Titans of Chaos

"up") to clear the surface of the soil, and pushed it redward into three-space.

It was rubbish. Victor and Quentin actually poked with some interest through the find, coming upwith a rusted tin box, cigarette butts, a slender notebook. The interior papers had long ago turnedto mulch, but the waxy leather cover was still intact. The notebook cover read mangare-VAN EXPEDITION, BISHOP MUSEUM, OCTOBER 1934. Also in the trove was dirt-cakedremains of a stemwinder pocket watch. The round leaf of the timepiece was intact. Its inner facehad been etched with the legend uss annapolis mcmvi.

"Well!" said Vanity. "They're not coming back anytime soon. We have the place to ourselves!"

Vanity outlined her three-step program: Step one, we were all to help build a serviceablecampsite; step two, we were all to experiment with our newfound powers and abilities, makingnightly reports on progress; step three, we had to be ready in three weeks for what Vanity called afinal exam. When pressed, she gave no hint what she meant by a final exam, but she smiled apretty smile.

"First step of step one!" she announced. "Amelia will help us all live like civilized boys and girls."

"Help how?" I asked suspiciously.

"Guess who I've picked to dig the latrine?"

Vanity divided all our chores into campwork and homework. Yes, we still had homework. Whosays you get to leave it behind when you graduate?

My basic camp chore for the next two weeks, aside from dishwashing, was lumberjack.

(Lumberjackess? Lumber-jane?) Anyway, was chopping down trees. So, yes, I got the axe. Imean, I got to use the axe. I did it for maybe one, two hours a day in the mornings before it gotreally hot. Vanity used the excuse that I was the only one who could distort gravity to makecertain the tree toppled in a safe direction. I thought it was a really unfair reason to give me thechore. I mean, it made perfect sense, so, as far as I was concerned, it was really unfair.

What did we need wood for? Practically everything. Firewood for heat and light, to save ourlimited supply of butane. A lean-to to act as a windbreak. A wooden foundation to pitch our twotents on, to keep us above the soggy, rocky, guano-stained soil. An A-frame to hold our tarp. Ascreen for the latrine, and guess who ended up doing most of the digging?

The excuse was that I could distort gravity to make the soil light, and see through the ground toavoid rocks and roots. So unfair.