The Nominal Hero, chapter 11: Felicity Conditions
The city was covered that day in a layer of new clean snow. Caden spent the morning at the kitchen table, making notes, going back and forth to the bookshelves all over the house to look things up in his favourite stories. At eleven-thirty he ate a banana-and-cheese sandwich, put on his coat and boots, and headed out the door, Paz trailing behind him. The seven of them had agreed to meet in the parking lot on the east side of the university campus. It was near enough to Ruth’s school that she could walk there easily, it was close to where the Nouns had been spending their time, and it was spacious enough for Caden’s plan--his old plan, that was. But his new plan would need lots of room too. Masami and Hunter were already there. Ruth turned up a few minutes later. They waited. Duck and Mushroom were nowhere to be seen. “Could they have gotten lost?” Hunter wondered. “Or gotten the time wrong, maybe? Can Nouns tell time?” “They managed it yesterday,” Ruth pointed out. “I think they