Heinlein, Robert A - SS - Bulletin Board.pdf

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The Bulletin Board
Robert A. Heinlein
Our campus is not a giant, factory-size job with a particle accelerator and a two-hundred-man football
squad, but it’s chummy. The chummiest - thing -about it is the bulletin board in Old Main. You may find a
stray glove fastened up with a thumbtack, or you can pick up a baby-sitting job if a married veteran
doesn’t beat you tO it. Or you can buy a car cheap if you tow it from where it gave up. There are items
like: “Will the person who removed a windbreaker from the Library please return same and receive a
punch in the nose?”
But the main interest is the next four sections, “ ATo-G,” “H-To-L,” “M-To-T,” and “U-’ ro-Z,” for
they are what we use in place- of the U.S. Postal “Service” at enormous saving in postage. Everybody
inspects his section before class in the morning. If there’s nothing for you, at least you can see who dOes
get mail and sometimes from whom. You’ll look again at lunch time and before going home. A person
with a busy social life will check the board six or seven times.
Mine isn’t that busy but I frequently find a note from Cliff. He knows I like to, so he indulges me.
It’sfunto get mail on the board.
There was a girl I used to run across because we were both in “H- ro-L”—Gabrielle Lamont. I
would say hello and she would say hello and there it stopped. Gabrielle was a sad one—not a total
termite, but dampish. Her face had the usual features but she let them live their own lives, not even
lipstick. She skinned her hair back and her clothes looked as if they had been bought inFrance . NotParis
—justFrance . There’s a difference.
Which they probably were.Her father is in Modern Languages and he sent her three years to school
inFrance . It did something. I don’t think she ever had a date.
We both hadeight o’clocks and she would check “H-~ ro-L” every morning when I did and then go
quietly away. There was never a note for her.
Until this one morning. . .Georgia Lammers , who is~ purely carnivorous, took a note off the board
as Gabrielle came up. I heard this soft little voice say, “Excuse me.
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That’s mine.” -~
Georgiasaid, “Huh? Don’t be silly!”
Gabrielle looked scared but she put out her hand. “Read the name, please. You’ve made a mistake.”
Georgiasnatched the note away. She is a junior and wouldn’t bother to speak to me if Daddy
weren’t on the staff—but I’m .not afraid of her. “Do it,” 1 insisted. “Let’s see the name.”
Georgiastuck the envelope in my face and snapped, “Read it yourself, snoopy!”
“Gabrielle Lamont,” I read Out loud. “Hand it over,Georgia .”
“What?” she yelped, and looked at it. Her cheeks got very red.
“Hand it over,” I repeated.
“Well!” saidGeorgia . “Anybody can make a mistake!” She flung the note at Gabrielle and flounced
off.
Gabrielle picked it up. “Thanks,” she whispered.
“Usual Yellow Cab Service,” I said.“A pleasure”— which it was. Georgia Lammers is popular in a
cheap, plunging-neckline way, but not with me. She acts as if she had invented sex.
Gabrielle started getting mail every day—some in envelopes, some just with a thumbtack shoved
through folds. I wondered who it was; but every time I saw Gabrielle she was alone. I decided it must be
someone her father did not like so they had to use notes to arrange secret dates. I told Cliff so, but he
said I had an uncontrolled romantic imagination. -
Gabrielle got eleven notes that week and -I got only four, all from Cliff. I pointed this out and he said
I did not appreciate my blessings and he was going to ration me to three a week. Men are exasperating.
I came up one morning as Gabriehle was taking down a note; this time Georgia Lammers was there.
As Gabrielle left I said sweetly, “Nothing for you, Georgia?Too bad. Or was it Gabrielle’s turn to swipe
your note?” -
Georgiasniffed and went into the Registrar’s office, where she is a part-time clerk. I thought no more
about it until after five, when I was waiting in Old Main for Daddy, intending to ride home with him.
There was nothing on “H-To-L” for me, or for Gabrielle, or Georgia. Nobody was around so I sat
down on the Senior Bench and rested my feet.
I jumped when I heard someone behind me, but it was only Gabrielle. She’s a freshman, too, and
anyhow she wouldn’t tell. But I didn’t sit down again—our senior committee thinks up fantastic
punishments for ignoring their sacred privileges.
A good thing I didn’t—Georgiacame out Of the office then. But she did not notice me; -she went
straight- to “H-To-L” and unpinned a note. I thought: Maureen, your memory is slipping; there was
nothing for her a minute ago.
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Georgiaturned and saw me. She flushed and said, “What are you staring at?”
“Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t think there was a note for you—I just looked at the board.”
She started to flare up,then she put on a catty smile. “Want to read it?”
“Heavens, no!”
“Go ahead!” She shoved it at me. “It’s very interesting.”
Puzzled, I took it. It was -a blank sheet, nothing but creases and thumbtack holes. “Somebody is
playing jokes on you,” I said.
“Not on me.”
I turned it over. The address read: “Miss Gabrielle Lamont.”
It finally soaked in that the address should have been “Georgia Lammers .”Or should have been for
Georgiato touch it. I said, “This note isn’t yours. You have no right to it~”
“What note?” “This note.”
“I don’t see any note. I see a blank sheet of paper.”
“But—Look , you thought it was a note to Gabrielle. And you took it down anyway.”
Her smile got nastier. “No, I knew it wasn’t a note. That’s the point.”
“Huh?” -
She explained and I wanted to scratch her. Poor little Gabrielle had been sending notes toherself, just
to get mail when everybody else did—andGeorgia had caught on. Both girls had campus jobs which kept
them late;Georgia had seen Gabrielle come in late a week earlier, look around, and pin up a note. Being
a sneak, she had ducked out to find out to whom Gabrielle was writing— only to find that it was
addressed to Gabrielle herself.
Poor Gabby! No wondçr I had never seen her with anyone. There wasn’t anyone.
Georgialicked her lips. “Isn’t it a scream? That snip trying to make us think she’s popular? I should
write a real note on this—let her know that -her public isn’t fooled.”
“Don’t youdare! ”
“Oh, don’t be dull!” She pinned it up, putting the tack back in-the same holes. “I’ll let the joke ride
until I think of something good.”
I grabbed her arm~ “Don’t you touch her notes again or I’ll—”
She shook me off. “You’ll what? Tell her that yOu know her notes are phony ? I can just see you!”
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“I’ll tell the Dean, that’s what! I’ll tell the Dean you’ve been opening Gabrielle’s notes.”
“Oh, yes? You looked at it, too.”
“But you handed it to me!”
“Did I?My word against yours, sweetie pie.”
“ B~it—”
“And if you talk, the whole campus will know about Gabrielle’s fake notes. Think it over.” She
marched off.
I was so quiet on the way -home that Daddy said, “Smatter, Puddin ’? Flunk a quiz?”
I assured him -that my academic status was satisfactory.“Then why the mourning?”
Before Daddy let me register he had warned me that the First Law of the Jungle for a professor’s
child was not to be a pipeline to the faculty. “But, Daddy, you’re a professor.”
“Student stuff, eh? Better sweat it out alone. Good.luck .”
I did not tell Mother either, because with MOther free speech is not just a theory. I did nothing but
worry. Poor Gabrielle! She took her “note” down next morning, looking pleased—and I wanted to cry.
Then I saw the smirk on Georgia Lammers ’ face and I felt like murder and mayhem. There was another
“note” Friday and I wanted to shout to her not to touch it. I didn’t dare. It
waslike a time bomb, watching Gabrielle’s pitiful makebelieve and knowing thatGeorgia meant to wreck
it as soon as she thought up something nasty enough.
I was in the Registrar’s office Monday, not to seeGeorgia , though I couldn’t avoid her, but because
I am a freshman reporter for the Campus Crier. One of my chores is - getting up the “Happy Birthday”
column. I thumbed through the files, noting dates from the coming Friday through the following Thursday.
Gabrielle’s name turned up for Friday and I decided to send her a birthday card, via the bulletin board,
so for once she would have real mail. Next I listed Bun Peterson’s name; her birthday was the same as
Gabrielle’s. Bun is president of the Student Council and head cheerleader and honorary football captain;
it seemed a shame she had to have Gabrielle’s birthday as well. I decided ~to get Gabrielle a really nice
card, with a hanky.
As I finished Georgia picked up my list and said, “Who’s getting senile?~
I said, “You are,” and took it back.
She said, “Don’t get too big for your beanie, freshman.” She went on, “Going to the party for Bun
Peterson?”—then added, “Oh, I forgot—it’supper classmen only.”
- I looked her in the eye. “A doublechoc malt against a used candy bar you aren’t either!”
She didn’t answer and I swaggered out.
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It was a busy week. Junior sprained his arm, Mother was away two days and I kept house, the cat had
to be wormed, and I typed a term paper for Cliff. I didn’t think about Gabrielle until late Friday when I
stopped by the board on the chance that there might be a note from Cliff. There wasn’t, but there was
another of Gabnelle’s notes, in an envelope with her name typed. I realized with a shock that I had
forgotten her birthday card.
I was wondering whether to get one and let her find it
Monday, when I heard a pssst ! It was Georgia Lammers ,
motioningme to come to the office. Curiosity got me; I
went. She pulled me inside; there was no one else in the
outeroffice. “Keep back,”- she whispered. “If she sees anyone, she may not stop. She’s due now—it’s
after five.”
I shook her off.“Who?”
“Gabrielle, of course.Shut up!”
“Huh?” I said. “She’s already been there. Her ‘note’ for Monday is up.” - -
“A lot you know! Hush!” She crowded me into the corner,then peeked out. -
“Quit shoving!” I said and looked out.
Gabrielle was pinning something up, her back to us. She saw the envelope with her name, took it
down, and hurried away. -
I turned to Georgia. “If you’ve monkeyed with one of her notes, I will go to the Dean.”
“Go ahead—see how far it gets you.”
“Did you touch that note?”
“Sure I did—I wrote it. What’s wrong with that?” She had me; anybody can send anyone a note.
“Well, what did you say?” -
“What business is it of yours? Still,” she went on, “I’ll tell you. It’s too good to keep.” She dug a
paper out of her purse. It was a typewritten rough draft, full of x-outs and inserts; it read:
Dear Gabrielle,
Today is Bun Peterson’s birthday—and we are giving her the finest surprise party this school has
ever seen. We would like to invite everybody, but we can’t—and you have been picked as one of the
girls to represent the freshman class. We are gathering in groups and will descend on her in a body. Your
group will meet at seven o’clock in the
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