Rose went over to the nearby stairwell and began to descend. Her heels clicked upon the marble stair treads creating a racket that drove into her ears. As she descended she thought about Dr. Zimmerman. Dr. Z was tall, six feet tall and extremely flat chested. Dr. Z's height and lack of breast development had given rise to a campus-wide rumor of lesbian tendencies. But Rose had no objective knowledge of Dr. Z's sexual orientation. But one thing that Rose knew for sure, Dr. Z was exacting in her course assignments. And one thing Rose had heard by rumor was that Dr. Z had some terribly old fashioned ideas of discipline. The rumors left out a lot of details about what Dr. Z's ideas were, but the rumors suggested that it would be best if you didn't find out what the details were.

Level B was the basement. Rose knew that those stacks, mostly chemistry, which were referred to as the "bowels of Fondren". She wasn't sure exactly what Level BB was. As she got to the basement Rose saw, stenciled to the wall, an arrow, pointing down with the direction "Level BB, Below". It was cold and dank, and the light seemed to fail as the steps descended. But she knew that she had no alternative. Down she must go, and below Dr. Zimmerman awaited.