Soldier at the Door (27 page)

“Hmm, you cracked that faster than I did.”

“I’m in the army, remember? Sometimes we use ambiguity in messages that have the remote chance of falling into the wrong hands. Or be read by nosy privates. Or Administrators,” he smiled ruefully. “My father and I have been sending each other messages about ‘the weather’ for years. But we’ve never used ambiguous verbiage this ambitiously. Ugh. Now
I’m
starting to sound like them.”

“Apparently all historical evidence has already been ‘accepted’ and needs no more interpretation, and all scientific developments are ‘acknowledged’ and need no more theories.”

Perrin stared at the sentence again as if trying to understand a mooing horse. “But this only applies to the upper aged students, right?” His eyebrows furrowed. “Or . . . is the sky always going to be blue in Edge?”

Mahrree shrugged. “I really don’t know. Still have fifty-nine more pages to go,” she said gloomily.

Perrin cringed. “You really don’t have to do this. You’re not teaching this, and no one’s asked you to read it.”

She sat up taller. “If I don’t read it, who will? No parents have expressed interest, yet. At all!” Her eyes turned stony with determ
ination. “The poor director had a glazed look in his eyes when I asked what he thought of it. I hate to admit it, but he only seems like an overwhelmed and slightly clueless man. Not administrative at all. We might be able to work with him. He seemed quite grateful for my assistance.” She shook her head. “Perrin, if I don’t figure out what our children might have to eventually learn, who will?”

Perrin’s eyes softened as hers hardened. “That’s why I married you, isn’t it? Read it. Find out. We can ask Corporal Zenos to come by to watch the children and give you some uninterrupted time. You need to get to the bottom of this.”

Mahrree spent a couple of hours for the next several days staring at the baffling language, deciphering the ridiculously long sentences, and musing as to why nothing was plainly stated. Sometimes Jaytsy and Peto napped, other times Shem came by and took them for a walk so she could concentrate in silence. But sometimes it didn’t matter if she was undisturbed or not. The entire document was completely ludicrous.

So ludicrous that one afternoon she could no longer fight the urge anymore.

She wrote a third letter.

As per and in reference to the previously distributed documents detailing the declarations in educational developments—

She was sure someone among the skimmers might enjoy her attempt at writing like the Administrators. Their lives must be so dismal, so dull, so dreary.

—I am moved by concern and interest and a sense of duty to the children, offspring, and descendents of the world to express my thoughts and ideas about the aforementioned document.

Perhaps, she reasoned, if she
wrote
like them then someone might actually
read
it. Perhaps they simply couldn’t understand her previous letters, with her direct tone and manner of getting right to the point. They enjoyed repetition, redundancy, and the same thing said in different ways in order to make sure the reader got the message on at least one of the attempts to communicate the ideas so critical to express in very long sentences with many irrelevant and unnecessary additions.

Besides, after reading their writing, she couldn’t formulate a sentence that didn’t take up at least three lines of parchment.

I am compelled to suggest and propose that the guidelines detailing and delineating what children will be taught and instructed in Full School be written more concisely, precisely, and nicely.

It was as contagious as a stomach ache, and just as nauseating. She did feel better once it was all up and out, though.

-
--

Two men sat in a dark room of an unlit building.

“I see she got a copy of your ‘test,’” Brisack couldn’t help but snort. He tried to keep it in, but if he did he would have felt nausea
ted.

Mal was gripping the armrests of his chair before Brisack even finished reading it. “She’s
mocking
us!” the old man snarled.

“Not
us,
” Brisack pointed out. “But the Department of Instruction. Quite cleverly, too,” he grinned in appreciation. “
Almost
concisely, certainly
precisely
, and a bit
saucily
.” He bobbled his head, proud of his own construction.

Mal was not amused. “You can be replaced, you know.”

The doctor waved that out of the room. “Gadiman isn’t nearly as much fun as I am, and you know it.”

“How can you be so casual about this?!” Mal exploded. “Don’t you see? She’s
getting
it!”

Brisack leaned forward. “Wasn’t that the point? To see if she
did?
  But she still may give up, just like others have. The Department of Instruction hasn’t received any other letters besides this one,” he shook it. “Hers is the first, and maybe the only one. Everyone else has dropped out of your little test, Nicko. They concede they’re too stupid to understand. Great victory for the Administrator of Education!”

“I don’t appreciate your cynical tone, Doctor.”

Brisack scoffed. “What kind of tone did you expect? It
is
rubbish! Even you declared it so. And we’re pushing this forward anyway. Every school in the world is affected simply because
you
wanted to teach a lesson to an insignificant teacher in Edge.”

Mal firmed his grip on the armrests, as if they were real arms. “I’m not
that
narrow. You know full well this is for the best for everyone. As I said, we’re drowning many cats in one well.”

“Well, this cat is still swimming,” Brisack said, slapping the le
tter down on a side table. “And what will you do if she makes it to the top?”

“We’ll wait to see if she does,” Mal hissed. “In the meantime, form letter number one goes back to her. In four weeks.”

-
--

Three days after Mahrree sent off her third letter, Shem took the children for her but returned earlier than she expected. In one arm was a sleeping Peto, and in the wagon he was pulling, a snoring Jaytsy.

Mahrree went out to the front garden to help him bring them in.

“How do you
do
that?” Mahrree whispered enviously as she took Peto from him.

He chuckled quietly as he scooped up Jaytsy and followed Mahrree into the house. They put the dozing children in their be
drooms and met again in the gathering room.

“Well, Zenos?” she demanded. “It’s mead, isn’t it? You get my babies drunk, don’t you?”

He groaned. “My secret’s out. Who told you, the barmaid at the inn your mother works for? One of your former students, is she? She looked deep into my eyes and said, ‘This is our little secret.’ But as my father said once, never trust a cross-eyed girl.”

Mahrree snorted at his stoically solemn face that didn’t even twitch. “Seriously, how do you do it?”

“Well, I simply think very sobering thoughts, then I—”

“Not your face!” Mahrree laughed. “I mean, get the children to fall asleep!”

Corporal Zenos shrugged. “Just run them ragged, Mrs. Shin. Just like I do with the boys each week.”

“Well, so do I,” she grumbled, “but it never works.
I’m
the one always ready for a nap and they have more energy than ever. But Shem, thank you.”

“Anytime, ma’am. I really do enjoy playing with them. I’ll be on my way, then—”

“You don’t have to go already, do you?” Mahrree said. “I’ve hit a particularly difficult passage and I could really use a break. Care for pie?”

Shem didn’t mean to, but he licked his lips.

Mahrree pointed at his face. “I’ll take that as a yes! Sit down and relax a bit before you go back to the fort. I know you have the evening shift again.”

“I think I will,” he smiled as he pulled out a chair at the table. “Sometimes your children tire me out.”

“
Only
sometimes?” Mahrree grinned as she went to the kitchen. A few minutes later she came out with two plates of pie, and set the larger one before the corporal seated at the table. She sat down next to him as he thumbed through the thick document.

“May I borrow this when you’re done? Sometimes I have a hard time getting to sleep when I get off duty in the middle of the night.”

Mahrree scoffed. “Might as well. Puts me to sleep in the middle of the day.”

Shem took a big bite of pie and shook his head as he skimmed a page.

“Reads like the codes Poe told me he and the boys pass to each other during class. Usually about someone stinking like . . . well, never mind. This
is
odd,” he said, reading between bites. “If they mean, ‘All ages will learn to write coherently’, why don’t they write that coherently themselves?”

Mahrree leaned over to look at the passage he was referring to, and her mouth fell open. “How’d you figure that out so fast? That’s where I got stuck!”

Shem blushed. “Just . . . um . . . I don’t know,” he shrugged.

Mahrree looked at him hard. “Don’t dismiss yourself, Shem. You’re exceptionally bright. I see it in you all the time.”

He turned even redder and took another bite of pie.

Mahrree squinted at him. “Ever thought of going to Command School? You’d be an excellent officer. You could easily pass the e
ntrance exam, I’m sure.”

“Oh, no, no . . .”

“If it’s a question of money, we could help you find a sponsor, and Perrin and I would love to—”

Shem shook his head vigorously. “Thank you, ma’am, but
no thank you
. I’m not officer material. And I could never bear to live in Idumea!”

“You
are
officer material, Zenos. My husband even said so, and he’s never wrong. It’d be for only three years, Shem. Two, if you pass the advanced intelligence exam, which shouldn’t be a problem for you. Then you could come back here and serve with Captain Shin. I’m sure my father-in-law could—”

She didn’t expect him to become so distressed. “Please, Mrs. Shin—you’re very kind, but . . . that’s not what I can do.”

She pursed her lips in disappointment. “Because of your father?”

Now Shem squinted. “My father?”

“He wouldn’t care for it?”

He smiled faintly. “That’s part of it. He told me I could join the army as long as I never went to Idumea. He hates the city. Really, I’m flattered, but after my two years here are up, I think I’ll be done with the army.”

Mahrree scrunched up her face. “That means I lose my baby tender and my favorite soldier, doesn’t it?”

He chuckled. “Maybe not. Mrs. Shin, it’s all too far in the future for me to worry about right now.”

“Hmm,” Mahrree said, picking at her pie. “It’s only next year so
I’m
worried about it now.”

Shem smiled at her and cleaned off his plate. “Uh, did the ca
ptain really say that? About me?”

Mahrree nodded. “Last week. Said even the older soldiers r
espect and listen to you, that you always make the best decisions, and . . .” She hesitated, but just couldn’t keep back the juiciest part: “he confessed you nearly beat him when the two of you were sparring last week. Wrestling or something?”

Shem burst into a grin, in spite of himself. “I did? Really?!”

“But you didn’t hear that from me!” She giggled. “He said you really keep him on his toes.”

Shem sat back in his chair. “
No one
beats the captain! I don’t know how he does it, but he always seems to be half a step ahead of everyone else, anticipates the movement right before it happens.

“But you know,” his eyes got a faraway look, “I
thought
I nearly had him. I finally got him into a hold and was ready to throw him to the ground, when suddenly he made this quick twist and the next thing I knew I was flat on my back looking up into his smirk.” He grimaced at the memory.

Mahrree elbowed him gently. “He claims no one’s faster than him. I guess that’s true?”

Shem nodded. “It’s true, all right. Although it’s become my goal to best him in
something
some day.” He looked at her worriedly. “I mean that
respectfully
, ma’am! I don’t mean—”

Mahrree laughed. “I know a little bit about men and compet
ition, Shem. I think he’s made it his goal to never be bested by you! Perhaps you’ll have to stay in the army until you finally break him?”

Shem shook his head. “I don’t ever want to break him, ma’am. I just want to be as good
as him, that’s all. He’s an unusual and remarkable man.”