I did the re-sorting on the floor. One of the lab tables was full of clippings about pogs that Flip was supposed to have taken to be copied and hadn’t, and the other one had all my jitterbug data on it. And neither one was big enough for the number of piles I needed, some of which overlapped: entire article devoted to hair-bobbing, reference within article devoted to flappers, pointed reference, casual reference, disapproving reference, humorous reference, shocked and horrified reference, illustration in advertisement, adoption by middle-aged women, adoption by children, adoption by the elderly, news items by date, news items by state, urban reference, rural reference, disparaging reference, reference indicating complete acceptance, first signs of waning of fad, fad declared over.

By 4:55 the floor of my whole lab was covered with piles and Flip still wasn’t back. Stepping carefully among the piles, I went over and looked at the box again. Biology was clear on the other side of the complex, but there was nothing for it. The box said PERISHABLE, and even though irresponsibility is the hottest trend of the nineties, it hasn’t worked its way through the whole society yet. I picked up the box and took it down to Dr. Turnbull.

It weighed a ton. By the time I’d maneuvered it down two flights and along four corridors, the reasons why irresponsibility had caught on had become very clear to me. At least I was getting to see a part of the building I ordinarily was never in. I wasn’t even exactly sure where Bio was except that it was down on the ground floor. But I must be heading in the right direction. There was moisture in the air and a faint sound of zoo. I followed the sound down yet another staircase and into a long corridor. Dr. Turnbull’s office was, of course, at the very end of it.