Free Hell Week by Rosemary Clement-Moore Page B

showered the night before, so I just had to find clean clothes and grab my homework and my laptop. When I woke up the screen with a tap on a key, I saw that I'd left a browser window open when I went to sleep. In it was the pop-up ad from the other night, the one with the strange, hypnotic pattern.

    Without moving the cursor, I hit Control-P to print the screen. The window closed--and the browser crashed--as soon as I moved the cursor, but this time, I'd captured a hard copy. A spark of recognition gave me an idea. Wherever else I had seen that pattern, its most recent appearance had been on the back of my eyelids. And that, if anything, rated inves- tigation.

    F F F

    Dad handed me my travel mug of coffee when I reached the bottom of the stairs. "This isn't going to be a pattern, is it?"

    "What?" I was still thinking about the pattern in my dream, which had somehow transferred into the waking world. Or vice versa. He was in no mood for a sidebar. "If this sorority thing is going to interfere with your grades . . ."

    Mom answered for me. "It won't." She was dressed for work, but she still looked green beneath her carefully ap- plied makeup. The doctor had assured her that as she was out of her first trimester, the puking would stop any day now. He'd been saying that for two months.

    "You won't let it get the best of you, will you, Magpie?" She kissed my cheek, her breath smelling of mint tooth- paste and ginger ale. "I'm so proud of you. And if you want to continue in a sorority . . ."

    "Really, Mom," I assured them both, "I'm not setting out to become a Stepford Greek. I have my reasons."

    This earned me two sighs--one of dismay, and one of re- lief. "Oh, Maggie," said my mother. "Can't you, just once, do things like a normal girl?"

    "Of course not, Laura." Dad grinned, his humor re- stored. "She's a Quinn."

    I headed for the door, mug in hand. "Sorry, Mom. We can't all choose a destiny in accounting."

    "You could choose a destiny outside of The Twilight Zone," I heard her grumble as I hurried on my way.

    F F F

    Since I have biology lab only on Tuesdays, I used the open space in my schedule to visit Dr. Smyth in the chem- istry department.

    The earth science building was bustling, and redolent of an experiment gone wrong. Or so I assumed. Chemistry could be stinky, even when it goes right.

    I tapped on the door to the professor's office, which was just off the lab. Because of the ventilation fans, the smell of burning tires was less pungent than in the hall. I loved the anachronism of the computers and modern equipment in the hundred-year-old space. It reminded me of A Wrinkle in Time, and how Dr. Murry had her electron microscope set up in the stillroom of their farmhouse.

    "Dr. Smyth?" She looked up from her work, a frown of displacement on her face as she reoriented herself. "I'm Maggie Quinn. You helped me out with a chemistry question last spring."

    "Oh yes!" Recognition swept away her confusion, and she waved me to a chair by her desk. "You were working on some kind of fantasy story the last time we talked. How did that turn out?"

    I perched on the seat and set my satchel beside me. "Better than I thought it would." In that I was still alive.

    "Why aren't you taking chemistry with me?" she chided.

    "All the sections were closed. I'm in biology instead."

    With an impatient wave, she dismissed the principles of our biological existence. "You should have called me. I would have opened one of the sections for you."

    "I still have another science credit to earn. I'll be sure and take it with you." I wouldn't dare do anything different. Dr. Smyth was a force of nature, with flaming red hair and a vibrant personality to match. "I have another question for you."

    "Excellent." She leaned her elbows on the desk. "What can I do for you?"

    I pulled out the printout of the browser window. "This seems familiar to me. Maybe some kind of crystal- line structure?" She took the picture and immediately identified