It’s been snowing since breakfast. By ten in the evening the campus is under at least eight inches of perfect moist December packing-snow. Dwayne comes into the room, throws his books on the bed, and says, “Big snowball fight tonight, boys. Comin’ out?”
Jake: “I’m playing poker.”
Dwayne: “Hm. You ahead or behind?”
Jake shifts in the chair. “I just need two good cards.” He types with his thumbs. “Crap.”
“Come on then, for fuck sake. Snowball-throwing girls.”
Jake throws the phone down (a first) and starts searching for some outdoor clothes.
F5 are looking for a fight. They move from point to point on the campus as legions of snowball-bearing undergraduates jockey for field position around them. In every case they’re outnumbered. Campbell pushes them across Main Street. Windsor rousts them out of the swan pond. They end up on the football field. The driveway behind Trueman is lined with Bigelownians. At the north end the residents of Hunton spill out of their residence. Edwards and Thornton hold the lower field. They’re surrounded by about six hundred enemies.
Emily M.: “Shit Creek, girls.”
Ire-Ene points toward Trueman: “Look!”
A figure pushes through the army of Bigelow, steps down the hill, and approaches.
Nellz Bellz: “Wandering scholar-warrior!”
Wandering scholar-warrior: “So, we meet again, and on the field of conflict, as foreshadowed.”
Emily M.: “What are the chances?”
“I notice you’re surrounded.”
“You think?”
“By, what, 120 to 1?”
“Roughly!”
“Hm.”
The kid bends down, packs a snowball, sizes up the army milling outside Hunton, and lets fly. The projectile arcs the length of the football field and sends the opponents crowded on the far slope flying like bowling pins.
Henrietta and Lou’Eaze look at each other, mouths open.
“Shaolin Iron Curveball!”
The kid points right. “Who are those people?”
Lou’Eaze: “Bigelow.”
“Recruit them.”
Ire-Ene: “Bigelow! Are you with us?”
Bigelow cheers.
“And who are those ones down there?”
Nellz Bellz: “Edwards and Thornton.”
“We could use them too.”
“Lower field! Are you with us or what?”
“We’re upperclassmen, but okay!”
“Against Hunton!”
“Raaaaaahhhhh!!!!”
F5 and their two flanks attack Hunton and kick their ass.
Emily M.: “By the way. What’s your name?”
“Da Xi Shuai.”
“That means Fighting Cricket.”
“Yes.”
“Cool.”
Meanwhile, on the Harper front, two advance guards are skirmishing. Dwayne and Agnes wind up circling one another.
Dwayne: “Surrender!”
Agnes: “Submit!”
Dwayne: “Uh-uh!”
Agnes: “No way!”
They plaster one another.
Meanwhile Jake finds himself in the walkway between the library and the psychology building. The stone pillars are the perfect place for an ambush, and very reminiscent of the lobby fight scene in The Matrix if you think about it. He has a beautiful little chestnut of a snowball poised over one shoulder. He steps in among the pillars.
Jake: “Come out. I know you’re in here.”
A small freshette with big glasses steps into the open.
Jake (laughing): “Oh-ho-ho!”
She gives him the finger.
He fires. Slow motion: she steps sideways and leans back, the snowball travelling past her collarbone by about an inch. Regular speed: she laughs, shrugs off her parka, takes her Mt A scarf in two hands and assumes the Unfurl Slogan On Roof of Moving Bus position.
Jake: “Shit. Unfurl Slogan on Roof of Moving Bus.”
She bounds off a pair of pillars, loops the scarf around his head, braces her feet against his back, rides him to the ground, and in the next eight or nine seconds uses him as a gym mat for a series of moves including a double back flap, a half Nelson and a pair of knuckles to the sole of the foot.
Jake: “Uncle. Auntie.”
She steps away, pushes her glasses up her nose, and grins.
Later, back at the room, Dwayne is pressing a bag of ice to his eye when Jake returns.
Dwayne: “So. J’you meet anyone?”
Jake: “Yes.” He lowers himself gingerly onto his bed, groaning. “I met a girl.”
Dwayne: “Man, you’re a state. You should try tai chi or yoga or something. She took it right out of you.”
“I think this finger still works.”
“Tut tut.”
Jacinthe enters carrying a load of books. “Did I miss something? The campus is covered in mittens and tuques.”
Dwayne: “Jake met a girl.”
Jacinthe: “Huh.”
Agnes drifts by the door, a bag of ice pressed to her lip.
“I had a charming time tonight, Dwayne.”
“Always happy to show a lady a good time.”
Jacinthe: “I study too hard.”
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