Puzzling prank...

Wednesday morning, Gayle woke up with a sudden cramp, a spasm in the small of his back. It got him up and moving around quickly, with a heartfelt, “Yipe!” and a desire to curse which he repressed. 

He was down in his own room, in the basement and the girls couldn’t hear him, but he had decided not to curse at all for fear of doing it in front of the girls or Miz Frankie and maybe losing his accommodation. He really didn’t want to drop out of college for lack of a place to stay, causing him to lose his student deferment and maybe end up wearing a green uniform doing a tedious job for two years or more.

With no war at the moment, (the Korean Conflict had been completed), the Armed Services only needed warm bodies for garrison duty, here there and everywhere. They even had a base somewhere called Ultima Thule up above the Arctic Circle. He shivered and winced, that would be somewhere cold enough to make your bones ache, he thought, as a twinge in his back reminded him of why he woke up before his alarm.

Still walking back and forth and gently twisting at the waist to work out the cramp, he reflected that the thing to do was to take some snap courses. He knew he wasn’t the greatest of students. He’d barely passed high school algebra and from what he had scored on his entrance exams, would probably have to retake it at the college level.

He did like to read and frequently devoured any sort of book that came within reach. In fact, he’d been reading science fiction later into the night than he probably should have. But he hated writing papers on the sort of books that got assigned in English classes, so… his one strength did not really translate into good grades. He sighed. 

At least, his back had stopped hurting, even though he felt as if he were walking funny from avoiding the pain. Well, it would go back to normal when he had enough exercise.

He’d woken up lying on his stomach, not under the covers. “Must have been a cold draft,” he mused. The underground room was surprisingly cool in early September, and he could feel a crossdraft moving from one air shaft to the other, directly across the bed. He’d have to make sure to stay covered in case it happened again.

Checking the clock, Gayle saw that he had most of a half-hour before breakfast. Time enough, he reasoned to check over the college catalog again. 

Late registration would start at 9:30 a.m. So he had time if he didn’t take too much of it dithering. He took out the newest catalog that showed only the courses that had not already been filled in pre-registration, as of Friday last week. He hadn’t been able to do this part ahead of time because of not being able to show the college he had a place to live.

He’d need five or six courses to be pulling a full load, and the school had some requirements on which ones he had to take as a freshman with an undeclared major. He hoped he’d still be able to put together a course schedule that would satisfy the school and match his preferences.

“One from Column A and one from Column B,” he muttered looking through the revised catalog for that magic combination of easy courses that he could qualify for, none of which conflicted with each other or with his desire not to have to go to classes before nine or after four.

To meet freshman requirements, he would need one lower-division course from each of five departments, Language Arts, Science and Technology, History and Social Studies, Mathematics and Astronomy, and Physical Education. Curious, why the heck was Astronomy with Math instead of Science?

He did have another skill: he was a whiz at puzzles (at least, ones that didn’t involve math) and enjoyed working them out. Putting together a schedule was a lot like doing a puzzle, wasn’t it? Sure, it was. If he’d thought of it that way, he’d probably have already got it done before the morning of the day when he needed it completed.

He combed through the listings quickly. Astronomy 103, Survey of the Heavens, that would count as a math class, but it probably had little or no calculation though it still might have funny Greek letters. 

A History of Suffrage in America…huh? Like The Grapes of Wrath? A possible, so he checked it for later consideration.

English 107 was An Introduction to the Romantic Poets. Another possible: poems were short and if you had to write something about one, who could possibly mark you down, no matter what you said?

Kitchen Chemistry? Was this a real class? What the heck. I remember building a baking soda volcano in the kitchen. Might be fun.

Why not a CoEd P.E. Class? They existed, and the idea of seeing some of his roommates maybe running around in gym shorts appealed to him. Hmm.

He juggled class schedules around, making sure to consult his map of the campus so as not to have any impossible dashes to be on time for a class on the other side of campus.

By the time he needed to go up to the dining room for breakfast, he had a tentative schedule worked out, including one elective, Interior Decorating fit in his program along with co-ed volleyball. He was all set.

It wasn’t until he was dressed and putting on his socks to go upstairs that he discovered the pink nail polish on all his toes. How in the world?

He suspected he’d been pranked by the girls but how had they managed to paint his toenails in the night without waking him up? How had they even gotten downstairs, considering the creakiness of the steps?

With socks hiding the evidence, he wondered if he should confront the girls, accusing them of creeping into his room to play a trick on him. Somehow, he couldn’t see how that would work out. Would they deny it? Accuse him of painting his own nails? How far would they go with the joke?

It was kind of funny, but how the heck had they done it? Still a little puzzled, he headed upstairs to breakfast. He’d have to buy or borrow some polish remover, too.

*

Upstairs he emerged into a raucous morning chaos of girls running this way and that, in and out of the dining hall, up and down the main stairs, some of them still in nightgowns or pajamas, and many of them showing a surprising amount of skin.

“There he is,” squealed Mallory, just coming down the stairs. Bunny, as she was more frequently known, grabbed his arm and tugged him toward the dining room. “Come have breakfast with us!” The girl’s enthusiasm and good cheer were contagious, and Gayle found himself laughing and letting himself be towed like parade float through the tumult of eleven girls all trying to talk at once.

Bunny wore a paisley housecoat thrown over a set of pink babydoll pajamas, the look completed with a pair of fuzzy slippers and her voluminous blond hair tied back with an aqua ribbon. The get-up bemused Gayle, but he followed her through the crowd willingly.

Miz Frankie and two of the girls were helping the table with platters of sausages, scrambled eggs, potatoes fried with onions and peppers, stewed prunes, sliced apples and decanters of milk, juice and coffee. Two toasters at each end of the table were kept busy turning bread into suitable conveyances for butter and marmalade.

Stella, Ash and Charlie were already seated, and eating and they laughed when Bunny towed him into a seat beside them. 

“How’d you sleep?” Charlie asked. She had even less on than her ex-roommate, being dressed in a lavender shortie nightgown that was just transparent enough to reveal that she had no bra on underneath “Bunny and I shared that room last semester. The place has weird drafts, don’t it?”

Gayle could barely hear her, though she sat right next to him. “You did?” He asked. Then agreed, “Yeah, it does. I woke up with a cramp.” He helped himself to the food, it all looked good and there sure was plenty of it. Resolutely, he kept himself from ogling his roomies’ charms and concentrated on breakfast.

“You know, you don’t need to get fully dressed every morning,” Ash observed, “most of us don’t.”

“I noticed,” he commented, pulling some toast from the machine to pass down to Bunny. “It’s quite a view.”

“What?” said Stella, the surrounding noise level choosing that moment to peak.

“I said, ‘it’s quite a view,’” Gayle repeated, louder.

“Well,” said Stella, “we all love you too.”

They all laughed, and Bunny accused Stella of crowding her act. “I’m the ditzy one, remember?” More laughs.

“But, yeah,” said Ash. “Unless you have a class right after breakfast, you can traipse around in your pajamas or gym clothes. You live here now.”

Bunny put in, “You signed the Covenant, you’re just like one of the sisters, you know.”

Gayle glanced down at himself. “Well, not just like one of you girls, huh? I’d look awfully silly wearing what Bunny or Charlie is wearing.”

Everyone laughed, and the girls all traded grins.

* * *

Later, after almost everyone had gone out for the day, Miz Frankie commented to Hillary, the redheaded senior who was the current president of the sorority chapter, “His walk this morning? So cute!”

Hillary grinned. “I don’t think he’s aware of that but I’m sure he must have noticed the toenails. And soon he’ll find out what classes he’ll be attending.”