Empress of the World Read Online Free PDF Page A

for us all to walk.
    Ms. Fraser has asked us to bring back any signs of human habitation that we find—a sneaky way of getting us to pick up garbage.
    “Carl says this is a waste of time and he doesn’t know why they make us do it. He says it makes sense for botanists and people like that, but not for computer scientists.” Katrina manages to make “botanist” sound like a swear word.
    “Everybody should get outside more. John Cage said that the natural world was more inspiring than any other composer,” says Kevin. Battle smiles at him.
    All I know about John Cage is that he wrote some piece called 4’ 33” , which is four minutes and thirty-three seconds’ worth of silence. We’re always trying to get our conductor to let us do it for one of our concerts.
    We’ve joined up with the rest of the group now, at the foot of the hill. The RA in charge is saying something about being careful because the trail isn’t always smooth, and how it should take a couple of hours each way.
    I’m standing between Isaac and Battle. I edge a little closer to Battle and ask, “So what do you think of hiking?”
    “I love it,” she says, “but not in a crowd like this.”
    “I wish we could just do our own little hike,” I say. I see the two of us walking quietly together in cool green shade, breathing in the scent of pine.
    “Do you want to?”
    “Now?”
    “No, silly, we can’t now. But some other time, do you want to?”
    “Yes,” I say. This is the first thing so far that Battle and I like and Katrina doesn’t.
    It’s steep. I can feel my calf muscles working with every step. Eventually, our group splits up in a predictable way: Kevin far ahead, Katrina far behind, Isaac slightly ahead of her, and Battle and I almost in step in the middle.
    I feel guilty about not being back with Katrina, but it’s nice to walk with Battle. There are a lot of other people around, too, of course—the wood-chip-covered trail is wide enough across for six or seven people at a time—but no one else near us that I know. There are several RAs interspersed at various points, but they have stopped pointing out interesting ecological details as the difficulty of the climb has increased.
    Battle doesn’t get flushed, I notice enviously. I see just a few beads of sweat near her temples, near where her hair has started escaping from its ponytail. My own face is, I am sure, the exact color of a beet.
    The trail dips down suddenly. I step too hard, my right foot slips, and the next thing I know, I am on the ground with pain shooting from my ankle.
    Battle is kneeling next to me in an instant. “Are you okay?” she asks.
    An RA appears, anxious and annoyed. “-Don’t try to walk!” he says angrily, as though I showed any signs of doing so. Meanwhile, Battle has started very carefully to unlace my shoe. My ankle is throbbing as though there’s a second heart beating in it.
    “Stop that,” says Isaac, who has also showed up to peer at me. Suddenly I feel like everybody’s science project. “If you take her shoe off, her foot will swell up too big to fit into it and she’ll have a harder time getting back. I’m Red Cross certified in First Aid.”
    “You are?” the RA asks, as though Isaac has just said that he is God. “Can you get her back to the nurse’s office? If I leave, we won’t have enough adults . . .oh, shit, and I have to file an incident log. . . .” His voice trails off.
    “Sure,” says Isaac. “No problem. Where’s your first aid kit?”
    The RA blinks.
    “Where there would be a splint—” Isaac is getting more insistent, “—to immobilize her ankle, so it won’t get worse?”
    As I look at the RA’s face right now, I fully understand the expression “deer in the headlights.” It would be hilarious if my ankle didn’t hurt so much.
    “You could use a couple of branches,” Battle says quietly. “Here.”
    “And attach them with . . .”
    “. . .my jacket?”
    Battle and Isaac start fussing