Soldier at the Door(59)
“That’s right! The first king! Querul wanted to make sure everyone learned the same things, so he instituted teachers in the villages to help work with the parents. Ohhh,” she said, the beginnings of an idea formulating. “Ohhh, yes. Yes, it could be done! Perrin! The schools are a holdover from the period of the kings. We could do what was done before, since the beginning. We could approach the Administrators and, and, and . . . petition to not follow an old edict of the kings, but teach our children ourselves! Oh Perrin, you’re smart!”
“Mahrree,” he started cautiously, “you make an excellent point, but I’m not sure the Administrators would see school as an ‘antiquated holdover’.”
“But couldn’t we ask? What would be the harm in asking?”
Perrin thought for a moment. “I can see the harm in asking about other things, but teaching? We’d be easing the burden on their school system, as long as our children are successful and still later pay taxes . . .”
“I’ll even write the petition!” Mahrree said, full of energy. “Let’s keep your name out of it. I’ll sign it alone, as a teacher asking for this option if a child is frequently ill or immature or slow or something. If we could get permission for one child, then we could maybe later get it for our own. Let me do this, please!”
Perrin thought again.
“I really can’t think of a reason why we shouldn’t try,” he responded.
But somewhere in the back of his head a tiny part of his mind flinched as he remembered the words, Most dangerous woman in the world.
---
Late that afternoon Mahrree wrote a carefully worded and logical letter. Several wheels had been turning in her mind for the past few moons, and they came all together in the message she didn’t show to her husband before she sealed it. She didn’t want him to feel any responsibility, nor did she want to feel any of his influence. Once the children were down for a nap, she brought it herself to the messengers’ office north of the markets and walked home feeling rather satisfied.
But before any of that, she interrogated Shem extensively about what her babies did every minute while she was gone. She couldn’t decide if she was happy or disappointed that the three of them seemed to have had a wonderful time. Peto even began to cry when Perrin took him from Shem, and Jaytsy kissed Shem on the cheek as he got up from the floor to leave.
Shem noticed Mahrree’s disillusionment and Perrin’s suspicious glare.
“This is what my uncle taught me to do,” he explained. “Win over the children so that they always have another adult they can turn to when their parents get too difficult to handle,” he winked. “Don’t worry, they still love you more. I’m merely a new plaything. So,” he said with a teasing look as he took his jacket from the chair. “Did you two have fun? See anything interesting? Plot against the Administrators? Learn anything new?”
Perrin and Mahrree looked at him blankly, neither quite sure how to answer him.
“All right,” Shem said slowly as he put on his jacket. “So how about I come back in two weeks and let you two out again so you can change the world?”
The Shins exchanged a meaningful look.
Shem grinned. “What in the world did the two of you do in just three hours?!”
“Thank you, Private,” Captain Shin said. “I’ll see you in the morning. That will be all.”
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Late that night Barker, the ‘puppy’ which was growing so large and heavy that he already out-paced every other full-grown dog in Edge—and gave smaller ponies an inferiority complex—snored inside his dog house that was the size of a small shed. He was consigned to sleep outside whenever the weather wasn’t freezing.
Until he smelled the bacon.
His eyes perked open, his nose sniffed the air, and he lumbered out of the dog house towards the scent that came from the back fence by the alley.
A man in a black jacket lurking in the shadows tossed Barker one slice, then a second. As the dog gulped them down, the man came up to the fence. Gingerly he reached over and started to pet the massive dog’s head.
“Well done,” he whispered. “Well done.”
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The Administrators in Idumea receive hundreds of letters each week. All are sent to the Division of Letter Readers who skim the contents and prepare one of several different pre-drafted responses. The Junior Letter Skimmers practice their best handwriting as they create stacks of prepared answers, waiting for the Senior Letter Skimmers to fill in the specific blanks and send the form letters back to the hopeful citizens.
Form letter number one contains the phrase, “We will look into your issue and respond as we see fit.” This was the most popular letter in the department and had the effect of making the recipient feel listened to, understood, and maybe even important.