Chapter 3: Pros and Cons

They followed the same process with Dawn's poster, skipping the falling down part, as well as the part where Salome was sitting in the same room but ignoring them (Naomi was nowhere to be found either). But when they went to Corrie and Edie's room, they realized putting up Corrie's posters was going to be more complicated. "These are both vertical," said Corrie, looking at the posters and then at the wall. "They'll fit on the wall, but it's going to be a lot harder to hold them up. I don't know if we'll be able to reach."

Edie frowned, understanding the problem and picturing the posters as they would look up on the wall, trying to come up with a solution. "What if we got a big stick? A yardstick or something?" she suggested. "We could put on the pieces of sticky goop, then push it against the wall with the stick."

"That seems like it would be hard to control," said Annie.

Edie nodded; she couldn't help but agree. "Just trying to think of ways to make us taller, I guess."

"What if we moved the bed and put your desk there instead, Corrie?" Annie suggested. "The chair's not high enough, but the desk is a lot higher."

Corrie nodded slowly. "That could work. We couldn't reach the bottom of the poster at the same time as the top that way, though."

"True." Annie frowned. "We could attach the top, then move the desk and attach the bottom. The top has to hold all the weight anyway."

"Hmm. True..." Corrie looked at the desk thoughtfully. They were all quiet for a few minutes, thinking, then Corrie said, "I don't know if we can even move the furniture, though. I mean, it's pretty sturdy."

"Oh, I'll get Rico and Duncan to come up," said Dawn. "They're big, strong men. Between the six of us we can probably manage it."

"Okay! Unless anybody has any better ideas?" Corrie looked around. No one did. "All right, Dawn, go get your boyfriend."

With the boys' help, they managed to move the bed--it was blocking the door, but they didn't expect anyone to try to get in--and put the desk in position. Corrie moved her computer and the other things on her desk to Edie's chair temporarily. She and Dawn climbed up on the desk, using the chair to help themselves up (Edie and Annie held it still so it wouldn't rock back while they were standing on it) and unrolled the poster. Edie and Annie quickly moved to stand on either side of the desk and pulled the bottom poster down behind the desk so it wouldn't get in their way.

Rico passed pieces of sticky goop up to Corrie and Dawn. They attached the top of the poster, then climbed down quickly. Rico and Duncan pushed the desk to the side and Edie and Annie came in quickly with more sticky goop to get the bottom attached. "All right! Teamwork!" cried Corrie when the poster was up.

Rico laughed. "Six of us to put up one poster. You want the other one right next to it, right?"

"Yeah, a few inches of space."

Rico and Duncan got the desk back into position, and the process was repeated. This poster, the Labyrinth one, didn't want to stay unrolled, but with the desk out of the way Corrie could reach about halfway up the poster and attach more sticky goop, so after a while they managed to get it to stay. Then they moved the desk back into its original place and the bed under the posters.

By that time, even though the windows were open and a breeze entered on and off, they were all tired and sweaty, though Annie and Edie were probably less so than the others. Dawn groaned, sitting heavily on Corrie's bed. "Next year, let's live in a dorm with air conditioning."

Edie agreed. "I think the cons of living in Gilkey are outweighing the pros at this point."

"What exactly are the pros and cons?" asked Duncan.

"Let's see, what did we decide?" Edie thought--she knew they'd discussed it before, though perhaps not in those words. Oh, she remembered. "Pro: it's the closest to the gate so we don't have to carry things so far. Cons: No elevator and no air conditioning."

"I think having Lorelei as our RA counts as a pro," pointed out Corrie.

Edie couldn't argue with that. Dawn shrugged. "I don't know if it really counts toward Gilkey as a building. It's just our particular situation. I mean, living in the same dorm as all of you guys is obviously a good thing, but it would be the same whatever dorm we lived in.

"Do any of the dorms have air conditioning?" said Rico. "It's not really worth worrying about it if Gilkey is just like all the other dorms."

"Well, Hickory has air conditioning, right?" said Dawn. "I think several of the newer buildings do."

"I think so," said Annie.

"You know what building definitely has air conditioning?" Duncan said.

"All of the academic buildings," Corrie suggested.

He smiled reluctantly (but then, Edie thought, all of his smiles seemed somehow reluctant). "I was thinking the dining hall, actually."

"That is an excellent idea, Duncan," Dawn said, standing up from her seat on the bed. "Where did I put my shoes?"