House of Steel The Honorverse Companion - By David Weber Page 0,63

though, she reflected. And Mom and Dad both approve of him immensely. She quirked a smile. I always knew they had excellent judgment.

But the smile faded as the armored limo drifted towards touchdown and her thoughts returned to her younger brother.

I don’t want Mikey to be unhappy, and I know it bothers Dad more than he’s willing to admit. Mom, too, but this one’s between him and Dad a lot more than between him and her.

“I really do wish he didn’t get so wound up about it,” she said, watching the sting ships through the side window. “He hates it afterward, too, you know. I think he knows he’s being unfair when he gets so mad, and he doesn’t like being mad at you, Dad.”

“I know that, honey. And I don’t like being mad at him, either.” He touched her hair lightly and smiled when she looked back at him. “But, fortunately, Mikey’s a really good kid, whatever rough patch we’re going through right now. And part of it, you know, is the difference between the way boys’ and girls’ heads work.”

“Oh?”

Elizabeth looked at him just a bit suspiciously, and his smile broadened.

“Boys don’t do ‘subtle’ very well, Beth. Especially when those hormones kick in, but it starts earlier than that, really. They know what they know, they’re stubborn as the day is long, and they don’t handle limits very well. They’re geared to solve problems—like disputes with parental authority—by doing things their way, with all the finesse of an Old Earth rhino, and they come at you head on. That’s the reason Mikey and I lock horns so much more often than he and your mom do. As Doctor Sugiyama says, Mikey’s a lot more like me than he is like your mom, and that makes these little . . . lively moments between us inevitable, I’m afraid.”

And, he chose not to add out loud, the way I’m stressing over the situation in Trevor’s Star isn’t helping just at the moment. I try not to let it affect the way I react when he and I don’t see eye-to-eye, but I know it’s leaking over sometimes. In fact, I think it was probably a major contributory factor in our last blow up.

“So, if boys don’t do ‘subtle’ very well, is that another way of saying girls do?” Elizabeth demanded, pulling him away from that unhappy thought before his smile could fade.

“Well, of course!” He shook his head at her. “Girls tackle problems more consensually than boys do, they’d rather spend their energy doing things they don’t know from the outset is going to get them lectured by their elders, and they figure out early that the males in their lives are only there to get in the way and mess things up, so they start out by practicing on their parents. They smile, they promise to do exactly what their parents tell them to do, and then they go out to do precisely what they were going to do anyway, on the theory that if they’re lucky—and good—their parents will never find out about it. And, the way they see it, they’re actually doing their parents a favor, aren’t they? By keeping them from worrying about the consequences of all those things they promised they wouldn’t do, I mean.”

Elizabeth’s eyes widened, and Ariel bleeked with laughter as he tasted her chagrin.

“I didn’t—I mean,” she said, “I—”

“Didn’t realize I’d figured that out?” her father suggested helpfully, and chuckled at her expression. Then his smile faded slightly.

“Beth, I never worried about the venal sins your mom and I knew you were committing, because—like Mikey, but maybe even more so—you were always a good kid. You’re turning into a remarkable young woman, as well, and I knew the whole time you were manipulating and evading your way around me in those venal things you were up to, that you’d never lie to me about anything important.” He rested his hand on her shoulder as the limo settled onto its skids. “I wasn’t worried then, I’m not worried now, and I doubt there’s another father anywhere in the entire Star Kingdom who’s more satisfied—more delighted—than I am with the way his daughter’s turned out. I’m sure Mikey’ll turn out just as well—in his own stubborn, male, mule headed, obstinate, determined way—as you did. And as for the rest of it, I console myself with an ancient Old Earth proverb.”

“And which proverb would that be?” Elizabeth asked as a lieutenant of the King’s Own