Marisha Pessl - Special Topics in Calamity Physics

Love, too, had something to do with it.

Unfortunately, little of it was my own.

The first week of December, during second period Study Hall, a freshman entered the library and approached the desk in the back where Mr. Fletcher sat working on a crossword.

“Headmaster Havermeyer needs to see you immediately,” the boy said. “It’s an emergency.”

Mr. Fletcher, visibly annoyed he’d been pried away from The X-word X-pert’s Final Face-off (Pullen, 2003), was led out of the library and up the hill toward Hanover.

“This is it!” shrieked Dee. “Fletcher’s wife, Linda, has finally attempted suicide because Frank would rather do a crossword than have sex. It’s her cry for help!”

“It is, ” cooed Dum.

A minute later, Floss Cameron-Crisp, Mario Gariazzo, Derek Pleats and a junior I didn’t know the name of (though from his alert expression and soggy mouth he looked like some sort of Pavlovian response) entered the library with a CD player, a microphone with amplifier and stand, a bouquet of red roses and a trumpet case. They proceeded to set up for a rehearsal of some kind, plugging in the CD player and microphone, relocating the tables in the very front to the side wall by the Hambone Bestseller Wish List. This included relocating Sibley “Little Nose” Hemmings.

“Maybe I don’t want to move,” Sibley said, wrinkling her perky, symmetrical nose, which, according to Dee and Dum, had been handcrafted for her face by an Atlanta plastic surgeon who’d fashioned a host of other high-quality facial features for some CNN anchors and an actress on Guiding Light . “Maybe you should move. Who are you to tell me? Hey, don’t touch that!”

Floss and Mario unceremoniously picked up Sibley’s desk scattered with her personal belongings — her suede purse, a copy of Pride and Prejudice (unread), two fashion magazines (read) — and carried it to the wall. Derek Pleats, a member of the Jelly Roll Jazz Band (with whom I also had AP Physics), was standing off to the side with his trumpet, playing ascending and descending scales. Floss started to roll back the cruddy mustard carpet and Mario crouched over the CD player, adjusting the sound levels.

“Excuse me,” said Dee, standing up, walking over to Floss, crossing her arms, “but what exactly do you think you’re doing? Is this an attempt at anarchy, to, like, gain control of the school?”

“Because we’ll tell you right now,” said Dum, striding over to Floss, crossing her arms next to Dee, “it’s not going to work. If you want to start a movement you’ll have to plan better because Hambone’s in her office and she’ll summon the authoritates in no time.”

“If you want to make a strong personal statement, I suggest you save it for Morning Announcements when the whole school is all in one place and can be held captive.”

“Yep. So you can make your demandations.”

“And the administration knows you’re all a force to be reckoned with.”

“So you can’t be ignored. ”

Floss and Mario acknowledged neither Dee’s nor Dum’s demandations as they secured the rolled-back rug with a few extra chairs. Derek Pleats was gently shining his trumpet with a soft purple rag and the Pavlovian response, tongue out, was absorbed with checking the microphone and amplifier: “Testing, testing, one, two, three.” Satisfied, he signaled to the others and all four of them huddled together, whispering, nodding excitedly (Derek Pleats doing fast flexing exercises with his fingers). Finally, Floss turned, picked up the bouquet and without saying a word, he handed it to me.

“Oh, my God,” said Dee.

I held the flowers dumbly in front of me as Floss spun on his heels and jogged away, disappearing around the corner in front of the library doors.

“Aren’t you going to open the card?” Dee demanded.

I ripped open the small, cream-colored envelope and pulled out a note. The words were written in a woman’s handwriting.

LET’S GROOVE.

“What’s it say?” asked Dum, leaning over me.

“It’s some kind of threat,” said Sibley.

By now everyone in second period Study Hall — Dee, Dum, Little Nose, the horse-faced Jason Pledge, Mickey “Head Rush” Gibson, Point Richardson — swarmed around my table. Huffing, Little Nose grabbed the card and reviewed it with a pitying look on her face, as if it were my Guilty verdict. She passed it to Head Rush, who smiled at me and passed it to Jason Pledge, who passed it to Dee and Dum, who huddled over the thing as if it were a piece of WWII intelligence encrypted by the German Enigma Cipher Machine.

“Too weird,” said Dee.

“ To tally—”

Suddenly, they were quiet. I looked up to see Zach Soderberg bent over me like a windswept rhododendron, his hair plummeting dangerously across his forehead. I felt as if I hadn’t seen him in years, probably because ever since he’d talked to me about A Girl, I’d gone out of my way to look zealously preoccupied in AP Physics. I’d also strong-armed Laura Elms into being my laboratory partner until the end of the year by offering to write up her lab reports as well as mine, never copying or even using an identical turn of phrase (in which case I’d be suspended for cheating), but faithfully adopting Laura’s restricted vocabulary, illogical mind-set and blubbery calligraphy when I wrote the report. Zach, no longer wanting to partner with his ex, Lonny, had to partner with my old partner Krista Jibsen, who never did her homework because she was saving for a breast reduction. Krista worked three jobs, one at Lucy’s Silk and Other Fine Fabrics, one at Bagel World and one in the Outdoors department at Sears, the minimum-waged drudgery of which she felt pertinent to the study of Energy and Matter. Thus we all knew when one of her coworkers was new, late, sick, stealing, let go, jerking off in the storeroom, also that one of her managers (if I remember correctly, some poor overseer at Sears) was in love with her and wanted to leave his wife.

Floss reached down and pressed the Play button on the CD player. Robotic sounds from a 1970s disco exploded out of the speakers. To my infinite horror, while watching me (as if on my face he could see his reflection, monitor his tempo, the height of his kicks), Zach began to take two steps forward, two steps back, pulsing his knees, the boys shadowing him.

“Let this groove. Get you to move. It’s alright. Alright,” Zach and the others sang in falsetto along with Earth, Wind & Fire. “Let this groove. Set in your shoes. So stand up, alright! Alright!”

They sang “Let’s Groove.” Floss and the boys shrugged, snapped and foxtrotted with such concentration, one could almost see the moves running through their brains like Stock Exchange ticker tape (kick left front, touch back left, kick left, step left, kick right front, knee right). “I’ll be there, after a while, if you want my looove. We can boogie on down! On down! Boogie on down! ” Derek on his trumpet was playing a rudimentary melody. Zach sang solo with the occasional side step and shoulder lunge. His voice was earnest yet awful. He spun in place. Dee squeaked like a crib toy.

A sizable crowd of sophomores and juniors gathered in front of the library doors, watching the Boy Band with their mouths open. Mr. Fletcher reappeared with Havermeyer, and Ms. Jessica Hambone, the librarian, who’d been married four times and resembled Joan Collins in her more recent years, had emerged from her office and was now standing by the Hambone Reserves Desk. Obviously, she’d intended to shut down the disturbance because shutting down disturbances, with the exception of fire drills and lunch, was the only reason Ms. Hambone ever emerged from her office, where she allegedly spent her day shopping www.QVC.com for Easter Limited-quantity Collectibles and Goddess Glamour Jewelry. But she wasn’t coming over to the scene with her arms in the air, her favorite words, “This is a library, people, not a gym,” darting out of her mouth like Neon Tetra, her metallic green eye shadow (complementing her Enchanted Twilight Lever-back earrings, her Galaxy Dreamworld bracelet) reacting against the overhead fluorescent lights to give her that explicit Iguana Look for which she was famous. No, Ms. Hambone was speechless, hand pressed against her chest, her wide mouth, deeply lip-lined like the chalk outline of a body at a crime scene, curled into a soft, wisteria-fairy-pin of a smile.