Pamela Dean by Tam Lin (pdf) Read Free Book Online Page A

aren't a good idea this year because the usual instructor is on sabbatical."
    "Are you taking Fencing?"
    "Yes."
    "And I'm taking Archery. At least I am if I can find my schedule."
    "It's under the curtain material."
    "Seems like a funny thing for an advisor to tell you," said Molly, heaving herself off the top bunk and shoving the package of material from her desk to the floor.
    "Don't get that all dusty," said Christina's voice from the hallway, where she was piling boxes in search of her sewing basket.
    Molly, grimacing, put the material on her desk chair and took her schedule back to Janet's bed.
    "How are you feeling?" said Janet.
    "Dopey," said Molly, sitting down with a force that made the springs creak. She scribbled on her schedule and flung it on the floor. "I still hurt, but I don't care as much."
    "Maybe you should try whiskey."
    "No way. If I'm going to feel like a nineteenth-century consumptive, I demand port at the very least." She lay back until her head dangled off the side of the bed, and sighed heavily. "I miss my ex-boyfriend," she said. "He was a jerk, but he had wonderful hands. I told him he should be a vet, but he wants to be a CPA. He used to rub my back."
    "Why was he a jerk?"
    "Oh, he thought reading fiction was a waste of time, and he thought I couldn't be a scientist if I was rendered miserable once a month by misapplied female hormones, and he was rude to my brothers."
    "Why'd you go out with him at all?"
    "He kissed very well," said Molly, still upside-down.
    "Why'd you get to know him well enough to find that out?"
    "He had a very large vocabulary," said Molly. She rolled over, banged her elbow on the end of the bed, and tucked it under herself, making muffled sounds.
    "What in the world's the matter?" demanded Christina, emerging with a quilted sewing basket appliquéd in pink and yellow ducks.
    "Hit my funny bone," said Molly.
    "You're turning red," observed Janet.

    "Peg says one of the Roberts—Armin, I think—gives good backrubs," said Christina. She made for her own bunk and tripped, as usual, over its discarded upper portion.
    "You bump your head on the upper bunk as you stand up," said Molly to Janet,
    "and we'll all be casualties. Tina, maybe we could lug that down to the basement and hide it somewhere."
    "Not with you all full of codeine and aspirin," said Christina. "After supper, maybe."
    "How does alcohol mix with codeine and aspirin?" said Molly. "I can't remember."
    "Nora's got a PDR, " said Christina.
    "A what?" said Janet.
    "Physician's Desk Reference. It lists a lot of drugs and their side effects."
    "Why?" said Molly.
    "Somebody killed herself a couple of years ago with an overdose of sleeping pills. Nora thought if the RA'd known what to do maybe the kid wouldn't have died."
    "They don't tell you that when they're trying to persuade you to come here," said Molly. "Did Nora say why?"
    "Academic pressure," said Christina. "She had some problem with her boyfriend, Nora said, but it wouldn't have mattered if she hadn't been under so much pressure."
    "Premed?" said Janet.
    "Classics," said Christina.
    "I want you guys to promise me something," said Molly, sliding herself, again alarmingly, into a sitting position on the floor with her back against the bed.
    "What?" said Janet, obligingly.
    "If any of us is thinking of doing something like that, we have to tell the other two first. I mean it. Even if we don't room together all four years; even if we haven't seen one another for months; even if we think we hate each other. And the other ones have to promise to listen, no matter what, if one of us calls and says it's important."
    "You'd better assign us a password," said Janet. She caught Christina's eye, trying to gauge her reaction. Christina shrugged; Janet recognized, already, her you-guys-are-weird-but-I-guess-this-is-harmless gesture.
    "I'm serious," said Molly.
    "So am I. Something we won't forget in two years."
    "The Snark is a Boojum."
    They smiled at one another. Janet