make you learn, though I doubt either of you has to be made. I have very little interest in writing out progress reports on you, or sticking to form charts, or anything else that interferes with our basic purposes. If there is anything you want to learn and have the necessary background to handle, I’ll be ready to help you, whether or not it is something that formally falls among the things I’m supposed to teach you. If you don’t have the background, I’ll help you get it. In return, I want you to do something for me. It’s been many years since I was last a tutor, so I expect you to point out to me when I fail to observe some ritual that Mr. Quince holds essential. Fair enough?”
In spite of my basic loyalties, and contrary to them, I found myself liking Mr. Mbele and being very pleased that I had been lucky enough to be assigned to him, even though I couldn’t admit it publicly.
When we were in the halls again and on our way back home, Jimmy said suddenly, “Hold on.”
We stopped and he faced me.
“I want you to promise me one thing,” he said. “Promise not to tell anybody about my grandfather or about me wanting to be an ordinologist.”
“That’s two things,” I said.
“Don’t joke!” he said pleadingly. “The other kids would make it hard for me if they knew I wanted to be an odd thing like that.”
“I want to be a synthesist,” I said. “I won’t say anything about you if you don’t say anything about me.” We took it as a solemn agreement, and after that anything that was ever said in Mr. Mbele’s apartment was kept between us and never brought out in public. It was, if you like, an oasis in the general desert of childish and adult ignorance where we could safely bring out our thoughts and not have them denigrated, laughed at, or trampled upon, even when they deserved it. A place like that is precious.
Jimmy said, “You know, I’m glad now that I was switched. I think I’m going to enjoy studying under Mr. Mbele.”
Cautiously, I said, “Well, I have to admit he’s different.”
And that was about all that we ever said to anybody who ever asked us about our tutor.
I saw Daddy after he closed his office for the day. That is, he closed our living room to new people at five o’clock, and by almost eleven he’d seen the last person who was waiting.
Excitedly, I said, “Daddy, you know my new tutor is Mr. Joseph Mbele!”
“Mmm, yes, I know,” Daddy said matter-of-factly, stacking papers on his desk and straightening up.
“You do?” I asked in surprise. I sat down in a chair next to him.
“Yes. As a matter of fact, he agreed to take you on as a personal favor to me. I asked him to do it.”
“But I thought you two were against each other,” I said. As I have said before, I don’t fully understand my father. I am not a charitable person—when I decide I’m against somebody, I’m against him. When Daddy’s against somebody, he asks him to serve as my tutor.
“Well, we do disagree on some points,” Daddy said. “I happen to think his attitude toward the colonies is very wrong. But just because a man disagrees with me doesn’t make him a villain or a fool, and I sincerely doubt that any of his attitudes will damage you in any way. They didn’t hurt me when I studied Social Philosophy under him sixty years ago.”
“Social Philosophy?” I asked.
“Yes,” Daddy said. “That’s Mr. Mbele’s major interest.” He smiled. “I wouldn’t have you study under a man who didn’t have something to teach you. I think you could stand a very healthy dose of Social Philosophy.”
“Oh,” I said.
Well, there was one thing I could say for Mr. Mbele. He hadn’t done any eyebrow raising over my black eye. Neither had his wife, for that matter. I did appreciate that.
Still, I wished that Daddy had warned me beforehand. Even though I had liked Mr. Mbele, it would have saved me a few uncharitable thoughts right at the beginning.
Chapter 3
TWO WEEKS AFTER WE MOVED, I came into Daddy’s study to tell him that I had dinner ready. He was talking on the vid to Mr. Persson, another Council member.
Mr. Persson’s image sighed and said, “I know, I know. But I don’t like making an example of anybody. If she wanted another child so badly, why