Fugitives of Chaos

But seeing Quentin pelt Vanity with snow, so that she was breathless with cold and laughter, and watching the somewhat playful grabbing and tackling and tickling they imposed on each other during their hide-and-seek made me sure Quentin was going to try to steal a kiss. As far as he could remember, his first.

Once or twice it looked like he was building up the nerve to do it. But Vanity looked a little worried, and kept glancing at the upper windows of the north wing, where Colin was in detention, as if she were thinking of him.

10.

The library had a typewriter. From the tongue-clucking comments I had overheard from the cleaning staff (some of whom were Cornishwomen from across the Bristol Channel), this was certainly the last typewriter in the British Isles, maybe in the world. Everybody else, everywhere else, used computer word processors.

I had permission from Mrs. Flinders, the librarian, to use it, and I typed up what I am sure was the worst resume of all time. I had no idea what was supposed to go into a resume, or what one looked like.

I was sure that some book in the library might have the information on how to write such a thing, so I spent at least an hour combing through Middlemarch and Emma and War and Peace, looking for scenes where characters went to find jobs. Unfortunately, most of them seemed to be aristocrats, who did not seem to have to work for a living, or else got a job (as Pierre did) through knowing the Freemasons. Great Expectations was no help; neither was A Christmas Carol. Nor was Plutarch's Lives, nor any of the histories of saints. Apparently none of these famous people in their famous lives ever had to get a job.

On the theory that resumes had only been invented after the French Revolution, I went to the books in the modern section. I spent half an hour looking over Ulysses by James Joyce, and certain books by T.

S. Eliot and e. e. Cummings. Our copy of the first book must have contained printer's errors, and a lot of them. There were nonsense words and run-on sentences on every page. In one of the chapters, the printer had left out all the punctuation. I am certain the author must have sued the printing company for putting such a thing out on the bookshelves with his name on it.

The other two books were not anything I could make sense of. The Dewey decimal number indicated that they were poetry, but I knew what poetry was. Poetry was Milton; poetry was Keats. This was goofy rubbish. I assumed such books had gotten into our library by mistake, perhaps as a prank.

In any case, I found nothing in the modern works that told me how to write a resume. I asked Mrs.

Flinders for help, but she had only the vaguest notions.

A resume was supposed to boil down your life experience to one sheet of paper. My sheet was blank.

A resume was supposed to list your experiences. What experiences was I supposed to have, at my age, me, a young girl who had never worked a day in her life? With a student body of only five students, there were not any clubs or intramural sport teams I could boast of leading.

If my resume had been entirely honest, I am sure some of the entries would have been eye openers:

• First woman explorer in hyperspace

• Participated in failed escape attempt from your institution

• Discovered your true identity

• Escaped with my brain intact after your people tried to erase,my memory

• Eroded Grendel's desire to blot out my memory by batting eyelashes

• Object of lust and unlawful desire by many men, including Boreas, Grendel, and maybe even Colin

• Cooked my own breakfast, once. Burnt eggs.

So, in case you are wondering; no, my resume was not honest. It contained some tepid information about my grades and did not fill up even half a page. Looking at it, I wondered how anyone my age ever got a job. I certainly would hot let someone with no experience near any heavy machinery, mine, factory, or office. Small wonder half of England was on the dole.

And in case the context doesn't make it clear, I was writing it for Mulciber aka Lord Talbot, the man who owned the estate I lived on.

I wondered how a person who makes a mistake on a computer erases it. Erases the magnetic tape it is written on, I suppose. I have also heard certain computers correct one's spelling as one types. That sounds like utter magic to me; I would have to see it to believe it.

But I wished for such magic that Sunday afternoon as I sat typing. I was using carbon copy paper, and my fingers were all stained blue from the ink. Every misspelled word required me to throw the whole sheet out, and the carbon, as well. This was particularly annoying when the last word on the page was the misspelled one.

I also did not know how to close a resume. I put Sincerely Yours, Amelia Windrose at the bottom, as one would in a letter. I am sure that was wrong, but I did not know what was right, and neither did Mrs.

Flinders.

11.

Patience or no patience, there were some risks I could not avoid. I thought that the risk was now as low as it was going to get. Anyone watching me type endless copies of the same wretched resume over and over again no doubt fell asleep long ago, or hanged himself in despair.

I typed this note: There is one who has betrayed you. The name is in a bottle buried beneath the roots of an oak stump in the small courtyard between the N and E wings of the main Manor House.

I took out the carbon copy and the original. Since the inky carbon paper contained a slight imprint of the words, I tore the carbon paper into shreds.