Chapter 27: Pizza and Answers

The re-test for History was relatively uneventful, compared to the earlier one. No beheadings, fires or floods and only a minor famine. (It made me hungry though).

To solve the famine, I went to the Library straight after the exam, hoping I could cash in another instance of my pizza allowance and maybe do some work toward finding out what the most useful study would be and losing the unpaid Novice status as soon as possible. (especially the ' unpaid' bit, Novice I can live with)

I found Unicorn precariously balancing on the top of a single and very tall ladder, a massive stack of old leatherbound volumes in one arm, one foot on the ladder, the other swinging around as some sort of counterweight. For safety reasons, I decided to keep quiet until she was safely back on Terra Firma, and not to look up again to minimise the risk of seeing any more of the granny-sized pink drawers with lace edges than is good for a growing up lad, pizza or no pizza.

Once she was back down, I started a conversation about the questionnaire, in order not to sound too greedy and go straight for the food.

'There were some questions that puzzled me, Unicorn. Like the JFK one. I mean, I get the pizza topping one, that is just practical and work related, but JFK? Is that a trick question?'

'Well, sort of... We don't know the truth either, but we would like to. Given enough time, someday someone might come in and tell us what really happened. Same thing with the secret organisations, we need to know your allegiance and may learn something about the competition in the process.'

'OK. Did you learn something new from my answers?'

'Just that you are smart enough to cover your ignorance in the Miriam Braverman question. Your first assignment will be to write a four page essay on her, so that we can talk about your path of de-Novice-ification afterwards. You guessed right that Glory and Paycheck are not mutually exclusive in this job. Both are hard to get though.'

'Right... With all the mystery, I guess there must be some kind of patron saint of Librarionship,... hood,... dom,... ism???'

'There's plenty of those. You might want to wait a bit before picking the one that suits you best, depending on which direction you wish to specialise... I mean, there's Saint Jerome who helped translate the New Testament (he probably got disowned in the Old one), Saint Catherine of Alexandria who was too smart for her own neck, Saint Jordi of Books (a.k.a. George. Yes, that George, got to do something after you run out of dragon), Saint Lawrence of Archivists or you could opt for the Egyptian goddess Seshat if you are not bound to Christianity. Anyway, you shouldn't try for sainthood yourself, unless you are prepared to die a horrible death, like most of the ones I just mentioned.'

'Thanks for the tip. I'll keep it in mind. All this Novicing makes me hungry though. How about you? Same as yesterday?'

'Yes, and some chewing tobacco, the whiskey-soaked variant. They'll know which one.'

I'll leave the education question for after the pizza then...

Caiman Raptor Elk

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