The Wanderings of Amy Ch. 17

Amy stared at her professor stupefied. Finally she forced herself to answer.

"Dr. Burnside, I'm not a graduate student. How can I be your aide? Don't aides have to be graduate students?"

"No, they don't. Usually they are because graduate students are better qualified than undergraduates. That's why most of the aides are graduates, not because of any requirement. You're different, so you get the job. Here's a contract and a job description. Familiarize yourself with your responsibilities and bring the contract back signed tomorrow."

Amy still had to absorb the shock. She was just a junior. How on earth could she be Burnside's assistant? However, she knew better than to try to question her professor. She simply asked for which classes she would be responsible. The response was simple; Amy would be assisting with the same two classes she took in the Spring semester. Her responsibilities would include keeping office hours for students' questions and grading tests and term papers. Burnside looked sharply at Amy. There was no question in the professor's mind that Amy would accept this assignment.

Amy accepted, all right. It was an offer she couldn't refuse. Her classmates would have jumped at this opportunity. Hell, many of the graduate students would have jumped at this opportunity.

Still, Amy felt overwhelmed. She was just a junior. She had not taken many of the requirements for the economics major yet. She was scared and wanted answers.

First, she tried talking to her roommate. Suzanne listened carefully to Amy, but had never taken classes from a professor anything like Burnside. She had no point of reference from which to give Amy any observations. Suzanne was well-liked by the dean of the art department, but he was very laid back. The image she always had in her mind of her dean was his round glasses and pot-belly, leaning back in his chair and smoking a pipe through his scraggly-gray beard. Most of Suzanne's other professors fit that same stereotype.

Suzanne had almost no experience in her studies to allow her to size up Amy's economics professor. Meeting Burnside the Monday after Spring Break had been a totally new experience for her. She could feel Burnside's fierce eyes bore into her the day she had to deliver Amy's term paper. She was not intimidated by Burnside, but at the same time was glad not to be her student.

"Amy, I don't know what to tell you. That woman is just plain weird as far as I'm concerned."

Amy next talked to Paul. He seemed to have an answer that made sense, having been Burnside's student himself.

"I think she's testing you. There is something that she wants from you, or something that she expects you to do. It's bull there's no graduate student who could be her aide. She wants you to do it, even though you're not the most qualified person for the job."

"Well, I'm going to ask her what's going on."

"Don't. You won't get an answer. All I can tell you is that Burnside is more interested in you than she is in filling that student aide job. You'll find out why when she wants you to."

Amy paused to think. She looked nervously at Paul.

"Paul, can you help me? I can't do this alone."

Paul took Amy's hand. "I'll do what I can. I think I can help you with the term papers."