Fugitives of Chaos

Since we were the only ones in our particular pew in the chapel, I leaned over and whispered to Victor:

'Can you make something to play a compact disc?'

Victor smiled. 'Build? No. Too complex. Get? Yes. Take time.'

'When?'

'Christmas. Have to go into town.'

It was December sixteenth. Christmas was nine days away.

Of course, if Quentin crept out one evening, the CD without a player would be no use to him; if Victor got a disc player, the player without a disc would be no use to him; neither of them had sworn any particular oaths not to do these things.

Do I need to mention that Victor always smelled nice? When I leaned forward to whisper in his ear, I could scent the scent from his hair. He shaved, and used aftershave, but even without that, there was always a healthy, clean, out-of-doors kind of smell to him. I really wanted to kiss his nicely shaped ear while I had my lips right there, but I didn't. I was the leader, after all, and leaders cannot fraternize with their troopers, or show favorites.

8.

I was tempted to do everything myself, since I could look around in the fourth dimension and see if anyone was coming, and I took a risk any time I communicated to someone; words could be heard by Boggin; notes could be seen by Miss Daw, and maybe by Erichtho.

Boggin, dragging Colin by the ear, stepped back to the chapel door and called out in a loud voice, politely asking Mrs. Wren to accompany him.

I decided to try to kill two birds with one stone. Maybe Colin's distraction was big enough to hide more than one message.

Victor got up and walked out when Wren did. Miss Daw and I were the only two people left in the chapel. Dr. Foster continued to mutter and mumble, something about whether the Second Person of the Trinity had two natures or one nature, and whether that nature was shared with the Father or issued from the Father.

I heard Victor, outside, say to Dr. Fell, 'Sir, why must we waste our time with this superstitious nonsense? The concept of an infinite being is self-contradictory.'

Fell said, 'Quite right. And any such being who craves adoration from people like me is hardly worth adoring, if I understand what that word means. Well, Boggin does not seem to be about. Still, we mustn't have you running around unsupervised.'

'Sir, we could go to the lab. There is a variation on the Millikan experiment I would like to try. May I use the apparatus? You could supervise me there.'

'Very good. Come along.'

Vanity and Quentin did not escape so easily. They were herded back into the chapel. Vanity was seated next to me, then Quentin, then Miss Daw.

Without moving from my position or raising my head, I used a higher sense to stare at Vanity.

Immediately, she looked over her shoulder.

Vanity had not been imagining it. She really could tell when people were looking at her.

I looked away, looked back, looked away, looked back___

Every conspirator under the age of majority should learn Morse code. It would save a great dead of time and trouble. Under my breath, so low that only Vanity could hear it, I hummed the tune to Baa- baa black sheep, have you any wool?

With each note, I looked at her with either one, two, three, or four of my higher senses, either from her left or right, front or back, from above or below. I had to run through the little song once or twice till she caught on.

Dr. Foster forgot where he was in the service, and went back to the beginning again. So we had plenty of time. Miss Daw may have been irked that I was humming to myself during the service, but, on the other hand, we had both heard this part before, not half an hour ago.

9.

Sunday afternoon: Colin was in detention for the rest of that Sunday, and apparetly, for the rest of his life; I went to the library; Victor was in the schoolroom lab, apparently having just a fine time with Dr. Fell, frowning over experiment results. Vanity and Quentin sat in the Common Room doing math homework.

Vanity made a little chart, a four-by-six matrix, and put the first twenty-four letters in the alphabet in it.

Then, while I looked at her first through one sense then another, at different angles and directions, she wrote out: Write names of staff teachers hide in var cache when not watched a ap cymru b boggin c sprat d daw e wren f fell etc.…

Immediately after, Vanity wrote out a dozen names on little slips of paper while Quentin rummaged up a number of small watertight containers from his room: a pop bottle, some plastic baggies, a little soapdish with a snap-shut lid.

Then they dressed up in their snow things, filled their pockets with this litter, and went outside to play a combination of soccer and snowball fighting, with just a little bit of hide-and-seek.

Even had Miss Daw been watching Vanity cipher, the note would have appeared to be of very little use to Vanity, or to me, and the act of hiding the names of various staff members in various places around the grounds would seem meaningless. I do not know if even Miss Daw knew that we had assigned letters to our various cache spots. For example, spot A was the little courtyard where the bench circled the stump of an oak. There was a hollow spot between two roots.

I did not see Vanity hide any of the notes. She could tell when people were watching, and she waited till no one was.