Pamela Dean Read Online Free PDF Page B

interested in the philosophical problems of classical science," said Janet. "I can sit in the front."
    "All right. What about the Greek course? You can always take English 10 this winter or spring."
    "But I want it from Evans," said Janet, "and he only teaches it in the fall."
    "Are you sure you want it from Evans? He's reduced more students to tears than any three other professors put together."
    "But he's good," said Janet, half as a question.
    "Oh, he's magnificent, if you can stomach him. Don't sit in the front of his class, that's all. You can wait until next fall, surely, with all these extra credits?"
    "But I'd be a year behind in my major, if I decided I didn't want to switch to Classics," said Janet. She thought it over. Something about Melinda Wolfe put her back up; she hoped it wasn't just that Wolfe made her feel grubby. She asked, "When's beginning Greek offered?"
    "Winter term."
    "Well, that might work. Because I want English 11 from Evans, too, and he only does that in the spring."
    "I really hate to see all you kids limiting your choices so soon," said Melinda Wolfe.

    Janet discovered in herself a desire not to disappoint her advisor. She wanted to seem intelligent, not stubborn. She took a deep breath and said, "But if I can start an English major my sophomore year, why can't I start a Classics one then, if I decide I don't want the English?"
    "True, O King," said her advisor, with perfect mildness. "All right. Let me sign that. But if any of those classes are closed before your number comes up, remember Greek Literature in Translation."
    "Okay," said Janet. "Thanks."
    Melinda Wolfe wrote her name with economy, no flourish; and looked up at Janet. "If you read science fiction," she said, "you'll like Herodotus."
    Now how did she know what Janet read? "I'll bear it in mind," Janet said, collected her signed schedule, and got herself out of there.
    It had stopped raining. It seemed very dark for eleven in the morning. The wind was breaking the clouds up, and the whole sky was taking on the luminous grayish-yellow that always gave Janet a headache. The ivy rasped against the corrugated iron of the temporary buildings. There was no other sound.
    Janet was puzzling over Melinda Wolfe rather than looking where she was going, and found herself blinking at a dead end. A faded handwritten sign half grown over with ivy said, "Greek 2 will meet in Library 406 from now on."
    Janet sighed and turned to retrace her steps. It was getting darker, but the air was still now. She stood looking through a dusty window into a room piled with boxes, trying to orient herself. Around the next corner, gravel crunched.
    Janet stooped for a rock, shoved her hand into her pocket, and backed herself up against the ivy. What are you doing? she asked herself. It's only another lost person.
    The gravel crunched again and the other lost person came around the corner. She was tall, taller than Tina. She wore a long red cape so heavy that it hardly moved as she walked, and red boots. She had red and black hair, the red like her cloak and the black like coal. On her broad forehead and high-boned face was no expression at all.
    She walked past Janet in a waft of some bitter smell like the ivy's only more complex.
    Janet opened her mouth as the woman walked right at the faded sign, and left it open.
    The red cloak, the long mass of streaked hair, mingled with the ivy and, rustling, disappeared.
    Janet threw her rock at the sign. It bent the fragile paper back and disappeared.
    Fine, thought Janet. The ivy hides a doorway. She went the other way, quickly.
    Janet came around Masters Hall again and looked across the wide green space, set randomly with young oak trees, that separated Masters from the chapel. Between the green grass and the pale glowing sky, the chapel's gray stone looked white. The deep red of the oak leaves was as rich as blood. The day wasn't dark at all. It was just those narrow walkways full of the bitter smell of the ivy that