Soldier at the Door(70)
“Dr. Brisack, has anyone ever told you that you don’t make your points very well?” Mal sighed.
The doctor chuckled. “My point is, the boys were trying to push the teacher to acknowledge them. He was obsessed with getting through his lesson—probably because he knew my friend was there observing him—and he was trying to proceed at any cost.”
“So you’re suggesting that she’s going to keep sending letters until someone takes her out behind the school building and whips her,” Mal intoned.
“In a matter of speaking,” Brisack nodded. “I think she simply wants a personal message, to believe someone’s actually listening to her.”
“Hmm,” Mal grunted. “You know, I have a wide variety of whips that I use on the horses and dogs. Could try a cat . . .” A sneer grew on his face.
“I have no doubt that you do,” Brisack responded coldly. “When will your test of her be ready?”
Mal rolled his eyes. “I don’t think there’s any department in all of government more slow to act than the Department of Instruction! If the world ended tomorrow, their committees wouldn’t be able to ‘formulate an educational strategy’ for ‘teaching it most effectively’ for another twenty years.”
Brisack smiled at Mal’s attempt at sarcastic humor. “Which, of course, would be utterly unnecessary since the world no longer existed.”
“I’m putting pressure on them,” Mal said ominously enough to wipe the smile off of the doctor’s face. “There’s no logical purpose for them to take so long. It’s as if they are always waiting for someone to give them permission to do the next thing, to check off every little detail before they continue. Without someone hovering over them, they don’t work!”
“Sounds like the effects of Full School already,” Brisack muttered.
“Which is what we want, I agree,” Mal said, agitated. “We want the citizenry to hesitate before they act, to seek permission for every little thing! That’s the only way to keep them contained and controlled. But I need more from their leadership! I need people willing to experiment, to dare, to innovate, to take the initiative—”
“Someone like Mrs. Shin?” Brisack waved her letter like a banner. “After School Care?”
In an uncharacteristic display of exhausted exasperation, Mal rubbed his temples with fingers. Through clenched teeth he said, “Someone like her, but not her. Send her form letter number two, in about four weeks. The Department of Instruction should be finished by then. Or I’ll finish them myself!”
“I suspect she’ll keep throwing stones,” Brisack warned.
“Let her. No one has more whips than me.”
---
He’s right, Mahrree thought to herself five weeks later as she watched from the front door the message carrier ride by her house yet again without dropping off a response to her second letter. Perrin kept reminding her that they did still have time. The end of Raining Season and the year 322 was just around the corner, but Jaytsy wouldn’t be turning two until halfway through Planting Season. And then it was still another four years.
Four very short years.
She shrugged that off and turned to admire again the latest addition to their family: the longest, widest, sturdiest sofa she could afford to have built, complete with very thick brown cloth that the furniture maker assured her would stand up to the abuses of ten rowdy boys, one very large captain, two small children, and even the unwieldy black dog that climbed slowly on to it and resisted all efforts of Mahrree to drag him off.
One should never own a dog that weighs more than one’s self.
That’s where he was again, Mahrree grumbled to herself. Barker had taken over the sofa once more, since the children were napping and Mahrree had been working at the table. The only reason she tolerated the animal was because Perrin loved him so much. And her heart softened a little towards the beast when Shem confessed that it was actually him who brought the large black puppy to Perrin. Shem had found him abandoned, muddy, and whimpering along the canal by the fort. Perrin kept him for two days in the stables to make sure he would live before he brought him home.
How could Mahrree demand he be thrown out again? She had two old blankets that she alternated throwing over the new cloth to keep it clean. Most of his body fit on it, except for his big paws and sharp nails.
“Just don’t drool on it,” she glowered at Barker as she passed him on her way to the kitchen.
He only twitched a black eyebrow.
Mahrree was starting to wash the dishes from midday meal when she saw Perrin hopping over the back fence.