...or I'll sick Adger on you...

My classmates saw the first-year long before I did. "Let's give this one a lift," they said and before I could pass any argument they stopped and this poor Texas kid was running up to the car with a big grin on hiser face, saying, "Hot damn! I never taken a syntax class before!"

"Is that right?" I said. "Well, I guess you're about ready, eh?"

The kid nodded eagerly and we roared off.

"We're your friends," said my classmates. "We're not like the others."

O Christ, I thought, they've gone around the bend. "No more of that talk," I said sharply. "Or I'll sick Adger on you." They grinned, seeming to understand. Luckily the noise in the class was so awful -- between the drilling and the banging and the iPod -- that the student in the back row couldn't hear a word we were saying. Or could s/he?

How long can we merge? I wondered. How long before one of us starts raising and joining at this student? What will s/he think then? This same lonely department was once the home of Krifka and Bhatt. Will s/he make that grim connection when my classmates start screaming about Agrs and huge movement coming down on the class? If so -- well, we'll just have to cut off his head position and lower himer somewhere. Because it goes without saying that we can't turn himer loose. S/he'll report us at once to some dogmatic Chomskyan law enforcement agency, and they'd run us down like dogs.

Jesus! Did I say that? Or just think it? Was I talking? Did they hear me? I glanced over at my classmates, but they seemed oblivious -- watching the board, driving our GB Shark along at a hundred and ten or so. There was no sound from the back row.