Soldier at the Door (15 page)

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 pop
ulace 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, “El
ephants? 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!”

Poe was completely awestruck.

Mahrree continued, “They had these long noses that water could come out of, and ears taller than you, and it seemed like they could flap. Terryp wondered if maybe they could fly like an enormous insect. Maybe the people that lived there even flew away on the elephants.”

“That would help keep the world up, wouldn’t it?” Poe consi
dered. “Big flying elephants?”

“Maybe,” Mahrree said. “And those weren’t the only animals he saw.”

Poe’s eyes lit up even more, if that were possible. “What else?”

“He saw drawings of tall animals with long necks that could eat from the tops of trees.”

“Wow!” he breathed.

There were moments that Mahrree missed teaching. She missed watching a child’s imagination erupt. Oh, there was so much to tell him, and full school—
fool school
—had no idea how to do it.

But it really was easy. Since children naturally enjoy learning,
simply lay before them the world with all its mystery and wonder, and they’ll gobble it up. No need to force-feed it.

“There were horses that had stripes,” Mahrree continued, her own enthusiasm building when she considered how eagerly her own children would feast on these ideas in a few years, “and—”

“I remember, I remember!” Poe cried, jumping to his feet. “There were those hairy little things, with long tails that would swing from tree to tree! Like little fuzzy children!”

“Yes!” Mahrree grinned. She knew having them act out the a
nimals would help them remember. Poe had been a perfect mon-kee when he was six. He laughed, and he remembered.

“Now why don’t they teach us things like that at school,” Poe said, his grin fading, “instead of just making us remember boring things over and over?”

His question stung Mahrree. She didn’t know how to answer him, but he deserved a response. “We
did
teach those things, and you’re supposed to be learning them again, in greater detail. I’ll be sure to ask the parents if you can discuss Terryp,” she promised.

“Oh, you won’t have to worry about that,” Poe sat down again, carefully straightening his wool trousers. “My mother says the men in Idumea do all that now. Parents don’t have to bother. It’s better that way,” he added matter-of-factly.

Mahrree bit her lower lip, trying to make sense of why parents no longer decided what their children would learn, and how that was
better
.

Poe brightened. “Can I borrow the book of Terryp, I mean, all of the stuff he saw and wrote about?”

Mahrree always hated this part of the story.

She shook her head. “There’s no book of Terryp, besides his stories for children. That’s all he wrote in his later years.” She didn’t want to explain the rest, but she believed children deserved the truth, no matter how disgraceful.

“You see, shortly after he returned, all his maps, notes and papers were destroyed in a fire right after the Great War, along with many other records we considered important. Terryp was a very sad man for a very long time after that.”

Poe’s eyes narrowed and he stated gravely, “I bet that wasn’t an accident, that fire.”

Mahrree was charged by his insight. “Why do you think that?”

His face screwed up as he thought about his answer. “Because maybe what Terryp found would have changed a lot of stuff. Maybe people don’t like to change what they know, even if they know it’s wrong. Even if the new stuff is really amazing! Does that make sense?”

“Absolutely!” Mahrree said proudly. “Ah, Poe, I have great hope for you! Don’t let Full School destroy your ability to think and reason.”

Confused by her advice he frowned at her, blinked in confusion, then likely decided she was
simply rambling again.

“By the way, Poe—what color is the sky?”

To her delight, he looked at it first.

“Blue with long white clouds, Miss Mahrree. Oh, and bright white where the sun is! Why?”

He remembered to mention the sun, Mahrree thought, duly impressed. Rarely do people remember the sun as part of the sky.

But Poe did.

Voices from down the road caught his attention. “My friends are here!” he announced and stood up.

“Poe, when you’re done at the fort today, come by and I’ll let you borrow the stories. There are some good ones in there. Then we can talk about them some more.”

He nodded and waved good-bye.

Poe remembered the sun, Mahrree sighed. That boy could go a long way some day.

That evening Perrin came home accompanied by his short soldiers who were chatting excitedly. One of them was wearing Perrin’s cap which swallowed more than half his head. Poe ran up to the door to get the stories from Mahrree and bounded off down the darkening road. Perrin retrieved his cap from the forgetful boy, came to the door, and picked up his daughter.

“Looks like you have discovered a new recruiting technique,” Mahrree said as she watched the boys scamper off, “adopted from the Administrators. Win them
over when they’re nine, and wait a few years until they’re old enough to sign up. The Administrators will find you very clever, Captain.”

He shot her a glare before he smiled sadly. “They just sit on the fence watching the men. They should be rolling in the dirt instead. But I have to admit, when the soldiers see their young audience, they seem to sharpen up. All the way home those boys had so many que
stions. What do you do when a Guarder sneaks up on you? What if you don’t like dinner, does someone force you to eat it? Has anyone cut off an arm by accident with their sword?”

Perrin’s smile dimmed. “What they really need is someone to talk to. I thought something like this would happen, just like it did a few years ago when they first started Full School in Idumea. As soon as the parents saw the teachers did all the teaching, they thought they were no longer needed. After the first year lots of parents were wor
king all the time. Sure, businesses and farms started producing more. But what’s more important, goods or children? All day the boys have teachers drilling them. Children don’t need someone
to
talk at them, but
with
them. I’m sorry, Mahrree, but I don’t think teachers can talk to children as well as their parents can. And if the parents don’t talk, then . . .”