Life At LRU Chapter 1

THE DAY STARTED off quite usually, with the students milling all over the campus of Little Rock University. It was a balmy autumn day, and they had hardly anything on their minds, as usual, except Bloody Murder Weekend. [Note--there is no chapter title or header.]

Bloody Murder Weekend was two days set aside every once in a while for recreation. And the students' idea of recreation was freaking the living daylights out of anybody. And that was just what they intended to do, once Saturday came.

But now it was only Tuesday. So instead they gathered together in little groups, planning to wreak havoc everywhere. And the ones planning to do the worst things were the members of the fraternity Omega Delta.

Omega Delta may not have been the least popular fraternity, but it most certainly wasn't the most. As the name implied, it was low on the scale. Omega Delta had its popular members, but not many. The most popular fraternity was Adelphic Pi, the snobbiest was Alpha Delta, and the snobbiest sorority was Beta Delta. [Note--back then I labored under the odd misconception that lots, if not all, of fraternities/sororities ended with "Delta." Regarding the non-Greek-letter "Adelphic"? I believe I got that name from something at my brother's college. I think there was something called "Adelphic House" and I thought it was a fraternity house. You can find mention of "Adelphic House" in one of the Night Of The Goat excerpts. It also appears later in the True Believers stories.] The weirdest sorority was Epsilon Sigma Pi, or ESP, and its fraternity equivalent was Omega Delta.

Right now Omega Delta's members were plotting against the fraternity everybody who wasn't in hated, Alpha Delta. The meeting was taking place at the college fort. The present members were Chernobyl Cat, Damien, Krakatoa Cat, Hiroshima Cat, Natas, Beelzebub, Rocky, Rudy Lindbergh, and Christian Hosoi. [Note--almost all of Chernobyl Cat's siblings, himself included, are named after disaster sites. Odd tidbit.]

"Okay, guys," said Chernobyl, or Choby, "we gotta do somethin' to get back at Alpha Delta for what they did to us last year, when we entered LRU. 'Member?"

The other eight nodded. They'd never forget. Even afterwards they'd been extremely wary of green sourballs.

"Okay. This Saturday we're going to be initiated into the sophomore class. You know what that means."

"What, Mr. Know-It-All?" Damien asked. "You ain't even in charge of Omega Delta."

"That isn't a factor in this experiment."

Damien looked at Choby funny and shook his head. "You've been in Mr. Demo's science class too long, Chobe."

Choby ignored him. "So we've gotta do somethin' real rotten to them. Any ideas?"

You could've heard a pin drop. No one moved or said a word.

"Oh, come on," Choby whined. "Tell me you guys got at least one suggestion."

No reply.

Chernobyl made an annoyed sound in his throat and pushed his Shriner's fez back. "C'mon! We're gonna pay them back! Sourball, sourball, sourball!" he started chanting.

After several sourballs, the other fraternity members grew angry and started chanting along, eventually banging on the wooden walls of the fort. And after they'd shouted "Sourball" several dozen times, Chernobyl signalled for them to shut up.

"So, whatta we gonna do?" he shouted.

Rocky suddenly jumped up. "KICK SOME BUTT!!" he screamed.

Everyone looked at him, startled. Noticing this, he grinned, mumbled an apology, and sat back down.

"Speaking of butt, where's Shannon?" Damien said, looking around. "We should kick his butt if he's here and he didn't show up. He belongs to Omega Delta, too. We own him." He got a crazy look, like Doctor Frankenstein.

"He took sick leave."

"Where'd he take it? To MacDonald's [sic]?" Rocky laughed. He fell to the floor and started rolling around.

Choby shook his head. "I swear to god [sic] that you are the--well, I should say one of the stupidest people I've ever met.