Soldier at the Door (Forest at the Edge)
Page 52
Jaytsy and Peto were now glaring at each other, with the sweet fury only toddlers possessed, and clutched their nibbled fruit in defiance of the other. At any moment now Jaytsy would declare, “Mine!” and Peto would yell, “No!”
Mr. Hegek said, as cheerfully as he could, “How old’s your youngest—the boy?”
“A year and a half.”
He sighed. “So . . . another four to five years, right? Until I can hope you’ll consider my offer and come back to teach? Once they’re both in school themselves?”
Mahrree could only groan softly before looking into Mr. Hegek’s eyes. She was reminded of a sad, damp mouse begging her to take the last of his grain.
“How about we discuss this in four years?” was all she could say. She wasn’t about to tell him she hoped a great many things would change in four years.
Such as the Administrator over Education realizing all of this was a ridiculous idea, or the system drawing too much taxes, or a cavern opening up to swallow all of Idumea . . .
Mr. Hegek chanced a small smile. “I suppose I’ll have to be content with that.”
Mahrree smiled back. “Well, I imagine you must have a great deal of work to do,” she hinted, hoping to leave the topic of schooling, her, and her children far, far away—
“Actually, I’m awaiting a cart from Idumea. Rather important shipment,” he said uneasily.
Mahrree had intended to walk away to supervise her students, but Hegek’s words—and his tone—intrigued her. “Oh, really? What is it?”
Mr. Hegek squinted down the road. “Ah, looks like it’s here!” His voice tried to be enthusiastic, but his eyes looked pained.
Mahrree was intensely curious as a horse-and-cart with a driver pulled up and stopped in front of the shack.
“You Mr. Hegek?” the driver called.
Under his breath the director murmured, “Are you Mr. Hegek. My goodness, the language we use—Yes,” he said loudly while Mahrree chortled in approval. “Is it a lot?”
The driver scoffed. “—’Slot, he wonders. ‘Spect I unload, he wonders next,” the driver complained as he climbed down from his perch.
Hegek scowled at Mahrree. “Should we give him a lesson in diction before we let him leave?” he whispered. “You don’t ‘spect’ the boys can hear him, do you? He could set us back moons in education.”
Mahrree just laughed as the director walked over to the cart to sign whatever form the driver was waving around.
No, Mahrree thought again, there’s no way I can tell him what I really think about all of this. Just listen to him—he actually made a joke. Outside of Perrin and me, I doubt he has any friends in Edge.
Then she had an idea, and it made her grin.
Mr. Hegek walked back with a crate in his arms, trying to appear as if he were strong enough to carry it, despite the wobbling of his knees. Behind him the driver was carrying two more crates, rather easier. Mr. Hegek set his crate down on the ground in front of her, and stood up looking sheepish.
“It’s actually a bit more than I anticipated. I’ll need to make some space in my office, first. Just set them down by the door,” he instructed the driver. “And the next two crates, by those two.”
“Five crates?” Mahrree said, and gasped quietly as Hegek pried off the lid of the first crate. “All paper?! There’ll be no more forests above Scrub at this rate.”
“Actually,” Hegek said as he lifted a stack from the crate, “they’ve been reusing the paper from the Administrative offices. They can shred it, pulp it again, and make new paper from old.”
“That’s amazing!” Genuinely impressed that Idumea did something right, she fingered the paper which was a bit murky in color, but still quite functional.
“Yes,” Hegek said enthusiastically, “someone complained to Idumea, and they agreed that the last thing we want is to decimate the forests.”
That struck Mahrree oddly. Wouldn’t decimating the forests—and the Guarder threat—be exactly what Idumea would want?
But before she could think more on that, the words stamped onto the paper caught her eye. “May I see this?”
“Uh,” Hegek began, then slowly handed the bundled pages over to her. “Since I hope you’ll someday be a teacher for me . . . I suppose you should see this now.”
Mahrree thumbed through the pages. “Lesson plans?”
“Uh, yes,” the director said hesitantly. “It seems that while we did well enough for the Administrators to give us new schools—”
“—Schools that we will pay for, in higher taxes no doubt,” she interjected as she continued to scan the pages.
“Yes, heh-heh, likely that,” he responded uncertainly with the fakest laugh Mahrree had ever heard, “while we did well, we didn’t do quite so well as, say . . . Pools.”
Mahrree glanced up. “Why do we care about Pools?”
Hegek coughed politely. “Heh-heh, why indeed? Well, because our averages—”
“We shouldn’t care about averages,” Mahrree said sourly as she stopped scanning and focused on a bolded word. “We should care about individuals!”
He sighed. “That’s why I need you,” he whispered so intently that Mahrree’s eyebrows went up, as well as her gaze.
The director cleared his throat and looked down at the pages. “Well, you see, Pools lead the averag—scores in testing, so the Administrators decided Pools knows the best way to teach.”
Mahrree squinted hard. “The best way to teach is to teach individuals, not crowds!”
“I know that as well as you do,” he whispered back and looked around nervously, the same way Perrin sometimes did.
Must be a condition of having lived in Idumea, Mahrree considered. He’s likely worried that around the corner may be a man in a red jacket listening in.
“But to help our numbers improve, a group of teachers at Pools has sent each school . . . help.” Then he held his breath.
Mahrree knew why, as soon as she read the words on the paper. She had purposely looked for the heading “Estimates.” She couldn’t help but read out loud what followed.
“‘Good morning [or afternoon, as the case may be] students. Please take your seats. Today, students, the objective of our lesson is to understand, manipulate, and use estimates.’”
Mr. Hegek was cringing when Mahrree looked up, her eyes smoldering in fury. “This must be a joke. Please tell me this is a joke.”
Mr. Hegek swallowed hard. “I never once remember laughing in Idumea.”
“They’ve SCRIPTED what each teacher is supposed to say?!” Mahrree exploded.
Her toddlers dropped their apples, surprised at their mother’s volume.
Several of her students did as well.
“Every grade, every subject, every minute,” Hegek droned gloomily.
“I’m still TIMING you!” she bellowed at the boys who were staring at them, and they obediently continued picking.
Mahrree’s toddlers tried to steal each other’s apples, and succeeded.
Mr. Hegek cleared his throat and attempted to carefully take the paper out of her clenched fist. “I’m sorry. Perhaps this isn’t the best—”
“Isn’t it bad enough that we can’t decide what to teach our children—” Mahrree didn’t relinquish her control of the pages crinkling in her grip, but snarled quietly, “—now we can’t even decide how?!”
Quietly, but not calmly.
Mr. Hegek stopped trying to retrieve his documents and instead rubbed his chin anxiously as Mahrree crushed the script as if it were the Administrator of Education’s writing hand.
“They’re going to dictate everything from Idumea?!” she screeched in a whisper. “Can you imagine someone standing in front of those boys and stating, in all seriousness, ‘Today our objective will be the discussion of estimates.’ Outrageous! They don’t even need teachers with this nonsense! Only script readers! Is that what they’re trying to do? Eliminate all possibility of adults having intelligent discussions with children!?”
“This wasn’t my idea, Mrs. Shin,” he said in a low, dejected voice. “But if I don’t implement it, I’ll be reported.”
A light went on in Mahrree’s head, and to Mr. Hegek’s surprise she suddenly began to smile. She shoved the vile script into his hands.
“Think about it, Mr. Hegek: who will report you, and to whom?”
Hegek gulped, his eyes darted around, and then the light came on for him as well. “I don’t know who would bother to report me, but . . .” A smile forced its way on to his mouth. “I would be reported to Major Shin!”
Mahrree burst into a grin. “Take these papers, Mr. Hegek, and the other crates, and hide them as far away as possible. I’m thinking the fort might be a safe place. My husband may have an idea or two of where to heave them,” she winked and Hegek beamed. “I’ll do my best to get these boys’ scores even higher than last time—or maybe we should let the scores drop, so the scripts seem to have caused more problems than they cured? In any case, Idumea will never know what we did or didn’t do. They really don’t care about what happens in Edge anyway.”
Now Hegek’s chin was trembling, but happily. “See why I need you, Mrs. Shin?!”
Mahrree’s grin remained as she remembered her idea from earlier, before the arrival of the wretched papers.
“Mr. Hegek, there’s only so much I can do with this small group of boys. There are other after school care programs like mine, and if you spoke with their instructors, I’m sure they’d be willing to help us avoid this ‘help’ as well. In fact, may I recommend that you begin first with my friend who’s working with the girls near here?”
Hegek nodded. “Mrs. Alrick, was it? A few houses down from Mrs. Peto’s?”
Mahrree shook her head. “That’s Miss Alrick—”
Early thirties, she recited in her head, pleasantly plump, sweet smile, long red hair, used to be a teacher, patient demeanor, loves children, but far too shy around men for her own good—
Hegek began to grow pale.
For a moment Mahrree wondered if this was such a good idea after all. It could be a very, very quiet meeting.
Unless . . .
Unless Hycymum was still there. They couldn’t find any women young enough for Grandpy Neeks, but maybe . . .
“Remember, they’re making cake today,” Mahrree added. “I think you should inspect what she’s doing and maybe . . . sample a piece? Show the girls—and Miss Alrick—that you recognize their efforts?”
Hegek cleared his throat. “I know I’ve already said this,” he began in a low voice, “but I really—”
“Yes,” Mahrree cut him off before the poor man became too emotional, “I know. But actually what you really need is to try my mother’s recipe. At Miss Alrick’s. Their attempts should be cooling right now.”
Go before my mother leaves, Mahrree added in her head. These two are going to need all the mindless chatter—and purposeful meddling—they can get.
Hegek gulped again, smiled apprehensively, and headed to the road, forgetting about the crates by his shack.
Major Shin had a couple of soldiers pick them up later that evening—since they contained such valuable information that, if in the wrong hands, could prove to be . . . well, not good—and put the crates in the back of the armory where broken weapons were stored and usually forgotten.
---
By the time Mahrree crawled into bed that night it was very late. The suggestion from her father bounced around in her mind frequently that day, and she wondered how—or even if—she should explain it to Perrin. But how does one tell one’s husband that, according to a quiet idea placed in her mind, they might someday be on the wrong side? She wasn’t even sure she fully understood it. By the time it was bedtime, she had shelved the thought far back into her mind, unsure of what to do with it. Besides, she needed to concentrate on more important matters that evening, because first she was on a spider hunt.
Poor Jaytsy had this problem at least twice a week. Ever since she saw a spider crawling on her pillow over a season ago, she frequently woke up screaming about “Biders!” crawling on her. Mahrree was ready to go to bed an hour ago, but the panicked squeal of two-year-old Jaytsy told her she was hunting “biders” first. She spent half an hour with a candle showing Jaytsy every corner and edge of her bedroom, assuring her that there were no spiders.
That wasn’t entirely true. Mahrree did see two spiders on the floor which she subtly squashed under her feet before her worried little girl saw them. Mahrree wished she was wearing her shoes. Or at least her stockings. But that was yet another example, she decided, of the depths of a mother’s love.
And yes, occasionally there were times one needed to lie to let someone believe they were safe.
Not that she’d confess that to her husband, already asleep upstairs.
She finally appeased Jaytsy and she drifted off to sleep while Mahrree told her the simplified stories of Terryp that her father Cephas always told her. Mahrree gave each one a happy ending. What was the point of the story otherwise? There were enough worries and darkness in the world that they didn’t need any more.
When she finally got into bed, after washing her feet, she cuddled up to Perrin and breathed in the comfort of his closeness.
“My wife, the mighty Bider Hunter!” he rumbled quietly. “I think I’ll be sad when Jaytsy finally figures out how to make an ‘s’ sound. But maybe not. The other day in the command tower I happened to say, ‘Ooh, I better go get that bider!’ and promptly smacked the thing with a stack of parchment and as much pride as if it were a Guarder. The two sergeants on duty just stared at me.”
Mahrree chuckled. “Didn’t know you were still awake, or I would have had you come help.”
“I shooed away the spiders last time, remember?”
“I think that was two times ago.”
“But you still love me anyway?”
She giggled and was about to kiss him when an urgent pounding came at the door.
“Oh no,” she whimpered as he leapt out of bed and into his trousers and boots in record time. Perrin ran down the stairs simultaneously buttoning his jacket and fastening his sword while Mahrree looked out the back window. There didn’t seem to be any dark blobs of horses or soldiers waiting.
She went to the landing at the top of the stairs to listen as Perrin opened the front door. Soldiers always came to the back porch door, so something else was up. She hoped the loud knocking didn’t disturb their sleeping toddlers. She strained to hear who was at the door, but Perrin’s low voice was too quiet for her to pick up any conversation. A minute later he closed the door, paused to hear if Jaytsy and Peto were still asleep, then plodded back up the stairs, complaining under his breath.
Mahrree sighed in relief. “So you’re still mine tonight?”
He chuckled. “The forest is still quiet, the children are quiet, the spiders are quiet, so yes: I’m all yours.”
“Good! Because if whoever it was at the door woke up Jaytsy, I would have made him come in and search for spiders.”
“That would have resulted in even more nightmares for our little Jayts. It was a stupid Administrators’ messenger.”
Mahrree cringed. Whenever the little men in red uniforms arrived, it was with yet another new way that something would be altered in the name of progress. “Now I’m going to have nightmares. What was so important that he came so late?”
“It wasn’t that important!” he said with irritation. “Just delivered news to the fort that there was going to be another tax levied beginning in the next season. Expenses of the world, and all.”
“Oh, I think I know what those expenses are.”
They went back to their room, both grumbling.
“And for that he came so late?” Mahrree complained as she got back into
bed and Perrin replaced his sword and belt carefully by the bedroom door.
Perrin scoffed as he undid his jacket. “He was afraid there might be violence that came with the news. He wanted me to be prepared for tomorrow evening’s announcement. Said we should emphasize to the village that much of the tax would be going to improving the world for the next generation. It’s all in the wording, you see—”
Mahrree imagined he was rolling his eyes at the advice.
“—if we really want the next generation to succeed, we need to be willing to pay for it. After all, the best education is also the most expensive education. I was ready to punch his little smarmy face myself. If he really wants to avoid violence, then he shouldn’t bother me when my wife is about to kiss me.”
He set his trousers exactly at the right angle on the seat of the desk’s chair, to be snatched and put on in another moment’s notice.
Mahrree smiled. “Remember, you should never kill the messenger. Idumea might notice us. So the best education is the most expensive? The best education happens when someone really wants to learn and someone is eager to share what they know! No amount of money will change that.”
“So Full School is actually Fool School,” Perrin muttered, placing his boots in precisely the landing-into-them position.
“Ooh, be careful, Major Shin!” she smirked.
“I left the major at the fort,” he said draping his jacket exactly over the back of the chair and getting into bed. “I can complain about whatever I want in the privacy of my own bedroom. I promise you, the money’s not going only for education or for teachers or buildings or books, but also to the best buddies of the Administrators who’ve been put in place to oversee every new little program and regulation they can come up with. I didn’t tell you yet what my father said before they left. The Administrator of Law was hiring more than one hundred new law assessors. And they’ll be helping with army law as well. Nice, huh?”
Mahrree’s mouth dropped open in shock. “Why that’s . . . that’s probably one man to every law! Unless,” her voice quieted, “there are going to be more laws.”