Soldier at the Door (Forest at the Edge)

by Mercer, Trish

  Last year he showed up halfway through the competition on a horse and brandished his sword to fight off attacking zucchini.

  Mahrree didn’t say it to Poe, who was already disappointed, that she couldn’t imagine her children not experiencing Catapult Day. Maybe something could still be done . . .

  “So they’re not going to have Catapult Day because a girl was crying?” Mahrree tried to clarify. She noticed Jaytsy experimentally taste a bug. Maybe she’d feel more protective for her children and fret about every little thing as they got older.

  But wasn’t life an adventure that should be experienced in every way not certain to end in death?

  Jaytsy spat out the bug and next tried a leaf.

  “We don’t want anyone to get hurt,” Poe explained in the same tone it was probably told to him. “Besides, it takes a lot of time to plan and get stuff together, parents have to help out a lot and that’s a problem because lots are working, so it’s just not that important.”

  Helping their children not important? “Who decided this?”

  “Some old man. From the department.”

  “You mean the Department of Instruction? In Idumea?” Mahrree wondered why their arm reached so far north.

  “He said that since we weren’t going to be tested on it, it wasn’t something we had to do. They might bring it back next year, though.”

  “So if you’re not to be tested on it, you do not have to learn about it. I understand,” Mahrree lied.

  The testing Captain Shin had warned Edge about at their first debate had been, according to the Administrators, such a success in its first year that all children throughout the world were to have the ‘opportunity’ to take it as well.

  Mahrree still didn’t understand how the test was deemed successful. Did it improve the students’ learning? Not surprisingly, there hadn’t been any explanation on the notice boards, but a vague and enthusiastic announcement that, Full school and testing were successful!!! And it was spreading to all villages!!! And all children could participate!!!

  And Mahrree wondered if they had asked a teenage girl to write the notice because she’d never seen so many exclamation points used before!!!

  But nearly everyone else seemed to believe that full school was the way to go. It was as if parents were so willing to see the Administrators succeed and reverse the oppression of the kings that they were also willing to embrace every new idea they proposed, with no question or discussion. Few parents came to Mahrree wanting her opinion. The ones who did wanted assurance from her that this new educational program was only temporary. But she and Perrin knew no more about it than anyone else.

  Mahrree wondered about such unquestioning unity of the new ideas. No one, as far as she knew, had debated the testing or full school. If something is a good idea, debating its merits and drawbacks would only reveal its integrity. But if debate is avoided or even discouraged, as was the case with Full School—the Administrators told all villagers they didn’t need to ‘waste their time’ discussing their decision but only accept it, for now—might it be that even the Administrators were unsure of its conclusion?

  Or might it be that the conclusion drawn by the parents would be not so favorable?

  Even Perrin had been surprised with the swiftness which Full School and testing had come to Edge. The last he had heard was that it was at least five years away. He confided to Mahrree that he couldn’t imagine the Administrators loosening their hold in education once they held it all. If all the parents agreed to letting the Administrators ‘help’ in the decisions, the Administrators could eventually have more influence over the rising generation than their parents.

  It was an excellent tactic for establishing loyalty to the growing government. Win over the children when they’re most teachable. Mahrree noted with satisfaction that Perrin was disturbed by this strategy, rather than impressed with it.

  “There they are!” Poe’s call brought Mahrree out of her thoughts. He brightened up as he saw two of his friends making their way down the road. One of them had a silky shirt like his, in purple. He looked like a violet looking for trouble.

  “You’re going to just sit properly on the fence, right?” Mahrree reminded him. “Come back tomorrow, Poe, and tell me more of what’s going on in our edge of the world.”

  He smiled. “I will Miss Mahrree. You’re good to talk to.” He patted sleeping Peto on the head and took another proffered weed from Jaytsy before hopping over the fence.

  Later that evening at dinner time, Mahrree looked out the window to see Perrin walking down the road with Qualipoe and his friends. They each had a long stick and were practicing parrying and thrusting as they made their way.

  In front of the house Perrin stopped to give them additional pointers. The boys saluted sloppily and ran home. Mahrree smiled to think they found something they could do without getting dirty.

  Perrin came in the house and immediately swept up his little girl. “Did you see those boys’ shirts?” he asked as he kissed Jaytsy on the cheek. “I haven’t seen something that fancy since I left Idumea. Poor boys looked miserable.”

  “But handsome,” Mahrree countered.

  Perrin huffed. “What little boy wants to be handsome?”

  “That’s not the worst of it,” and she told him about Catapult Day.

  Perrin was crestfallen. “I was going to bring Private Zenos this year. I told him all about it when we were mapping some of the forest edge. He’s a bit of a food thrower himself, from what I’ve seen in the mess hall. What are they going to do with all that rotten vegetation? It was kind of fun to see what would grow in that field the next year.”

  “You’re missing the important parts—these children can’t experiment because it takes time and isn’t going to be tested on anyway, and someone might get hurt!”

  Perrin stopped and considered that. “I thought getting hurt was part of being a child. At least, part of being a boy.”

  Mahrree paused. “Getting hurt intentionally is not part of it,” and noticed that the look his face suggested otherwise.

  The next afternoon she was ready when Qualipoe bounded by again. He grinned as he saw her and readily sat on the porch stairs.

  After wiping them clean first, of course.

  “Tell me the news, Poe,” Mahrree greeted him.

  “Nothing too exciting,” Poe reported. “We’re getting ready for tests from Idumea and it’s really dumb.”

  “What kind of tests?”

  “Tests to see if Full School is succeeding.”

  “I guess that sounds important,” Mahrree nodded. “But you’ve only been doing it for a full season now.”

  “It sounds boooring!” Poe said loudly, startling the baby. “Sorry,” he whispered.

  “It’s all right,” Mahrree assured him as Peto fell back to sleep. “Why is it boring?”

  “Because all we do all day is write down things. And what things mean. We never talk about things like we did when you were our teacher. We just have to remember the things we write down. Boring.”

  “But when you have the discussions, you certainly—”

  His head, slowly shaking, stopped her.

  “You don’t have discussions? What about debating?”

  He kept shaking his head sadly.

  “Well, surely you must still act out—”

  His head didn’t stop moving.

  “No more play acting? Building models! You must be still building models of everythin—”

  Her voice trailed off when she saw that Poe’s eyes were absolutely dismal.

  “Drawing?”

  Poe slumped down.

  “Singing?” Not that it was her favorite, but many of the children liked songs. And whatever was good for the children—

  Poe didn’t even look at her.

  “Experiments?” Oh, they had to still do experiments, with so many hours in school—

  Poe sighed heavily. “They made us watch how a worm moves.”

  Mahrree shrugge
d. Not the most creative project, but “At least when you went outside.”

  “They didn’t let us outside,” he droned drearily. “They brought the worm—only one worm—into the class and set it on a desk. Then it wouldn’t move.”

  Mahrree frowned.

  A small smile dared to grace Poe’s face. “Then a teacher started poking it to make it move. He poked it so much, it broke in two!”

  Mahrree cringed. That should have at least provoked a few laughs, she thought. And when children laughed, they remembered the lesson. “Well, I suppose that was interesting—”

  “It wasn’t! Right after that they sent us back to our desks to write about what should have happened!” Poe scoffed in disgust. “That stinking blob you grew a long time ago moved a lot more than that stupid worm.”

  Mahrree smiled. “You still remember the blob?”

  “I still have bad dreams about that!” He grinned and shivered with delight. “I bet that blob could have eaten that worm!”

  They both laughed, happy for the opportunity.

  Then, just as quickly, Poe’s face fell again. “It’s nothing like that anymore, like when you were my teacher. It’s all day long now. They don’t even let us outside. Too distracting, or something like that. We even eat midday meal at our desks.”

  Mahrree was almost in tears for the poor boy. How can children learn by merely sitting and copying words?! No, that couldn’t be all of it. “So you sit and . . .”

  “Copy what they write down,” he said drearily.

  Well, maybe that was all of it.

  “What about questions?” she wondered.

  “Get this—they ask US the questions!”

  “What?!”

  “Yeah, like they can’t remember what they just told us. I asked a question once, and the teacher said not to worry about it, because it wasn’t on the test! And Miss Mahrree, it’s so boring that I stopped thinking of questions to ask my teachers. There are four now, too.”

  “What are their names?” She hadn’t talked to the other teachers since Jaytsy was born, but she could track them down and see if something couldn’t be improved.

  Poe didn’t even bother to give that a complete shrug, but simply a little shoulder shake. “Don’t know. Some people from Idumea. Specially trained to start full school.”

  Mahrree rolled her eyes. “Oh, specially trained, are they?” The hair on the back of her neck rose up. Anyone from Idumea, and specially trained, deserved a great deal of scrutiny and cynicism.

  Poe looked at her worriedly. He must have heard the sarcasm in her voice, but didn’t know what it meant. Something like nervous loyalty hovered in his eyes. “Captain Shin was specially trained in Idumea too, wasn’t he?”

  She had to smile at that. “Yes he was, Poe. Thank you for reminding me. Captain Shin was trained by other people, though, and you can certainly trust him.”

  Poe smiled, visibly pleased that the respect he felt for the captain could grow into full blown hero worship.

  But Mahrree’s shoulders sagged at what Poe had said about his school. The nameless teachers had the children all day long, and they didn’t move or talk or build or . . . or do anything?! The children didn’t have any questions? Since when do children not have questions?! What did those four teachers do all day with the children? Just lecture to them?

  How dreadful.

  “You know, I have to agree that full school sounds boring,” Mahrree said. “But I think I have a solution for you. You need something interesting to read.” When he pulled a face as if he had smelled Jaytsy’s changing cloths, she nudged him with her elbow. “No, really, I was pulling out some of my favorite stories from when I was your age, for Jaytsy, and I have a few you’d enjoy.”

  Poe looked at Jaytsy. She was putting her finger in her mouth, then drawing in the dirt with it. “What will she do with stories, lick them?”

  “True, she’s a little young still, but you aren’t. I have one you’ll like, with all kinds of theories about the world, how it moves in the sky, what keeps it from falling.”

  “We already talk about that in school. Where the world came from? It was like a big explosion,” he said flatly. “Stars, moons, sun. Boom—all that. Had to memorize it. Boring.”

  Mahrree thought about his brief explanation. She hadn’t heard that one before. “Interesting . . . and what were the other stories they told you?”

  Poe frowned. “That’s the only one. The only right one.”

  “The only right one?!” Mahrree exclaimed, almost forgetting about her sleeping baby.

  The nine-year-old looked at her apologetically, as if any of this could possibly be his fault. “It’s so that we know what the right answer is. For the test.”

  Mahrree scoffed loudly, and amazingly her son slept through it. “Who decides what story is the right one?!” she demanded of the world in general. “What professor or administrator has the nerve to declare how things really are?! What’s the point of having a populace that thinks exactly like everyone else? They really want us to be as dull and non-thinking as mules?”

  But only a little boy with a worried expression on his face was there, his lip curling in dread that she was actually expecting him to answer that. She’d asked him many difficult questions in the past, but this?

  “Uhh . . .”

  “Sorry, Poe,” she said with a weak smile. “Don’t mind me. I’m just an old lady, rambling.”

  “Whew,” he sighed in relief and nodded in agreement.

  Mahrree chuckled to herself. Nine-year-olds were agonizingly honest. “Did they at least teach about the version in The Writings?”

  Poe pondered for a moment—this was something he could answer—then shook his head.

  “I can’t believe they didn’t teach all the stories,” Mahrree grumbled under her breath. “Supposed to let you draw your own conclusions—”

  “What kind of stories?” Poe interrupted her cautiously.

  “Oh you remember,” she told him and hoped that he did, “like the one about how a large man holds the world on his back, or—”

  “Wait, wait. No man really holds the world on his back, Miss Mahrree.”

  “Well, of course not. It’s only a story, see? It’s something to make you think of different possibilities. Like the theory that the world is dragged by large a elephant, bear, turtle or squirrel, depending on the time of year.”

  Poe looked at her as if she was an idiot. “Now that’s just silly.” But he couldn’t help himself. “Squirrels? How big?”

  Mahrree smiled sadly. “You really don’t remember this? Well, it was three years ago.” And he was only six then, she thought dejectedly, so it’s not unexpected that he forgets if he’s not reminded—

  “Wait, Miss Mahrree,” Poe interrupted her brooding, “Elephants? I seem to remember something about elephants.”

  Mahrree smiled with tentative hope. “Those were some of the beasts that are mythological.”

  When Poe’s face indicated he was lost in the syllables of that word, Mahrree clarified.

  “Pretend. But we’re really not sure. You see, Terryp, the man who wrote the stories of how the world moves, wasn’t just an old story teller. He was a historian. We talked a little about him in school.”

  Disappointingly, Poe’s face still didn’t register any memory, so Mahrree backtracked.

  “A long time ago, over one hundred twenty years now when our land was becoming too crowded during the Great War, we sent scouts to the west looking for new places to live. Terryp went with them. He was a historian and went as their recorder. After weeks of traveling they came upon the Ruins: big ancient stone buildings, crumbling and falling apart. But many of them still stood seven and eight levels high! Terryp was fascinated by the carvings on the great stones. What he found was astonishing—representations of things none of us have ever seen! He wrote down every character in their writing, and traced every strange beast and shape. The scouts continued to search the surrounding areas, but Terryp refused
to join them. He wouldn’t leave the ruins. There was so much he didn’t know and desperately wanted to study. So the scouts would go out during the day and return to their camp at night to find he was still writing. He wrote so much he even ran out of paper and started taking notes on his clothing and the clothing of the scouts!”

  Poe’s eyes were enormous.

  “I bet the scouts didn’t like him writing on them,” he said soberly. “Their mothers would get very angry.”

  Mahrree nodded and suppressed a smile. “You’re right, they did not like it. They thought he was losing his mind. He wouldn’t sleep, he wouldn’t eat. He would merely mumble as he ran from stone to stone. Sometimes he would cry out and jump up and down in excitement!”

  “Like I do on the last day of school!”

  Mahrree was momentarily diverted by that comment, but then decided she’d too feel that way if she was forced into full school. “Well, all right, I suppose. But Terryp felt such a need to understand what he saw, and he felt he couldn’t waste a moment. When he began to write on his flesh in desperation for a way to record all he saw, the scouts were convinced something evil was in that place making him crazed. They decided that since he was the only one among the ruins all day long, only his mind was affected. I’m sorry to say they hit him over the head and dragged him away from the ruins. By the time he woke up, he was two days’ ride from the ruins and in extremely poor health. He nearly died from being so tired and hungry.”

  “He nearly died from trying to write down what he saw?” Poe asked in astonishment.

  “He nearly died from trying to understand what he thought might be new truth,” she clarified. “Something he thought could benefit everyone. People have given up their lives for far less important things than that.”

  Poe was silent for a moment. “So Terryp saw elephants?”

  “He saw carvings of them, on the ruins. And he wondered, why would there be carvings of something pretend? We’ve always had stories of elephants and other fantastic beasts, but here were actual pictures made by someone who may have seen them. Terryp saw depictions that showed twenty people could sit on top of one elephant!”