“Well,” said Heller, “it’s sort of up in the air. It’s my grades: D average and I’m asking to be accepted as a senior. It’s possible I won’t make it.”
Had Vantagio gone white? Hard to tell as he was shadowed by a lobby palm. “What did they say?”
“It’s ‘under advisement.’ I am to go back at nine in the morning.”
“Sangue di Cristo! You wait until eight o’clock at night to tell me this!” Vantagio rushed off. He slammed the door of his office. Oh, he was angry.
Yes, I felt I could make, possibly, use of this jealousy for Heller.
But I made a more important observation about nine, New York time. Heller disengaged himself from some African diplomat he was talking to, got in the elevator and went to his suite. I could see that, down the hall, his door was wide open!
And down close to the floor, as though she were lying on it, a beautiful brunette girl was extending her hand out into the hall. In a musical voice she called, “Come along, pretty boy. We’re waiting!”
A torrent of giggles came out of the room.
The interference went on. But I had made my observation. Heller never locked his door! Those women simply walked in whenever they chose!
A wide-open invitation to rob the place!
I myself had a very happy afternoon nap, contemplating it.
I must have overslept but there was ample excuse for it. I had not dared sleep for days. But things were running my way now. When I awoke, Heller was already disembarking from the subway at 116th Street. I watched tolerantly. His fate would soon be sealed.
He went directly to the temporary reservation area. There were quite a few students about, milling, finishing off their signups. I realized that it wasn’t registration week, really. It had been registration day, per se, yesterday, judging from the crowd sizes.
I sat back to enjoy Heller getting his comeuppance. No way would this Miss Simmons let him into this school. Not with those grades. Heller’s plans would be thrown into a cocked hat!
And there she was. She had just finished her last student. She ignored her short waiting line. She had a smile on her face but it was the kind you see on the female spider just before she has a meal of a male.
“Well, if it isn’t the young Einstein,” said Miss Simmons. “Sit down.”
Heller sat down and Miss Simmons scrambled through her papers and then sat back with that horrible smile. “It appears,” she said, “that they don’t care who blows up the world these days.”
“You called me ‘Wister’ yesterday.”
“Well, times have changed, haven’t they. Who do you know? God?”
“Has my enrollment received advisement?” asked Heller.
“That it has, young Einstein. Now, ordinarily we do not permit a transfer from another school into the senior class.”
“I could make up—”
“Hush, hush. But in your case, it seems this is to be allowed. And into our competitive School of Engineering and Applied Science, too.”
“I am very grate—”
“Oh, hush, young Einstein. You have not heard it all. Ordinarily we require a fresh American College Test that must average 28% or above. But you, young Einstein, seem to have had that waived.”
“Well that’s goo—”
“Oh, there’s more,” said Miss Simmons. “It has always been mandatory that a student entering engineering school receive a Scholastic Aptitude Test and that the grade for verbal and written be above 700. But you are not being required to do any SAT at all.”
“That’s truly marv—”
“And more, young Einstein. Our requirement for a B average for such enrollments has been waived. Now, isn’t that nice?”
“Indeed,” said Heller. “It is very ni—”
“It is far too nice, young Einstein. I have direct orders here to admit you. As a senior. In the School of Engineering and Applied Science. As a candidate for a Bachelor in Nuclear Science and Engineering, graduating next May. And the order is signed by the president of the university himself.”
“Really, I’m overwhel—”
“You’ll be overwhelmed shortly,” said Miss Simmons and her smile vanished. “Either somebody has gone stark raving loony or the reduction of government subsidies and the lack of a post-war boom makes them slaver for your twenty-five hundred dollars and they have gone stark raving loony! You and they are NOT going to get away with it. I will not have my name on the form registering you and turning upon the world a nuclear scientist who is a complete imbecile. Do I make myself clear, young Einstein?”
“I’m very sorry if—”
“Oh, don’t waste energy on getting upset at this point,” said Miss Simmons. “You are going to be upset enough later to need every calorie! Oh, I have no choice but to enroll you, young Mr. God Junior. But there are ways of enrolling and ways of enrolling. Now, shall we begin?”
“I really—”
“Now, to start with,” said Miss Simmons, “you do not have all the requisite credits in former schooling for this degree. There are four subjects here which are omitted and I am signing you up to take them IN ADDITION to the heavy engineering subjects you will be required to take for the semester.”
“I am sure I—”
“Oh, don’t thank me yet! There’s more! Now, I very much doubt that with those D grades, you were firmly founded in the subjects in which you received them. So I am making your acceptance conditional upon special tutoring to bring those subjects up to the mark along with your regular class work.”
“I think I—”
“I know you are grateful,” said Miss Simmons. “So I will add another favor. Your Saint Lee’s was a military school. And I adjudicate that your military science and study credits given there are not valid unless you continue on with and complete your entire ROTC — Reserve Officers’ Training Corps — schedule in this, your senior year. You can really get a bellyful of how nasty war is! And the Army can be persuaded it is unpatriotic not to complete them. I intend to write them a little note. That means three additional class periods and one drill period a week. All on top of the extra subjects and tutoring. Now, isn’t that nice, God Junior?”
Heller was just looking at her by now. Stunned, no doubt.
She had turned to her accordion-folded computer printouts of class timings and assignments already made. “But here is where you are really going to thank me, God Himself. When I received this order at breakfast, I worked it all out. There is no way to assign all these hours in such a way that the classes are consecutive. Several of them occur at the same exact hours. You have to be in two, and in one case three places at the same time.
And that is the way you have been assigned. You will be absent, one class or another, any way you want to look at it. The professors will rant. You will find yourself in front of deans. And it is they, not I, who will tell you that you cannot graduate and get your diploma next May. If they come back on me, I will say you just demanded it all, and you did, didn’t you, Jehovah?”
Miss Simmons sat back and tapped a pencil against her teeth. Then after a bit she said, “Oh, I don’t blame you for being over-awed in appreciation. You see, Master of All He Surveys and Creator Himself, I do not like INFLUENCE. Also, I am a member of the Anti-Nuclear Protest Marchers, its secretary in fact. And though the organization may be old and it may be suppressed and it may be that the New York Tactical Police Force is just waiting to bash in our heads again, the thought of letting a nuclear scientist as unqualified as you loose upon the world turns my blood to leukemia. Do we understand each other, Wister?”
“Really, Miss Simmons—”