Phase One went exactly as planned. Jack and Jill, two otherwise upstanding Harvard undergraduates, climbed the front steps of Widener Library at 9:15 p.m. and separated on the way into the reference room. Jill headed for the card catalogue and dawdled till Jack was well on his way into the stacks. Then she followed.

By 9:30 p.m. they were squared away on separate floors, in hiding places they had chosen during a late-afternoon reconnaissance trip. Jill squeezed into an alcove behind a desk on Level Two West, located at approximately 1590.5 (Scientific Periodicals). Jack opted to play it cooler, slumping as if asleep over a remote first-floor carrel desk crammed with books on the status of women in Vichy France.

Figuring it would be at least an hour before they could move around safely, Jill tried to go to sleep Jack fidgeted and struggled to get his mind off Tom Petty's "The Waitin' Is The Hardest Part."

At 9:40 Jack got tired of waiting and wandered up to Level Two to make sure Jill had arrived at the previously determined location on schedule Finding her carrel empty, he frowned, flipped on the light and started to write her a note. Jill poked her head out from under the desk.

"Holy shit You are here," said Jack.

Somewhat reassured, they resumed position. At 9:50 the scattered footsteps of researchers died down, and a guard with a megaphone could be heard methodically pacing the corridors, intoning at intervals. "The library is closing in 10 minutes...the library is closing in 10 minutes." Jack started panicking--he'd counted on his dead-end row of carrels being dark, but a graduate student was still engrossed in work four carrels away, and there was an overhead light that stayed obstinately on with no switch in sight. Time moved at a crawl, especially since he had incautiously put his head down directly on top of his watchband.

By closing time proper, the library noises had subsided to occasional clicks and footsteps as guards walked through the corridors snapping off stray lights. At 10:21, all the overhead lights went off at once--evidently, to Jack and Jill's relief, controlled by a central switch. No one had come within two bookcases of them.

* * *

Phase Two was scheduled to begin at 11 p.m. with a rendezvous at Carrel # 232 (Br239.195, facing Mass Ave). At 11:02, Jack had yet to appear. Jill figured he'd been carried off in handcuffs. He showed up a minute later, and at 11:05 they commenced exploring the now-silent monolith.

"Got any food?"

"I filed a pack of Bubble-Yum in the shelves somewhere on Three. See if you can find it."

"You've got to be kidding."

After innumerable hints from Jack, who had written down the location in his notebook, Jill located the Bubble-Yum, which was filed under Bacteria. Proceeding upward, they became acquainted with some of the tricks their ears would continue to play on them. Footsteps from anywhere above seemed to be on their floor, up to the moment they passed overhead. Even noises from outside sounded remarkably like dastards lurking one stack above. No floors on earth creak quite so loudly as the Widener stairs.

At 11:45 they heard footsteps.

"They must have heard us on the stairs. Where are the bathrooms?"