“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.