Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 88235 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88235 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
“What a fascinating world you must come from. I can’t wait to hear your lecture on the various languages spoken there.”
“I can’t wait either,” Victoria said, smiling a little too brightly, Chain thought. “To give it, I mean.”
“All right,” Professor Lornah said cheerfully. “Then here I go to break my leg!”
And she trotted away, up the side steps she’d indicated to Victoria which led to the stage.
Chapter Seventeen
“Whew,” Vicky muttered to Chain when Professor Lornah was finally gone. “That was close. Can’t believe I told her to break a leg!”
“Does it really mean what you said?” Chain sounded curious.
“Oh yes.” Vicky shrugged. “It’s just theater-speak, that’s all. I’ve been coaching Drama for so long it just kind of popped out.” She looked around the darkened theater—well, she supposed it was technically a lecture hall but with the seating arrangements and the fact that there were plates in front of them, it certainly seemed like a dinner theater. “I wonder how all this works? Does someone come around and serve us food or what?”
“I suppose we’ll find out,” Chain murmured back.
“Or you could tell us,” Vicky said, turning to the professor’s student who had been sitting mutely at one end of the table. “Lorn—isn’t that your name?” she asked, looking at him.
The scrawny young man seemed extremely surprised at being addressed.
“Why, y-yes Pr-professor Victoria, it is,” he stuttered, ducking his head shyly. “Thank you for addressing such a l-lowly p-person as muh-myself.”
“Lowly?” Vicky frowned. “Just because you’re a student?”
“Well…y-yes.” He ducked his head again. “C-can I h-h-help you in s-suh-some way?”
“We’re just wondering how exactly this theater, er, lecture hall works?” Vicky asked him. “I mean, does a server come around with a menu to take your order or does everyone get served the same thing or what?”
Actually, she was getting pretty hungry. It had been a long time since lunch and she hadn’t had dinner—she’d been too busy running from the awful lizard-like Varians.
“N-not exactly,” Lorn said. “What h-happens is the f-food m-matter distributor converts the th-thu-thoughts of the professor into ed-ed-edible substances,” he got out at last.
“Food matter distributor?” Vicky asked, mystified.
“Th-the p-pl-plate,” Lorn got out at last, nodding down at the wide, curving white china plates in front of each of them.
Frowning, Vicky tried to pick hers up but found it seemed to be welded to the table top. Chain’s was immovable also—as were all the plates, she soon realized. But how could you clean them or change them if they were stuck to the table?
“I don’t understand,” she said blankly. “What’s the deal with the plate being permanently stuck to the table?”
“W-w-well, it’s n-not exactly a p-plu-plu-plate,” Lorn explained.
“Not a plate?” Vicky frowned. “That’s okay, I’m sure we’ll figure it out,” she said quickly, when Lorn started to explain. The poor kid was red in the face from the effort of saying so much in the first place.
“Suh-suh-sorry,” he said, looking down at his own immovable plate, his cheeks dull red with shame. “I kn-know my stu-stutter is b-bad. P-professor Lornah s-says it d-doesn’t matter though b-because my t-t-tongue is good for other things.”
Other things? What things? Vicky wanted to ask. But she didn’t want to make Lorn explain when it was clearly hard for him to get words out. Besides, the curtain was rising, so they all turned their attention to the presentation.
Standing at center stage was Professor Lornah. She was smiling beatifically and wearing an elaborate gold and silver crown which stuck up at least three feet above her head. Vicky wondered how much it weighed and how in the world she’d managed to get it on without messing up her elaborate hairdo.
“Friends,” she said, “Pundits, Professors, and Pedagogues gathered here to learn and to teach. I am Professor Lornah of the Cake and Dish University here on Priima Belle and today I would like to lecture you about the many prandial delights essayed by the Ys people of the Northern Gimbol territory on Hrx Tertia and the various artisan-made platters they serve them on.”
“Wow, that’s a mouthful,” Chain muttered under his breath to Victoria.
“Literally,” she whispered back. “Look!”
For as Professor Lornah spoke, describing a “rich honey cake with pippa seeds and crunchy tonga husks served upon a delicate jade green platter carved all over with crimson runes” that exact thing popped into existence on their plain, immovable white plates in front of them.
Well, the cake and platter didn’t ‘pop’ exactly, Vicky thought. It was more like a fizzing—a staticky noise like a really old TV might make when it wasn’t tuned to any channel. During the fizzing, the item in question came slowly into existence until it looked as solid as the table it was sitting on.
Vicky looked uncertainly at the golden-brown cake about as big as a cupcake, studded with bright purple seeds and covered in pinkish-orange shavings. Was it really real? What were they supposed to do with it?