with them. To listen to them. To be friends with them. I'm saving this, not because I did it at your age, but because I didn't, and I know how much it hampered me."
"So what changed it?" asked Chveya.
"I married a man who lived in such constant inner pain that it made my own fears and shames and sufferings seem like childish whining."
"Mother says that long before you married Uncle Issib, you faced down a bad man and took the loyalty of his whole army away from him."
"That's because they were another man's army, only that man was dead, and they didn't have much loyalty to begin with. It wasn't hard, and I did it by blindly flailing around, trying to say everything I could think of that might weaken what loyalty remained."
"Mother says you looked calm and masterful."
"The key word is 'looked.' Come now, Veya, you know for yourself-when you're terrified and confused, what do you do?"
. Chveya giggled then. "I stand there like a frightened deer."
"Frozen, right? But to others, it looks like you're calm as can be. That's why some of the others tease you so mercilessly sometimes. They think of you as made of stone, and they want to break in and touch human feelings. They just don't know that when you seem most stony, that's when you're most frightened and breakable."
"Why is that? Why don't people understand each other better?"
"Because they're young," said Hushidh.
"Old people don't understand each other any better."
"Some do," said Hushidh. "The ones who care enough to try."
"You mean you."
"And your mother."
"She doesn't understand me at all."
"You say that because you're an adolescent, and when an adolescent says that her mother doesn't understand her, it means that her mother understands her all too well but won't let her have her way."
Chveya grinned. "You are a nasty, conceited, arrogant grownup just like all the others,"
Hushidh smiled back. "See? You're learning. That smile allowed you to tell me just what you thought, but allowed me to take it as a joke so I could hear the truth without having to get angry."
"I'm trying," Chveya said with a sigh.
"And you're doing well, for a short, ignorant, shy adolescent."
Chveya looked at her in horror. Then Hushidh broke into a anile.
"Too late," said Chveya. "You meant that."
"Only a little," said Hushidh. "But then, all adolescents are ignorant, and you can't help being short and shy You'll get taller."
"And shyer."
"But sometimes bolder."
Well, it was true. Chveya had started a growth spurt soon after Hushidh went back to sleep the last time, and now she was almost as tall as Dza, and taller than any of the boys except Oykib, who was already almost as tall as Father, all bones and angles, constantly bumping into things or smacking his hands into them or stubbing his toes. Chveya liked the way he took the others' teasing with a wordless grin, and never complained. She also liked the fact that he never used his large size to bully any of the other children, and when he interceded in quarrels, it was with quiet persuasion, not with his greater size and strength, that he brought peace. Since she was probably going to end up married to Oykib, it was nice that she Uked the kind of man he was becoming. Too bad that all he thought of when he looked at her was "short and boring." Not that he ever said it. But his eyes always seemed to glide right past her, as if he didn't notice her enough to even ignore her. And when he was alone with her, he always left as quickly as possible, as if it nearly killed him to spend any time in her company.
Just because we children are going to have to pair up and marry doesn't mean we're going to fall in love with each other, Chveya told herself. If I'm a good wife to him, maybe someday he'll love me.
She didn't often allow herself to think of the other possibility, that when it came time to marry, Oykib would insist on marrying someone else. Cute little Shyada, for instance. She might be two years younger, but she already knew how to flirt with the boys so that poor Padarok was always tongue-tied around her and Motya watched her all the time with an expression of such pitiful longing that Chveya didn't know whether to laugh or cry. What if Oykib married her, and left Chveya to marry one of the younger boys? What if