Special topics in calamity physics - By Marisha Pessl Page 0,52

of Normandy. Sure, we had faces eventually, but for the first month or so— September, the very beginning of October—though I saw them all the time peacocking through campus, and acted as hushed, horrified journalist to the anxieties they inspired ("If I ever see Jade injured, facedown in the street, homeless, riddled with leprosy—I'll do humanity a favor and run her over," pledged Beth Price in my AP English class), I only ever hung out with them at Hannah's.

And obviously, during those first few evenings, the scenario was more than a little humiliating. Obviously it made me feel like a dumpy bachelorette on a reality show called In-sta-love no one wanted to take for drinks and I sure as hell could forget about dinner. I'd sit on Hannah's shabby chaise longue with one of her dogs, pretending to be transfixed by my AP Art History homework while the five of them talked in hushed voices about how "hardcore," how "juiced," they'd been on Friday at mysterious places they'd nicknamed "The Purple" and "The Blind," and when Hannah emerged from the kitchen, immediately they'd hurl me greasy little sardine-smiles. Milton would blink, aw-shucks his knee and say, "So how's it goin', Blue? You're awful quiet over there." "She's shy," Nigel would observe, deadpan. Or Jade, who without fail dressed like a famous person working the red carpet at Cannes: "I love your shirt. I want one. You'll have to tell me where you got it." Charles smiled like a talk show host with poor Neilsen Ratings and Lu never said a word. Whenever my name was mentioned, she examined her feet.

Hannah must have sensed we were heading toward a stalemate, because shortly thereafter, she launched her next assault. "Jade, why don't you take Blue with you when you go to Conscience? It might be fun for her," she said. "When are you going again?"

"Don't know," Jade said drearily, sprawled on her stomach on the living room carpet, reading The Norton Anthology of Poetry (Ferguson, Salter, Stall-worthy, 1996 éd.).

"I thought you said you were going this week," Hannah persisted. "Maybe they can squeeze her in?"

"Maybe," she said without looking up.

I forgot this conversation, until that Friday, a worn, gray afternoon. After my last class, AP World History with Mr. Carlos Sandborn (who used so much gel, one always thought he'd just come from swimming laps at the Y), I returned to the third floor of Hanover to find Jade and Leulah standing by my locker: Jade, in a black Golightly dress, Leulah, a white blouse and skirt. Standing with her hands and feet together as if waiting for choir practice, Leulah looked pleasant enough, but Jade looked like a kid in a nursing home impatiently waiting for her designated fogey to be wheeled in so she could read him Watership Down in a monotone, thereby earning her Community Outreach credit, thereby graduating on time.

"So we're going to get our hair and nails and eyebrows done and you're coming," Jade informed me with a hand on her hip.

"Oh," I said, nodding, spinning through the combination of my padlock, though I don't think I was actually entering the combination, only vigorously turning it in one direction, then the other.

"Ready?"

"Now?" I asked.

"Of course now."

"I can't," I said. "I'm busy."

"Busy? Withwhat?"

"My dad's picking me up." Four sophomore girls who'd drifted by had

snagged, like garbage in a river, by the German Language Bulletin Board. They blatantly eavesdropped.

"Oh, God," said Jade, "not your wonderdad again. You'll have to let us know his civilian name and what he looks like without the mask and the cape." (I'd made the serious mistake of bringing Dad up the previous Sunday. I think I actually said the phrase "brilliant man" in relation to him, also "one of the preeminent commentators on American culture at work in this country today," a line lifted verbatim from the two-page spread on Dad inTAPSIM, the American Political Science Institute's quarterly [see "Dr. Yes," Spring 1987, Vol. XXIV, Issue 9]. I'd said it because Hannah had asked what he did for a living, how he "kept busy," and something about Dad simply invited the boast, the brag, the self-congratulating monologue.)

"She's just kidding," Lu said. "Come on. It'll be fun."

I collected my books and walked outside with them to inform Dad my Ulysses Study Group had decided to meet for a few hours, but I'd be home for dinner. He frowned at the sight of Jade and Lu standing on the Hanover steps: "Those two tartlets think they