Mario rooms with Hal, by Avril's insistence and Dean's fiat

texture · E.T.A. era / YDAU

• When: E.T.A. residency arrangement (standing through YDAU).
• What: Avril insisted Mario live not in the Headmaster's House but with Hal in an E.T.A. subdorm; "by Dean of Students' fiat" Mario bunks in a double with Hal though he is too physically challenged to play even recreational tennis and "needed all the sleep he could get." He pulls his weight recording drills and matches for later analysis. Room texture from the endnotes: where Hal (like Orin before him) is a "horrific slob" in "like psychic opposition to their Moms's compulsive cleaning thing," "Mario makes his bed without fail" — though the note adds, characteristically deadpan, "you have to keep in mind that it's not like he's got all that much else to do" (n82 p. 0999).