Characters in UR

“At least in Ur 1000000.” “And check out who she’s replacing,” Robbie said, and pointed to the name. It was Albert Arnold Gore. • • • An hour later, when the doorbell rang, they didn’t jump but rather looked around like men startled from a dream.

According to Antonia “Toni” Burrell, one of the Meerkats cheerleaders, and one of the lucky ones to survive Sunday night’s horrific bus crash with only cuts and bruises, the celebration was still going on, the …

“We have a minuscule sample compared to the . . . the . . .” He laughed feebly. “You know, the whole thing. All the worlds of Ur.” Barack Obama had been elected in six Urs. Mitt Romney had been elected in one, with John McCain as his running mate.

They checked it in two dozen different Urs before getting tired and moving on. Fully seventeen front pages on January 21st of 2009 announced Hillary Clinton as the new president. In fourteen of them, Bill Richardson of New Mexico was her vice president. In two, it was Joe Biden.

His mind was filled with a single thought: I’m on trial here. Then he swept it aside. The return of his anger—a pale imitation of what he had felt toward Candy Rymer, but real enough—helped in this regard. “People were going to die. Almost a dozen. Maybe more.

The next page was a dedication: To Sy, and to Mary, with love. Then: Chapter 1 A man’s life was five dogs long, Cortland believed. The first was the one that taught you. The second was the one you taught. The third and fourth were the ones you worked.

In the Ur 2171753 listing of MacDonald’s works, he found seventeen novels in what was called “the Dave Higgins series.” All the titles had colors in them. “That part’s right,” Robbie said, “but the titles are all wrong.

And even then, complete honesty had escaped him. Like not having said how much he wanted her back. As he approached the three-room flat he called home—what Don Allman sometimes called his “swinging bachelor pad”—Wesley’s thoughts turned to the Henderson kid. Was his name Richard or Robert?

Wesley supposed it was hard for them to decide if he, as a thirty-five-year-old, was Old School (like the ancient Dr. Wence, who looked like a crocodile in a three-piece suit) or New School (like Suzanne Montanaro, who liked to play Avril Lavigne’s “Girlfriend” in her Introduction to Modern Drama …

Standing in front of her team, dressed in the prim blue slacks and blue blazer she invariably wore on game days, was Ellen Silverman. She was smiling and holding up a handmade sign that read I LOVE YOU WESLEY.

Something like that. Sounds slightly racist to me, but what do I know?” “Thanks, Don.” His lips felt numb. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” “Wes, are you sure you’re—FRANKIE, PUT THAT DOWN! DON’T—” There was a crash. “Shit. I think that was Delft. I gotta go, Wes. See you tomorrow.” “Right.”

“Ms. Rymer was traveling at a high rate of speed west along Highway 80,” Captain Arden said, “and struck the bus at the intersection.” The bus driver, Herbert Allison, 58, of Moore, apparently saw Ms. Rymer’s vehicle at the last moment and tried to swerve.

There were blank patches where the photos should have gone, each with the message Image Unavailable, but the headline was big and black: NOW IT’S HER TURN. And below it, the subhead: Hillary Clinton Takes Oath, Assumes Role as 44th President. “Looks like she made it after all,” Wesley said.

From deeper within the lunatic asylum where Wesley assumed Don lived with his family, there came what sounded like a death scream. Don Allman was not perturbed. “Jason, don’t throw that at your brother. Be a good little troll and go watch SpongeBob.”

In two, it was Joe Biden. In one it was a senator none of them had heard of: Linwood Speck of New Jersey. “He always says no to the vice-presidency when someone else wins the top spot,” Don said.

“We have a minuscule sample compared to the . . . the . . .” He laughed feebly. “You know, the whole thing. All the worlds of Ur.” Barack Obama had been elected in six Urs. Mitt Romney had been elected in one, with John McCain as his running mate.

“It’s still ‘Paul’s Case.’ ” “You’ve never heard of a Kindle, Mr. Smith?” Josie Quinn had asked. Her tone was that of a kindly anthropologist asking a member of Papua New Guinea’s Kombai tribe if he had ever heard of electric stoves and elevator shoes.

She needed her license to get to her job at the fertilizer factory in Bainbridge, she told Judge Wallenby. What she didn’t tell him was that she had lost the job six months previous . . . and nobody checked.

In two, it was Joe Biden. In one it was a senator none of them had heard of: Linwood Speck of New Jersey. “He always says no to the vice-presidency when someone else wins the top spot,” Don said. “Who always says no?” Robbie asked. “Obama?” “Yeah.

He undressed, brushed his teeth, then called the English Department and left a message for the secretary to cancel his one morning class. “Thanks, Marilyn. Sorry to put this on you, but I think I’m coming down with the flu.” He added an unconvincing cough and hung up.

“We have a minuscule sample compared to the . . . the . . .” He laughed feebly. “You know, the whole thing. All the worlds of Ur.” Barack Obama had been elected in six Urs. Mitt Romney had been elected in one, with John McCain as his running mate.

According to State Police Captain Moses Arden, the bus was traveling on Route 139, the Princeton Road, and was about two miles west of Cadiz when an SUV driven by Candy Rymer of Montgomery struck it. “Ms.

He accessed it. “Hey, pal,” Don Allman’s voice said. “You better check the morning paper.” That was all. He no longer subscribed to The Echo, but old Mrs. Ridpath, his downstairs neighbor, did. He took the stairs two at a time, and there it was, sticking out of her mailbox.

The third and fourth were the ones you worked. The last was the one that outlived you. That was the winter dog. Cortland’s winter dog was Negrita, but he thought of it only as the scarecrow dog . . . Liquid rose up in Wesley’s throat.

He shut off his iPod when he saw Wesley. “I thought you had class.” “Canceled it. This is Robert Henderson, one of my American Lit students.” “Robbie,” Henderson said, extending his hand. “Hello, Robbie. I’m Don Allman. One of the lesser-known Allman brothers. I play a mean tuba.”

McGee has a friend named Meyer—a guy—and Higgins has a friend named Sarah . . .” He bent over the Kindle for a moment. “Sarah Mayer.” He looked at Wesley, his eyes showing too much white around the irises.

… boys’ basketball team, which was waiting their turn to practice their mediocre moves—or that Shawna Deeson had then gone outside and heaved a large rock at the windshield of Ellen’s Volvo, an act for which she would surely be suspended. He had no idea that Ellen was now blaming herself …

I have to be prepared for that.” Well, he could try. And he could also call that bitch Suzanne Montanaro and tell her in no uncertain terms to stop campaigning against him. Why would she do that in the first place? She was a colleague, for God’s sake!

VI—Candy Rymer At five o’clock on a gray Sunday afternoon—as the Lady Meerkats were cutting down basketball nets in a not-too-distant part of the state—Wesley Smith and Robbie Henderson were sitting in Wesley’s modest Chevy Malibu, watching the door of a roadhouse in Eddyville, twenty miles north of Cadiz.