Soldier at the Door(72)
Perrin shook his head wretchedly. “I can think of a few more, depending on how many more friends need pointless jobs. Give them time. They’ll find a way to complicate this even further.”
“Next they’ll choose a representative for the parents who alone can discuss concerns with the Director, who then can send a message to the Overseers, who might pass it along to the Head of the Department, who maybe will remember to show it to the Administrator!”
“Ideas such as After School Care?” Perrin suggested.
“No. No new letter about that,” she said in disgust.
Perrin pulled another envelope from his jacket.“This was brought to me by mistake.”
She dropped the document on the work table and snatched the envelope out of his hands, tearing it open in the process.
The writing she sneered at was frustratingly familiar. “‘We appreciate your concern and assure you that the Administrators are doing all they can . . .’”
“Form letter number two,” he tried to say brightly. “Your collection is growing.”
She threw it down on the work table. “I’m completely voiceless!”
“That’s debatable,” he said daringly.
“You know what I mean!”
“Maybe you shouldn’t read the rest.” He subtly slid his hand over to the announcement about education.
But she was quicker to snatch it up.
“Each class will have twenty-five students?!” she declared a moment later. “Madness! How can a teacher get to know each child intimately enough to help him if she’s wrestling with twenty-five of them? Eight to ten was difficult enough!”
He only sighed.
“More?” she demanded.
His sickly-sweet smile returned and he nodded to the document.
A moment later her upper lip curled. “They ARE making schools here! Big ones! Out of block! Oh, how lovely!”
“I believe it’s deliberate,” he said tapping his lips with his finger. “You see, the schools I saw in Idumea are very square, very plain, and very gray. Surround children with that much dullness so that their imaginations die, then a classroom of twenty-five depressed students will feel the same as ten normal lively children.”
“That’s probably true,” she said, her eyes squinting in fury. “Our new director of schools, along with the new curriculum, will be arriving by the middle of Planting Season,” she said as she scanned the rest of the document. “So where’s he going to stay?”
“I was asked to give him our study,” he said.
“WHAT?!”
“Just teasing, just teasing!” he said, pulling her into his arms. “He’s probably going to take a storage shed at one of the schools as his office.”
“I hope the roof leaks on him,” she snarled.
“That’s my sweet, kind, compassionate wife,” he said, stroking her light brown hair. “I knew you’d be open-minded and fair about this.”
“I hope the roof leaks, the floor floods, his desk molds, and trees collapse on it. Then a land tremor strikes, opens a crevice in the ground, and devours it all.”
“And here I thought you would be small-minded and petty, wishing horrible things upon someone you don’t even know. Some poor, hapless puppet of the Administrators who’s doing his best to deal with a daunting situation—”
Mahrree could only grumble.
Chapter 8 ~ “It’s really quite progressive, as you can see. Lots of pages.”
The new educational director over Edge arrived right on time several weeks later in mid Planting Season, right after Jaytsy’s 2nd birthday. Perrin brought Mahrree the news that Karna had met the newest arm of Idumea to punch into Edge and escorted him to his new office at the site of Mahrree’s old school. Mahrree decided to give him a fair chance by letting him get settled for two weeks before he encountered the wrath of Mrs. Shin.
Besides, Perrin wouldn’t let her meet him until Mahrree promised she would be polite and present the name of Shin properly.
And no, that didn’t mean she could go wearing a sword or a hidden long knife.
It was a beautiful Planting Season afternoon when Mahrree left her two children napping while Mrs. Hersh sat at the house, to meet Mr. Hegek. Mahrree needed to know, after all, what her After School Care boys would be tested on in the next year. That was the excuse she could give, in order to bypass demanding to know what terrible things the Administrators had done to education.
When she pounded on the thin wooden door of the office and opened the door, she wasn’t quite prepared for what she found.
“Can I help you, ma’am?” a timid voice behind a pile of papers asked.