Soldier at the Door (14 page)

After the war the catapults were destroyed by King Querul, hoping that such weaponry would never again be needed. A couple of decades later some teachers in the northern villages, intrigued by the mathematical properties of the catapults, helped their students create small-scale devices to learn about angles.

Only Edge, Mountseen, M
oorland, Quake, and Scrub held Catapult Day, and the Army of Idumea never saw reason to be concerned with a village’s ability to throw an eggplant over one hundred paces.

Three years ago Mahrree was hit by an entire acorn squash when a catapult was prematurely released while she was measuring the distance of a thrown melon. No one took blame—or credit—for the launch. She had an enormous bruise on her thigh for weeks that caused her walk with a noticeable limp. She wore it as a badge of honor. 

Two years ago, at Perrin’s first Catapult Day, a few moons after their wedding and shortly after his excursion into the forest, she conspired to have him hit.

He had appeared at the competition astride a horse and looking very official. Since the abandoned fields were adjacent to the fort, he told Mahrree he was there as a goodwill gesture to the village, but she knew he was actually intrigued by the designs, and a bit envious of the fathers manning the catapults.

Despite the efforts of many children and even more adults, he successfully dodged each hastily launched item. By the end of the day the new objective was no longer to send a spent vegetable the farthest, but to find a way to hit the captain.

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 su
ccessful. 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 dra
wbacks 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 wi
ndow 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 fo
rest 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 e
xperiment 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 abs
olutely 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 shrugged. 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 ca
ptain 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?