Lane Hauls Printer to Sash to Keep Secret From Mail Carrier

The Sash Rule

The plan met its first obstacle in the bylaws of the Cat-Owners' Caucus. The Caucus holds that sharing a home with a cat is the highest form of human existence, and so its bylaws forbid anything bearing the Caucus seal from being printed unless the person pressing Print is wearing the ceremonial sash.

The seal was on the card. Mags had put it there herself, for gravity. Lou, who has no cat and no objection to that, offered to press the button anyway. He was told, kindly, that it would not count, and that the sash had last been worn at a ceremony whose guest of honor slept through it.

The sash lived at No. 11, so the printer would have to go there. Admiral Biscuit, the Caucus chair, watched the discussion from a windowsill with his eyes shut. The minutes record this as presiding.

Gus Carries It

Gus Ferreira carried it. The Canon weighs 22.68 kg and measures 18.2"D x 16.8"W x 15.7"H, figures Gus recited at the curb, again on the porch and a third time at the door, the way a man reads a will. He said he could build a lighter one. Nobody doubted him. Nobody asked.

Setting it up took less time than the recital. Mags joined it to her wireless in a few steps. Lou then used the five-inch touchscreen to put the double-sided color job in the Application Library, where the features you use most sit up front. Mags said it was the first appliance she had ever felt a bylaw about.

The first page arrived in about ten seconds, which on Maple Lane is the fastest anything has ever been completed.

The Census of Pets

The back page of the card was to carry a roll of the lane's pets, and Doris was sent to count them. She is a reference librarian and does not estimate.

Doris's census of pets for the back page counted four cats, one beagle and one domesticated bear, and she counted the bear twice, once from the curb and once from the hedge, because the porch at No. 2 offers no second opinion. Both counts came to one. She entered it as "one, provisionally."

The total set the print run: twelve copies, one for each of the eleven houses and one for Wendell. Pepper, who is a beagle and not a cat, and has made his peace with both facts, was listed in the same type as everyone else. The cassette holds 250 sheets, so the paper took the news without comment.

The signatures had been gathered on loose sheets, written on both sides. Mags stacked them in the automatic document feeder, which takes fifty sheets and reads both faces in one pass. Gus, who had signed first and again at the bottom "for emphasis," appeared twice, at opposite ends, like bookends.

ORACLE Reads Aloud

Wendell's van turned onto the lane early, and the card was not printed. Mags sent ORACLE to the mailbox cluster with one task: read the greeting aloud and keep him there.

ORACLE, asked only to read the greeting aloud, instead presented a formal report on the card's typeface, in eleven parts with an appendix, tracing it to a twelfth-century Swiss ferry schedule. Wendell stood through it with his bag on one shoulder and his hands folded, and said "Is that so" at the places where a person would.

"How long does it have?" Lou asked, watching from the hedge.

"It has a foreword," said Mags, and put on the sash.

Ten Seconds

Mags pressed Print with the solemnity of a woman launching a ship. The first page arrived in about ten seconds, which on Maple Lane is the fastest anything has ever been completed. The rest followed at up to 26 pages a minute, color and black alike, each printed on both sides with nobody turning anything over.

Gus folded the card himself and pronounced the fold acceptable. They carried it to the mailbox cluster in procession, the sash trailing. Wendell read it all the way through, including the back page, where he stopped at the census and nodded at the line for the bear as if the count were correct.

"Signed for, as always," he said.

Behind him, ORACLE had begun the appendix.