHUS, TYRANNOSAURUS REX,” in a column under “LATE CRETACEOUS—PREDATORS,” which put “TYRANNOSAURUS REX” just above the chalk tray.

  “Of all these,” Dr. Othniel said, “tyrannosaurus rex is the most famous, and deservedly so.”

  Dr. Othniel’s students wrote in their notebooks “#1 LC. predator TRX” or “No predators in the Late Cretaceous” or “I have a new roommate. Her name is Traci. Signed, Deanna.” One of them composed a lengthy letter protesting the unfairness of his parking tickets.

  “This flowering of the predators was partly due to the unprecedented abundance of prey. Herbivores such as the triceratops, the chasmosaurus, and the duck-billed hadrosaur roamed the continents in enormous herds.”

  He had to move an eraser so he could write “PREY—HADROSAURS” under “TYRANNOSAURUS REX.” His students wrote “Pray—duck-billed platypus,” and “My new roommate Traci has an absolutely wow boyfriend named Todd,” and “If you think I’m going to pay this ticket, you’re crazy!”

  “The hadrosaurs were easy prey. They had no horns or bony frills like the triceratops,” he said. “They did, however, have large bony crests, which may have been used to trumpet warnings to each other or to hear or smell the presence of predators.” He squeezed “HOLLOW BONY CREST” in under “HADROSAURS” and raised his head, as if he had heard something.

  One of his sophomores, who was writing “I don’t even have a car,” glanced toward the door, but there wasn’t anyone there.

  Dr. Othniel straightened, vertebra by vertebra, until the top of his bald head was nearly even with the top of the blackboard. He lifted his chin, as if he were sniffing the air, and then bent over again, frowning. “Warnings, however, were not enough against the fifty-foot-tall tyrannosaurus rex, with his five-foot-long jaws and seven-inch-long teeth,” he said. He wrote “JAWS—5 FT., TEETH—7 IN.” down among the erasers.

  His students wrote “The Parking Authority is run by a bunch of Nazis,” and “Deanna + Todd,” and “TRX had five feet.”

  After her Advanced Antecedents class, Dr. Sarah Wright collected her mail and took it to her office. There was a manila envelope from the State Department of Education, a letter from the Campus Parking Authority marked “Third Notice: Pay Your Outstanding Tickets Immediately,” and a formal-looking square envelope from the dean’s office, none of which she wanted to open.

  She had no outstanding parking tickets, the legislature was going to cut state funding of universities by another eighteen percent, and the letter from the dean was probably notifying her that the entire amount was going to come out of Paleontology’s hide.

  There was also a stapled brochure from a flight school she had written to during spring break after she had graded 143 papers, none of which had gotten off the ground. The brochure had an eagle, some clouds, and the header “Do you ever just want to get away from it all?”

  She pried the staple free and opened it. “Do you ever get, like, fed up with your job and want to blow it off?” it read. “Do you ever feel like you just want to bag everything and do something really neat instead?”


  It went on in this vein, which reminded her of her students’ papers, for several illustrated paragraphs before it got down to hard facts, which were that the Lindbergh Flight Academy charged three thousand dollars for their course, “including private, commercial, instrument, CFI, CFII, written tests, and flight tests. Lodging extra. Not responsible for injuries, fatalities, or other accidents.”

  She wondered if the “other accidents” covered budget cuts from the legislature.

  Her TA, Chuck, came in, eating a Twinkie and waving a formal-looking square envelope. “Did you get one of these?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Sarah said, picking up hers. “I was just going to open it. What is it, an invitation to a slaughter?”

  “No, a reception for some guy. The dean’s having it this afternoon. In the Faculty Library.”

  Sarah looked at the invitation suspiciously. “I thought the dean was at an educational conference.”

  “She’s back.”

  Sarah tore open the envelope and pulled out the invitation. “The dean cordially invites you to a reception for Dr. Jerry King,” she muttered. “Dr. Jerry King?” She opened the manila envelope and scanned through the legislature report, looking for his name. “Who is he, do you know?”

  “Nope.”

  At least he wasn’t one of the budget-cut supporters. His name wasn’t on the list. “Did the rest of the department get these?”

  “I don’t know. Othniel got one. I saw it in his box,” Chuck said. “I don’t think he can reach it. His box is on the top row.”

  Dr. Robert Walker came in, waving a piece of paper. “Look at this! Another ticket for not having a parking sticker! I have a parking sticker! I have two parking stickers! One on the bumper and one on the windshield. Why can’t they see them?”

  “Did you get one of these, Robert?” Sarah asked, showing him the invitation. “The dean’s having a reception this afternoon. Is it about the funding cuts?”

  “I don’t know,” Robert said. “They’re right there in plain sight. I even drew an arrow in Magic Marker to the one on the bumper.”

  “The legislature’s cut our funding again,” Sarah said. “I’ll bet you anything the dean’s going to eliminate a position. She was over here last week looking at our enrollment figures.”

  “The whole university’s enrollment is down,” Robert said, going over to the window and looking out. “Nobody can afford to go to college anymore, especially when it costs eighty dollars a semester for a parking sticker. Not that the stickers do any good. You still get parking tickets.”

  “We’ve got to fight this,” Sarah said. “If she eliminates one of our positions, we’ll be the smallest department on campus, and the next thing you know, we’ll have been merged with Geology. We’ve got to organize the department and put up a fight. Do you have any ideas, Robert?”

  “You know,” Robert said, still looking out the window, “maybe if I posted someone out by my car—”

  “Your car?”

  “Yeah. I could hire a student to sit on the back bumper, and when the Parking Authority comes by, he could point to the sticker. It would cost a lot, but—Stop that!” he shouted suddenly. He wrenched the window open and leaned out. “You can’t give me a parking ticket!” he shouted down at the parking lot. “I have two stickers! What are you, blind?” He pulled his head in and bolted out of the office and down the stairs, yelling, “They just gave me another ticket! Can you believe that?”

  “No,” Sarah said. She picked up the flight-school brochure and looked longingly at the picture of the eagle.

  “Do you think they’ll have food?” Chuck said. He was looking at the dean’s invitation.

  “I hope not,” Sarah said.

  “Why not?”

  “Grazing,” she said. “The big predators always attack when the hadrosaurs are grazing.”

  “If they do have food, what kind do you think they’ll have?” Chuck asked wistfully.

  “It depends,” Sarah said, turning the brochure over. “Tea and cookies, usually.”

  “Homemade?”

  “Not unless there’s bad news. Cheese and crackers means somebody’s getting the ax. Liver pâté means a budget cut. Of course, if the budget cut’s big enough, there won’t be any money for refreshments.”

  On the back of the brochure it said in italics “Become Upwardly Mobile,” and underneath, in boldface:

  FAA-APPROVED

  TUITION WAIVERS AVAILABLE

  FREE PARKING

  “There have been radical changes in our knowledge of the dinosaurs over the past few years,” Dr. Albertson said, holding the micropaleontology textbook up, “so radical that what came before is obsolete.” He opened the book to the front. “Turn to the introduction.”

  His students opened their books, which had cost $64.95.

  “Have you all turned to the introduction?” Dr. Albertson asked, taking hold of the top corner of the first page. “Good. Now tear it out.” He ripped out the page. “It’s useless, completely archaic.”

  Actually, although there had been some recent revisions in theories regarding dinosaur behavior and physiology, particularly in the larger predators, there hadn’t been any at all at the microscopic level. But Dr. Albertson had seen Robin Williams do this in a movie and been very impressed.

  His students, who had been hoping to sell them back to the university bookstore for $32.47, were less so. One of them asked hopefully, “Can’t we just promise not to read it?”

  “Absolutely not,” Dr. Albertson said, yanking out a handful of pages. “Come on. Tear them out.”

  He threw the pages in a metal wastebasket and held the wastebasket out to a marketing minor who was quietly tucking the torn-out pages into the back of the book with an eye to selling it as a pre-edited version. “That’s right, all of them,” Dr. Albertson said. “Every outdated, old-fashioned page.”

  Someone knocked on the door. He handed the wastebasket to the marketing minor and left the slaughter to open it. It was Sarah Wright with a squarish envelope.

  “There’s a reception for the dean this afternoon,” she said. “We need the whole department there.”

  “Do we have to tear out the title page, too?” a psychology minor asked.

  “The legislature’s just cut funding another eighteen percent, and I’m afraid they’re going to try to eliminate one of our positions.”

  “You can count on my support one hundred percent,” he said.

  “Good,” Sarah said, sighing with relief. “As long as we stick together, we’ve got a chance.”

  Dr. Albertson shut the door behind her, glancing at his watch. He had planned to stand on his desk before the end of class, but now there wouldn’t be time. He had to settle for the inspirational coda.

  “Ostracods, diatoms, fusilinids, these are what we stay alive for,” he said. “Carpe diem! Seize the day!”

  The psych minor raised his hand. “Can I borrow your Scotch tape?” he asked. “I accidentally tore out Chapters One and Two.”

  There was brie at the reception. And sherry and spinach puffs and a tray of strawberries with cellophane-flagged toothpicks stuck like daggers into them. Sarah took a strawberry and a rapid head count of the department. Everyone else seemed to be there except Robert, who was probably parking his car, and Dr. Othniel.

  “Did you make sure Dr. Othniel saw his invitation?” she asked her TA, who was eating strawberries two at a time.

  “Yeah,” Chuck said with his mouth full. “He’s here.” He gestured with his plate toward a high-backed wing chair by the fire.

  Sarah went over and checked. Dr. Othniel was asleep. She went back over to the table and had another strawberry. She wondered which one was Dr. King. There were only three men she didn’t recognize. Two of them were obviously Physics Department—they were making a fusion reactor out of a Styrofoam cup and several of the fancy toothpicks. The third looked likely. He was tall and distinguished and was wearing a tweed jacket with patches on the elbows, b
ut after a few minutes he disappeared into the kitchen and came back with a tray of liver pâté and crackers.

  Robert came in, carrying his suit jacket and looking out of breath. “You will not believe what happened to me,” he said.

  “You got a parking ticket,” Sarah said. “Were you able to find out anything about this Dr. King?”

  “He’s an educational consultant,” Robert said. “What is the point of spending eighty dollars a semester for a parking sticker when there are never any places to park in the permit lots? You know where I had to park? Behind the football stadium! That’s five blocks farther away than my house!”

  “An educational consultant?” Sarah said. “What’s the dean up to?” She stared thoughtfully at her strawberry. “An educational consultant…”

  “Author of What’s Wrong with Our Entire Educational System,” Dr. Albertson said. He took a plate and put a spinach puff on it. “He’s an expert on restructionary implementation.”

  “What’s that?” Chuck said, making a sandwich out of the liver pâté and two bacon balls.

  Dr. Albertson looked superior. “Surely they teach you graduate assistants about restructionary implementation,” he said, which meant he didn’t know either. He took a bite of spinach puff. “You should try these,” he said. “I was just talking to the dean. She told me she made them herself.”

  “We’re dead,” Sarah said.

  “There’s Dr. King now,” Dr. Albertson said, pointing to a lumbering man wearing a polo shirt and Sansabelt slacks.

  The dean went over to greet him, clasping his hands in hers. “Sorry I’m late,” he boomed out. “I couldn’t find a parking place so I parked out in front.”

  Dr. Othniel suddenly emerged from the wing chair, looking wildly around. Sarah beckoned to him with her toothpick, and he stooped his way over to them, sat down next to the brie, and went back to sleep.

  The dean moved to the center of the room and clapped her hands for attention. Dr. Othniel jerked at the sound. “I don’t want to interrupt the fun,” the dean said, “And please, do go on eating and drinking, but I just wanted you all to meet Dr. Jerry King. Dr. King will be working with the Paleontology Department on something I’m sure you’ll all find terribly exciting. Dr. King, would you like to say a few words?”