Charlie and Mindy Bk. 03 Ch. 06

The suggestion was that what the college would presumably call "marital sexual intercourse" had its official approval. But the college also expected students to remain unmarried until they were graduated, so the fancy words really meant students must not have sex, plain and simple.

There was a college policy, imposed by a conservative board of trustees, that students who had the misfortune to be caught doing what young people have done from time immemorial were to be expelled. In fairness, I should point out that such expulsions were so rare as to be nonexistent. Even students widely known to have been caught with their pants off and their naughty parts united had been allowed to confess, instead, to some less contemptible offense—for which some less severe punishment could then be administered.

But given the college's attitude toward sex, I couldn't imagine how the administration might react to the discovery that a brother and a sister were regularly enjoying each other. Burning at the stake? No, I thought, that was the Catholics, and a long time ago. Hanging, drawing, and quartering? Probably nothing that extreme—and that punishment was now out of fashion. But expulsion? Almost certainly. Mom and Dad were going to be very disappointed with us.

And then I remembered that Mom already knew, and had probably told Dad, about Mindy and me, so that part, at least, wouldn't be a surprise. But I could hear Dad saying something like "Couldn't you have been a little more careful to avoid being caught?" How could we possibly live down such stupidity?

Those were the thoughts that went through my mind as I followed Ms. Ritter for the hundred-fifty or so yards that separated Koch Hall from the administration building. When we entered the dean's outer office, I found Mindy already there. So whatever this was all about, it involved both of us. I looked apprehensively at her; she looked, just as apprehensively, at me. I couldn't think of any reason—except for one—why the dean would pull us out of classes. And I could see by the terror in Mindy's eyes that she was thinking along the same lines.

I reckoned that if the jig was up there was no reason why I shouldn't try to comfort my little sister. But the door to the dean's inner office was open, and he had seen that we were now both present. Before I could even step toward Mindy, he came to his door and asked us, in a kindly voice, to come into his office and take seats. We entered, and he pointed to a pair of chairs as he shut the door. Then he returned to his own seat behind his desk and looked at both of us. He wasn't smiling, but there wasn't any sign of anger or judgment on his face, either.

The Rev. Dr. Elias Calvin Stone, Ph.D., D.D., Professor of Religion and Dean of Students, was notorious for being a strict disciplinarian. But, when discipline was not the issue, he was just as well noted for his kindliness. Now I was really confused, because we were seeing, not his authoritarian face, but his kindly face. And yet, there was an unnatural stiffness in him that I didn't understand.

"Melinda, Charles," he began, "you're not in trouble, so you can set your minds at ease about that." I relaxed a bit, and I could see that Mindy did, too. Our chairs were just far enough apart that I couldn't reach her.

He continued, speaking gently, "But I have some very difficult news for you." He was eyeing us closely. There was no sign of judgment on his face, but he was definitely not smiling. He appeared, instead, to dread the task he had then to complete.

I had a presentiment, then, of what this was about, and I found myself wishing that we were here because we were in trouble—any kind of trouble, no matter how serious. The college couldn't impose the death penalty for infractions of its hidebound rules, but if it could have I'd have traded that for what I now understood was coming.

I entered then, I think, a state of altered consciousness. I was fully aware of everything that went on around me, but my head swam. I seemed to be elsewhere, observing from a great distance, not really part of what was happening there in the dean's office.

Dr. Stone looked at a sheet of paper with some handwriting on it. He paused momentarily; a look of firm resolution formed on his face as though he had set himself to a painful duty. "Are you the son and daughter of Brian and Laurel Crowell?"

We nodded, and Mindy pointed out, "She's our mother; he's our stepfather."

"I see," the Dean said. "That explains why your surnames are different from theirs."

"Yes, sir," we said, together. Mindy's voice was almost inaudible. She had read him, too, and she had also guessed why we were here on such short notice. She looked even more terrified than she had when I'd first seen her in the outer office.

"I had a telephone call, just after one o'clock, from a Mr. Quentin Miller, of a law firm in Fort Collins, Colorado," he said, checking the notes again. "A firm named Crowell, Miller, and Watson. That is, I think, Brian Crowell's firm?"

"Yes, sir," I answered. Mindy merely nodded her head. We both knew and liked Quent, who was one of Dad's law partners and with whom we were on a first-name basis.

"I can't begin to tell you how sorry I am to have to tell you this," he began. Now his face was full of pain. "This morning, just outside of Bogotá, Colombia, a small plane crashed shortly after takeoff. There were no survivors.

"Your parents were aboard that aircraft."

(To be Continued)

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