Chapter 44

In truth ... Vee was doing two pages at a time ... one right handed and one left. There didn't seem to be any difference in the writing. Her penmanship looked like chicken prints until one looked at it for a minute, unfocused ones eyes, and the missing lines in the letters sorta slid where they were supposed to go. It wasn't Gregg ... it wasn't anything anyone had ever seen before ... but it worked. And it was fast. For sure, no one was going to cheat off her tests.

One hour and forty minutes later, Vee handed Charles the last two sheets. She stuck the pencil nubbins in the box and walked cross-legged to Dr. Lambert.

"Where's the closest ladies room?"

"Down the hall, three doors on the left," he said. He was going to say more but she pretty much vanished. Chuck admired the tight cheeks in her flight suit as she walked by.

The groan of relief brought half the professors on the second floor out of their offices.

"Oh God ... no vent," she moaned. The moan was loud enough to warn the men in the building. Vee hadn't eaten sensibly since she came back from Konstanz ... and she was one of those rare women who produce the finest products of intestinal unfortitude when she was running on empty instead of on full. Her last real meal was a salad bar at the Caf in Konstanz and there isn't much that exceeds the malodor of lettuce, pepperoncini, dill pickle, black olives and mushrooms mixed with stomach acid ... The green gas permeated the building.

Odors are commonly called scents, which can refer to both pleasant and unpleasant odors. The terms fragrance and aroma are used primarily by the food and cosmetic industry to describe a pleasant odor, and are sometimes used to refer to perfumes. In contrast, malodor, stench, reek, and stink are used specifically to describe Princess Wendolyn as she was losing compression. Hell and sulfur dioxide didn't make a patch on Vee when she truly let it go.

Animal Rights Activists objected to experiments with l'Odeur de la Princesse when it was used to drive skunks away from the Castle. Vee was much younger then and hadn't learned to bottle it up in a lady like fashion. Her mother had not yet explained that she was to seek relief only in the Ladies Retiring Room ... where it was guaranteed to peel standard mil spec paint off the walls.

She stepped out of the room and the green smell of rotting vegetation released from captivity wafted along behind her ... she was smiling.

Had she performed for the Bundespolizei, the odor would have been reported to Berlin and that would have helped them in their conviction that she was truly the Prussian Duchess she denied.

The von Holsteins were prodigious farters.

The smile soon faded ... she was alone ... mostly. The single exception to her isolation was the man in the remotely supplied HAZMAT mask and white coveralls checking the area for gas leaks or hazardous spills of corrosives. He waved his sniffer wand in her direction and spoke into his microphone, "I found the source!"

Vee continued down the entryway and out the open doors where she found the faculty members and staff who had remained on campus during summer break.

Dr. Lambert congratulated her on perfect scores on the past four years final exams in Engineering. Charles asked where and what concert.

"Do you want to go or not?"

"When will we be back?"

"Don't you people get it?" Vee asked. "You should know by now the princess holds the time travel watch. How do you think Junior defeated the United States? We'll be back when we get here."

"Promise not to fart?"

"I won't fart."

"I'll go ... but I'm nervous."

"Take my hand."

Tickets for all five performances of A Delicate Sound of Thunder 19–23 August 1988 Nassau Coliseum, Long Island, New York. $ 22.50 per performance were waiting for them at the box office ... so were backstage passes.

David Gilmour was very interested in Vee's Little Backless Black Dress but he seemed to know she was there for the autographs and not the party. When the movie was finally produced Vee and Charles were shown just once but for several seconds.

When it was over, Charlie asked, "Who were those guys?"

"Pink Floyd."

"You're kidding."

"Nope, thanks for going. Bye Charles."