Ender's Game (Ender's Saga, #1) - Orson Scott Card Page 0,136
has no voice here!”
“But the son of Odin and Gerd has the right to speak in his own defense,” said Lummy. And Mook, her husband, moved closer to her, standing beside her, to give more force to what she said.
“What will we hear from him but lies?” said Gyish. “I know what drekkas and drowthers are—they’ll say anything to save their worthless lives!”
“If he is so determined to save his life,” said Aunt Lummy, “why would he harm these children, whom we trusted to his care?”
“Because they hate us! Drekkas hate us worse than drowthers do!” Gyish was almost frothing at the mouth. Danny realized that he was seeing now what lay behind the muttering and grumbling that were Gyish’s usual form of speech. The old man’s wrath and shame at having lost the war and the seat of Odin had made him into this poisonous old gnome—or so he seemed, because he stooped to point a quavering finger at Aunt Lummy as if he meant to jab it through her heart if she took one more step toward him.
“Piffle,” said Auntie Uck. “You’re behaving like a child, Grandpa Gyish, and Zog, you’re just a bully. Let go of the boy at once—you’ve probably broken his shoulder and you know we don’t have a first-rate healer any more.” She turned to Gyish again. “Which you’ll rue if you let your anger give you a stroke!”
It took Uck’s no-nonsense tone and unintimidated look to get Gyish back to his normal level of grumbling, while Zog tossed Danny on the ground and stood there, fists clenched, waiting for Danny to be such a fool as to try to rise again.
He needn’t have worried. Danny’s shoulder hurt so badly that he could only lie there, holding it with his other hand, trying not to cry.
“Danny,” said Uncle Mook, “tell us what happened.”
“I already told you what happened!” shouted Crista.
Uncle Poot silenced her with a glare. “We already heard your lies, girl. Now we’ll see if Danny can come up with better ones.”
“Well, boy?” asked Zog. “You heard them! Answer!”
“They were staying small,” said Danny, “and giving themselves huge boobs.”
“So what!” shouted Gyish. “So what if they were! It’s what they do! They’re stupid little girls, it’s what they do!”
“I knew that if I went to fetch you, Uncle Poot, they’d lie and say they were trying to be big.”
“I wouldn’t have believed them,” answered Poot.
“But you wouldn’t have punished them, either,” said Danny. “So they’d just have kept on doing it.” He heard the other adults murmur their agreement.
“So now you’re a critic, is that it?” Uncle Poot replied. “Telling me that I’m not good at training youngsters?”
“It doesn’t excuse you putting them in a sack!” said Zog. And the adults murmured their agreement at that, too.
“I didn’t have a sack,” said Danny. “I stood there right in front of them and took off my shirt and walked right over to them. It was plain enough what I was doing—if they’d been paying any attention. I didn’t expect to actually catch them with my shirt! I just wanted to give them a scare, remind them to take their study seriously. But when I found that two of them were in the shirt, I didn’t know what to do. If I just let them go, they’d mock me and I’d never be able to get them to do what’s right without bothering some adult. The whole point of having me watch them is so none of you has to be bothered, isn’t it?”
Even as he said it, though, Danny realized that he had just declared that it was impossible for him to tend the clants if the other children didn’t want him to; he wouldn’t save the adults any time at all, and so they might as well have one of them do the minding and leave Danny out of it. But what choice had he had? The accusation Crista made was so terrible, and with Gyish and Zog calling him a drekka, one who could be killed whenever it was convenient, there was a great danger that the trial would end suddenly with Zog tearing his head off and tossing it into the trees.
“So you trapped them in your tee-shirt,” said Aunt Lummy. “And you didn’t let them go. Where are they now?”
“Crista’s clant was going for my eyes and so I did brush her aside. And then to get away from her, I climbed a tree.”