Soldier at the Door(41)

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 populace 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, “Elephants? 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!”