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the atomic bomb we would soon start living in fear of the industrial obsolescence of the USSR, as illustrated by the Chernobyl disaster. This new peril would be far greater than the H-bomb; it would be a self-destructive device beyond anyone’s control, a time bomb plugged into the very heart of
Imperium Sovieticum
.
    Her miniature essay (250 words exactly) was succinctly entitled “Kaboom!”
    As the StyleWriter spat out our papers, Hope asked me for an unbiased opinion. I mechanically corrected a few spelling mistakes and said that it was a very good paper that would most likely earn her a very poor mark. The mere idea of Mrs. Michaud’s horrified expression made me laugh.
    We watched the last news broadcast, and then the stations signed off one by one. Toward midnight, the choice came down to David Letterman’s
Late Night
,
L’Île des passions
and the eight-hundredth rerun of
Planet of the Apes
.
    Naturally, we opted for
Planet of the Apes
.

16. THE DAWN OF A NEW ERA
    The atrium was teeming with the usual Monday-morning commotion. There was no sign whatsoever that the Berlin Wall had come down just a few days before. The high school was history-proof.
    Going up the stairs, we bumped into Mr. Chénard, who was toting a paper bag full of lemons.
    Chénard had been teaching chemistry for decades. He was born during the Great Depression—i.e., prehistoric times—making him the oldest teacher in the school, aninexhaustible fount of anecdotes and the butt of many a cheap joke.
    Hope liked him in the way one is fond of a grandfather who survived World War Two. She often hung out in his office during lunch hour. As Chénard filled his pipe with two or three pinches of cheap tobacco, she would rest her feet on the edge of his desk, and they would discuss Darwinism, geology and quantum physics. On a shelf, a shortwave radio played quietly. This was no mere appliance, but its owner’s alter ego, a venerable tube radio that in days gone by had tuned in to Eisenhower and Orson Welles. Now, all it could pull in was the local AM station.
    So Chénard was coming down the stairs on the wrong side, the bag full of lemons clutched against his stained lab coat, pipe wedged behind his ear. He said hello and exchanged a few words with Hope on the subject of Berlin.
    “How old were you in 1945, Mr. Chénard?” she asked abruptly.
    Caught off guard, he raised his eyebrows.
    “About fourteen.”
    “So do you remember Hiroshima?”
    “The bomb? Yes, I remember it.”
    He seemed pensive as he settled the bag of lemons on his hip.
    “Yes, I remember the bomb,” he repeated.
    A wave of students rolled by on the port and starboardsides of us, grumbling at the obstacle that we were creating, and our old chemistry teacher suddenly resembled one of those figures in a movie standing still in a public place while hundreds of extras rush past in accelerated motion. But Chénard was only outwardly immobile—under the surface, his mind was racing back through time at the speed of light.
    “What I remember most are the newspapers. The tone was … triumphant.”
    “
Triumphant?
” I exclaimed.
    “Indeed. Canada had taken part in the Manhattan Project. They were proclaiming the dawn of a new era. Houses heated with atomic energy. Plutonium-fuelled cars. An unlimited source of power. It made me want to study science.”
    He absently watched the students streaming past on either side, as though suddenly waking in the middle of a flood. He blinked his eyes, as if searching for an explanation.
    “You know, a lot of scientists found their calling with Hiroshima.”
    The first-period bell rang. As if waiting for a signal, the paper bag on Mr. Chénard’s hip split open. Dozens of lemons tumbled down the stairs, bouncing around the students’ ankles.
    We hurried off to class, leaving him to deal with his citruses. But Hope was intrigued.
    “What do you think he’s going to do with those lemons?”

17. MEGALEMONS
    As a worthy bearer of the