Titans of Chaos

She crinkled her little freckled nose. "Is that what this is about? You think I am upstaging Victor?

Listen, Amelia. The boys were all disorganized after our first campsite floated away. They neededsomething reassuring, domestic, orderly. I had to bring order to the chaos. I got things going, hadfirewood brought, found a clean pan. I notice when people are paying attention, what they arelooking at. I notice details. I knew which foods each boy liked because I remembered what he hadpicked out in the stops during our supply run. Victor's a better cook, but he didn't think of feedingthe depressed and disorganized troops.

"Once I did that, I had to organize the schedule for training. I had to decide," she said gravely.

"There was no one to ask. On the one hand, there is a chance that any use of our powers can bedetected by means we can only guess. Oracular owls or orbital spy-rays or periscopes fromdimensions even you don't have a number for. On the other hand, we have to get stronger. Wehave to get smarter. We have to figure out what it is we can do that makes them so afraid of us.

That means everyone works on schedule, including tree chopping to break up the monotony ofexperiments. Tell me: Did you enjoy getting back to them, after all that mindless work? Yes? Sothat's how I got to be leader. That is what leaders do.

"Speaking of what leaders do, I have good news and bad news. Bad news: I still have to assignyou some sort of punishment detail, to keep order in the ranks. The good news is that we canthrow you a birthday party after."

"What? No one knows when my birthday is."

"No one knows when baby Jesus was born, but there is a date all picked out for Christmas, isn'tthere? As leader, I can assign a date. Your birthday is the day after next. Then, the next bit ofgood news: the final exam!"

"Leader, what is going to be on the final? I mean, the reason why I got in trouble flying off... Well,you should tell us what we should be preparing for, right?"

"For the final, we are going to be sneaking back into civilization. Colin needs a piano orsomething. He should be practicing music. Quentin needs all sorts of supplies, everything fromtarot cards to real clay. We need to replace missing mess gear."

"That doesn't seem that hard." I remember a distinct feeling of disappointment.