Special topics in calamity physics - By Marisha Pessl Page 0,34

again today. Every day. Until the end of time. So give a guy a break already.

Charles

Dear Blue,

Charles has obviously made a mess of this situation, so I'm staging a family intervention. I'm assuming you think he's stalkerish. I don't blame you. The truth is, our friend Hannah told us about you and suggested we introduce ourselves. None of us have you in a class so we'll have to meet after school. This Friday at 3:45 go to the second floor of Barrow House, room 208, and wait for us there! Don't be late.

We're DYING to meet you and hear all about Ohio!!!

Kisses,

Jade Churchill Whitestone

These letters would have charmed the average New Student. After a day or two of wordy resistance, like some silly eighteenth-century virgin, she'd tiptoe into the dark shadows of the Scratch, excitedly biting her cherry-plump bottom lip, and await Charles, the wigged aristocrat who'd carry her away (culottes flying) to ruin.

I, on the other hand, was the implacable nun. I remained unmoved.

Well, I'm exaggerating. I'd never received a letter from someone I didn't know (rather, never received a letter from someone who wasn't Dad) and there is an undeniable thrill when faced with a mysterious envelope. Dad once observed that personal letters (now alongside the Great Crested Newt on the Endangered Species list) were one of the few physical objects in this world that held magic within them: "Even the Dull and the Dim, those whose presences can barely be stomached in person, can be tolerated in a letter, even come off as mildly amusing."

To me, there was something strange and insincere about their letters, something a little too "Madame de Merteuil to the Vicomte de Valmont at the Chateau de — ", a little too "Paris. 4 August 17—".

Not that I thought I was the latest pawn in their game of seduction. I wouldn't go that far. But I knew all about knowing people and not knowing people. There was drudgery and danger in introducing a newcomer into that exclusive circle of belonging, le petit salon. Seating was limited, and thus it was inevitable someone old would have to move (a horrifying sign of losing one's foothold in the court, of turning into une grande dame manqué).

To be safe, the newcomer was best ignored, if her background was obscure enough, shunned (coupled with insinuations of illegitimate birth), unless there was someone, a mother with a title, an influential aunt (affectionately called Madame Titi by all) who had the time and power to present the newcomer, to squeeze her in (never mind that everyone's birdcage wig knocked together) rearranging the others to positions which were comfortable, or at least bearable until the next revolution.

Even more bizarre were the references to Hannah Schneider. She had no grounds to be my Madame Titi.

I wondered if I'd come off at Surely Shoos as a particularly sad and despondent person. I thought I'd exuded "watchful intelligence," which was how Dad's colleague, hearing-impaired Dr. Ordinote described me when he came over for lamb chops one evening in Archer, Missouri. He complimented Dad on raising a young woman of "startling power and acumen."

"If only everyone could have one of her, Gareth," he said, raising his eyebrows as he twisted the knob in his hearing aid. "The world would spin a little faster."

There was the possibility that during her ten-minute exchange with Dad, Hannah Schneider had set her romantic sights on him and resolved that I, the quiet daughter, was the small, portable stepladder she'd use to reach him.

Such had been the machinations of Sheila Crane of Pritchardsville, Georgia, who'd only encountered Dad for twenty seconds at the Court Elementary Art Show (she tore his ticket in half) before she decided he was Her Guy. After the Art Show, Miss Crane, who worked part-time at the Court Elementary Infirmary, had a habit of materializing during Break near the seesaws, calling out my name, holding up a box of Thin Mints. When I was in close proximity, she held out a cookie as if trying to tempt a stray dog.

"Can you tell me a little more about your daddy? I mean," she said nonchalantly, though her eyes bored into me like an electrician's drill, "what kinda things duzzie like?"

Usually I stared blankly at her, grabbed the Thin Mint and spirited away, but once I said, "Karl Marx." Her eyes widened in fear.

"He's homosexshull?"

Revolution is slow burning, occurring only after decades of oppression and poverty, but the exact hour of its unleashing is often a moment