There was a pause of several seconds, and then a hundred or so people laughed. Sarah did not. Unlike the freshmen in the class, who thought Professor Embers was a cool guy, Sarah thought he was a bore and a turkey. He continued to speak, and she continued to balance.
This was the budget for this semester, and it was supposed to have been done last semester. But last semester the records had been gulped by a mysterious computer error, and now Sarah had to reconstruct them so that the government could resume debate. She had some help from me in this, though I don't know how much good it did. We had met early in the year, at a reception for faculty-in-residence, arid later had a lunch or two together and talked about American Megaversity. If nothing else, my suite was a quiet and pleasant enough place where she could spread her papers out and work uninterrupted when she needed to.
She could also work uninterrupted in her Freshman English class, because she was a senior English major with a 3.7 average and didn't need to pay much attention.
Her first inkling that something was wrong had been in midsummer, when the megaversity's computer scheduling system had scheduled her for Freshman English automatically, warning that she had failed to meet this requirement during her first year. "Look," she had said to the relevant official when she arrived in the fall, "I'm an English major. I know this stuff. Why are you putting me in Freshman English?"
The General Curriculum Advisor consulted little codes printed by the computer, and looked them up in a huge computer-printed book. "Ah," he said, "was one of your parents a foreign national?" "My stepmother is from Wales."
"That explains it. You see." The official had swung around toward her and assumed a frank, open body-language posture. "Statistical analysis shows that children of one or more foreign nationals are often gifted with Special Challenges." Sarah's spine arched back and she set her jaw. "You're saying I can't speak English because my stepmother was Welsh?" "Special Challenges are likely in your case. You were mistakenly exempted from Freshmen English because of your high test scores. This exemption option has now been retroactively waived for your convenience."
"I don't want it waived. It's not convenient."
"To ensure maintenance of high academic standards, the waiver is avolitional."
"Well, that's bullshit." This was not a very effective thing to say. Sarah wished that Hyacinth could come talk for her; Hyacinth would not be polite, Hyacinth would say completely outrageous things and they would scatter in terror. "There's no way I can accept that." Drawn to the noise like scavengers, two young clean-cut advisors looked in the door with open and understanding smiles. Everyone smiled except for Sarah. But she knew she was right this time-- she knew damn well what language was spoken in Wales these days. They could smile stupidly until blue in the face. When the advisor hinted that she was asking for special treatment because she was President, she gave him a look that snapped his composure for a second, a small but helpful triumph.
She had done it by the books, filing a petition requesting to be discharged from Freshman English. But her petition was rejected because of a computer error which made it appear that she had gotten 260 instead of 660 on her SATs. By the time an extra score report from the testing company proved that she was smart after all, it was too late to drop or add classes-- so, Freshman English it was.
The end of the class approached at last, and Professor Embers handed back this week's essays. The assignment was to select a magazine ad and write about how it made you feel.
"I've been epiphanied by the quality of your essays this week," said Professor Embers. "We hardly had to give out any C's this time around. I have them alphabetized by your first names up here in sixteen stacks, one for each section."