“Per stirpes,” Sophia said, and then spelled it out. “Look it up. Read it and weep. Those of you who finish early may wish to refamiliarize yourselves with the storyline of Bleak House.”

“Per stirpes” turned out to be a term of art, used in writing wills. It basically meant a scheme for dividing up an estate in which the money was split evenly among siblings (or, at any rate, people in the same generation of a family).

“Got the idea?” Sophia said, after she’d given them some time—a stretch of Iowa five miles or so wide—to digest it. “Richard’s will basically said, ‘Create two things: a foundation and a trust. Put some of my money into the foundation and use it to do cool stuff. Put the rest of it into the trust, which is there to provide a safety net for my extended family—so I don’t have any grandnephews who can’t afford to go to college or get medical care or whatever. Set up the trust so that the money is divided per stirpes among my generation.’ He signed that will and then forgot about it. So far, so good. But then he proceeded to get much richer than he had ever imagined. The amount of money that was destined to be dumped into the trust became way bigger than was conceivably needed just for a safety net. It started to look like a ticket to easy street for everyone who could call Richard a brother, an uncle, or a great-uncle.”

“The amount wasn’t capped?” Phil asked.

“Should have been. But wasn’t. One of many defects in the language.”

“And I’m guessing he never got around to updating it?” Anne-Solenne asked.

“Wasn’t in his nature.”

“So, were people, like, just licking their chops and waiting for him to kick the bucket?”

“No, actually. Because he should have lived decades longer than he did. And anyway no one knew what was in the will until Corvus read it in the hospital.”

“Corvallis Kawasaki,” Phil explained. He’d learned that much, at least, from being Sophia’s boyfriend.

“Seriously?” Julian asked. “Corvallis Kawasaki is, like, your family retainer!?”

Sophia met his eyes and thought he was looking at her in a new light. He raised both hands, palms up, and made a salaam gesture, or as best he could while belted in. Sophia took a moment wryly to imagine how C-plus would react to hearing himself described as a retainer.

“Okay,” Phil said, impatient for drama. “So C-plus reads the will and does the math. Word gets out that this trust is going to be set up.”