an hour. I told you that this morning.”
He turned from her then, and before she even realized he’d thrown them, the running shoes had sailed across the living room and knocked over their only nice lamp, which Mira could hear shattering even before it hit the coffee table, and the twins began to shriek with what seemed to be all of the hysterical energy of human history channeling itself through their lungs.
13
I t was not a dorm known for its great parties, to say the least, but there was a tradition in Godwin Honors Hall of throwing one big blowout the Friday night after midterms.
Craig had, himself, only one exam (Political Science) and a paper due (Great Books). He’d already tracked down on the Internet a “model” for the paper, and had begun to sketch out some tentative plans for the model’s rebirth as his own term paper. The Poli-Sci exam seemed like no big deal. He’d just make it a priority to go over the outline at the back of the book the morning before the test.
Apparently, his fellow students had harder schedules, or approached their studies differently. Beginning the weekend before midterms, Godwin had become a ghost hall, and Perry barely darkened the doorway of their room except to sleep for a few hours in the early morning before he was gone again.
(“Where you been, man?” Craig asked him in passing, to which Perry replied, “The library. Studying,” as if it were a given.)
Even the cafeteria was silent. Instead of the usual clusters, people sat separately, absentmindedly lifting forkfuls of eggs or baked beans to their mouths while staring intently into the textbooks open beside their plates. Craig watched as one kid accidentally speared the page of his book instead of the meatloaf on his plate, and then even brought the fork halfway to his mouth before realizing there was nothing on it.
Jesus Christ. No wonder his father had had to call on his old buddy Dean Fleming to get Craig into this place. These were not his people. They were an entirely different species. Back in Fredonia there’d been professional students, for sure, but theirs had been such a casual superiority that Craig never bothered to pay any attention to how they were doing it. They just waltzed out of their Advanced Placement courses fluttering the A-pluses on their exams, sauntered down the hallway to the meetings of the clubs they were presidents of, or grabbed their violins and headed off to the orchestra room.
That these Godwin Honors College kids worked so hard both frightened and puzzled Craig, and made it even more impossible for him to imagine, somehow, joining them at the library. So far the only thing he’d done at the library was check out an armload of CDs, which he’d downloaded to his laptop.
“Are we going to meet this week?” Craig asked as Perry stumbled past him on his way to the shower in the middle of midterm week.
“Huh?”
“Study group?”
“We’ve been meeting,” Perry said.
“When?” Craig asked.
“At the library,” Perry said. “ Constantly. ”
“Why didn’t anybody tell me?” Craig asked.
“I don’t know,” Perry said. “I guess we figured if you wanted to study you’d be at the library.” The two of them looked at each other blankly, and then Perry grabbed his towel and was basically gone again until Friday night.
C raig’s paper looked pretty good, he thought. He’d gone way out of his way to make sure no series of words in any given sentence could be Googled to reveal his source. He also thought his Political Science exam had gone well, though it concerned him a bit that he’d finished it so much more quickly than the other twenty-two students in the class, who were still chewing the erasers at the ends of their pencils as Craig handed his test in and grabbed his backpack (making as little noise as possible, but, still, a couple of girls on either side of his seat looked up from their papers and glared at him).
It had been a bright October afternoon.
He turned from her then, and before she even realized he’d thrown them, the running shoes had sailed across the living room and knocked over their only nice lamp, which Mira could hear shattering even before it hit the coffee table, and the twins began to shriek with what seemed to be all of the hysterical energy of human history channeling itself through their lungs.
13
I t was not a dorm known for its great parties, to say the least, but there was a tradition in Godwin Honors Hall of throwing one big blowout the Friday night after midterms.
Craig had, himself, only one exam (Political Science) and a paper due (Great Books). He’d already tracked down on the Internet a “model” for the paper, and had begun to sketch out some tentative plans for the model’s rebirth as his own term paper. The Poli-Sci exam seemed like no big deal. He’d just make it a priority to go over the outline at the back of the book the morning before the test.
Apparently, his fellow students had harder schedules, or approached their studies differently. Beginning the weekend before midterms, Godwin had become a ghost hall, and Perry barely darkened the doorway of their room except to sleep for a few hours in the early morning before he was gone again.
(“Where you been, man?” Craig asked him in passing, to which Perry replied, “The library. Studying,” as if it were a given.)
Even the cafeteria was silent. Instead of the usual clusters, people sat separately, absentmindedly lifting forkfuls of eggs or baked beans to their mouths while staring intently into the textbooks open beside their plates. Craig watched as one kid accidentally speared the page of his book instead of the meatloaf on his plate, and then even brought the fork halfway to his mouth before realizing there was nothing on it.
Jesus Christ. No wonder his father had had to call on his old buddy Dean Fleming to get Craig into this place. These were not his people. They were an entirely different species. Back in Fredonia there’d been professional students, for sure, but theirs had been such a casual superiority that Craig never bothered to pay any attention to how they were doing it. They just waltzed out of their Advanced Placement courses fluttering the A-pluses on their exams, sauntered down the hallway to the meetings of the clubs they were presidents of, or grabbed their violins and headed off to the orchestra room.
That these Godwin Honors College kids worked so hard both frightened and puzzled Craig, and made it even more impossible for him to imagine, somehow, joining them at the library. So far the only thing he’d done at the library was check out an armload of CDs, which he’d downloaded to his laptop.
“Are we going to meet this week?” Craig asked as Perry stumbled past him on his way to the shower in the middle of midterm week.
“Huh?”
“Study group?”
“We’ve been meeting,” Perry said.
“When?” Craig asked.
“At the library,” Perry said. “ Constantly. ”
“Why didn’t anybody tell me?” Craig asked.
“I don’t know,” Perry said. “I guess we figured if you wanted to study you’d be at the library.” The two of them looked at each other blankly, and then Perry grabbed his towel and was basically gone again until Friday night.
C raig’s paper looked pretty good, he thought. He’d gone way out of his way to make sure no series of words in any given sentence could be Googled to reveal his source. He also thought his Political Science exam had gone well, though it concerned him a bit that he’d finished it so much more quickly than the other twenty-two students in the class, who were still chewing the erasers at the ends of their pencils as Craig handed his test in and grabbed his backpack (making as little noise as possible, but, still, a couple of girls on either side of his seat looked up from their papers and glared at him).
It had been a bright October afternoon.
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