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After the sirens had faded and Professor Ng had been gently led away, Marilyn Salvaggio, Dean of Admissions, turned her back on the shattered windows on the second floor of the technology building. She coughed, once. Students scrambled across the quad to huddle against the library on the opposite side of the street, leaving one freshman abandoned in the center of the grass. Marilyn pressed her lips together to repress a sigh. She pointed at the singed grass in front of her.
Calvin - also known as Spiff by most of the student body for reasons that had never been made clear to her - brushed soot off his striped shirt and out of his spiky blond hair, then shuffled through the crackly grass to stand just out of arm's reach. Marilyn folded her arms. "Do I even dare to ask?" she said.
Calvin knotted his brows and peered at a black blotch that had scorched through the wall of the building. "He was right," he said. "You'd think by now I'd listen. Never turn the dial that far. It always leads to problems. Sometimes penguins." He blinked and looked to Marilyn, his mouth stretching in a grin that showed enough teeth to make her take a step back. "But don't worry," Calvin said. "I'll have it next time."
He bounded away before she could speak. She watched him hop onto a red skateboard and shoot across the street to grind along the rail in front of the library, students diving out of his path. Rubbing between her eyes in bewildered frustration, she glanced at the incident report one of the firefighters had shoved at her earlier. "Trans--" she said slowly before lifting the paper to give it a closer, if more confused, stare. "Transmog-- What in the hell does that mean?"
"And the tuna! No, Doc, you don't understand. It's the tuna. The fucking room - the entire fucking floor! The whole goddamn dorm stinks like tuna! I've started hanging out in the dissection lab with the anatomy students so I can get away from the smell! I haven't been able to work in over a week because my laptop smells like fish! And don't ask me about the cafeteria!"
Marilyn stopped in the hallway and gave a wary look to Dr. Robert Miller's closed office door. She listened to the rant coming from inside the office until she heard a name shouted. Her shoulders slumped. Calvin. Of course. Shaking her head, she stepped away from the door in time to avoid the young man who stumbled out. That poor kid, she thought. His green eyes were glassy and he was paler than a senior with an overdue thesis. He stared blearily at her and spat one word. "Tuna."
She watched him stagger away, then poked her head into the office. "Problem?"
A grunt was the only response, muffled somewhat by Bob's face smushed against his desk blotter. Marilyn felt her lips twitch in a morbid grin. "We could always find him a single room, I suppose," she said.
Bob's shoulders shook as he gave a harsh, rasping laugh. "University rules," he muttered into his desk. "All first year students must live in shared student housing. Forms friendships and builds character and creates a psych convention's worth of neuroses. Plus the benefit of discovering your very own lifelong nemesis."
"Summer break's just six months away," she said. "He'll go home then."
Bob made a sound that she could have sworn was a sob. He lifted his head and Marilyn took an unconscious step away from the despair in his eyes. "My independent study course. When I take students to India. The tiger thing."
She thought she hid her flinch but Bob nodded, his face twisted in a rictus. "He's already signed up."
"Your transcript looks fine. I see no reason why you should have any difficulties transferring to our school next year. All of your finished classes match up to what we offer and you're already tested out of several prereq courses." Marilyn stood and leaned across her desk to shake hands with the young woman sitting in one of the uncomfortable visitor's chairs. "Welcome to our university, Su-"
Two rattling booms shook the building, followed by the tinkle of glass, terrified shrieks of students and professors alike, and the overwhelming scent of formaldehyde. Marilyn snapped one hand over her nose, staring down at the carpet as if she could peer through the floor into the anatomy labs three floors below her office.
A plume of smoke rose outside her window. "Oh god," she muttered, temporarily forgetting the prospective student in front of her. "Don't tell me. Don't tell me."
She flung her window open in time to see a blond student scampering across the quad, a stuffed tiger clinging to his backpack. "I'll get it!" he shouted over his shoulder. He tied a mask across his eyes and hitched the stuffed tiger up to ride on the top of his head. "C'mon, Hobbes! New rule, last to find all eleven fingers gets bug butter for lunch!"
Marilyn rested her forehead against the window frame and closed her eyes, slowly counting to twenty. She heard the young woman move up beside her. "I do apologize," she said without opening her eyes. "We have some rather ... that is. One or two of the students may be a little ... insa-unusual. Um, unconventional--"
"That was Calvin."
Marilyn blinked and glanced sideways at the student. "You're acquainted, Miss Derkins?"
The young woman sighed and began to gather up her paperwork. She tapped the stacks even and smoothed them out before placing them in folders and putting the folders into her backpack. "Unfortunately. Tell me something. Does the cafeteria sell tuna?"
Before she could stop herself, Marilyn shuddered. "Not anymore. There was a--" She gestured weakly, looking for the right word.
Miss Derkins nodded once. "No need to explain. I'm familiar with his work." She slung her backpack over her shoulder and gave a tight grin. "I thought I'd never see him again. On the one hand, that does make me want to stay at my current school." She paused at the door, looking back at the smoke still rising past the window. "On the other hand, Mr. Bun does miss his tea parties."
She trotted away, leaving Marilyn to gaze blindly at the quad as the sirens rose in the distance. In the office across the hall, Professor Ng began to sob.