Chapter 19: Quiet Hours in the Palace


  One day while Emily and Amelia are reading in the palace library, Amelia becomes angry and hurls a book across the room.  The book in question is Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, written by Robert Chambers in 1844.
     Chambers, who wrote his theories of evolution several years before Darwin, suggested that frogs, which live on land, were superior to amphibious creatures that still lived in the sea.  That would mean that mermaids were inferior to frogs. 
     Emily urges Amelia not to get upset, because no one really takes evolution seriously anyway.
     The conversation turns to hopes for college.  Emily hints that she may pay her tuition by entering a mediocrity contest, which is reserved for women contestants.
 
   There are several categories in the mediocrity contest. 
     In one category, the contestant must be generically pretty but not beautiful.  If she bears any characteristic resembling beauty, it must be hidden by layers of makeup.
     The contestant must also have a body so skinny that she doesn't appear suitable for physical work or bearing children.  Wide birthing hips or strong arms and legs would get her a low score.
     In another category, she must display technical proficiency on a musical instrument without showing any real talent.  Real talent is alway controversial.
     In the final category, she must display glibness and insincerity in answering a question on a subject on which she knows little or nothing.
     The judges in mediocrity contests are usually people who are trying to sell cosmetics or expensive clothing.  Sometimes the panel of judges includes a washed-up actor.
     Amelia hopes to apply for an athletic scholarship as a swimmer.  Emily says that Amelia would probably be rejected as "unfair competition."

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