of you. It will give you a chance to scratch for a while, instead of coasting along with no competition the way you do here.”
I was afraid, and so I started to argue desperately, naming all the places we could move into inside Alfing. I even cried—and I didn’t do that often anymore—but Daddy was unshakable. Finally I dragged my sleeve across my face to dry my eyes and folded my arms and said, “I’m not going to go.”
That wasn’t the right tack to take with Daddy. It just convinced him that I was being stubborn, but it wasn’t stubbornness now. I was truly frightened. I was sure that if we moved things would never be the same for me again. They couldn’t be.
But I couldn’t say that to Daddy. I couldn’t admit to him that I was afraid.
He came to the chair where I was sitting defiantly with my arms crossed and fresh tears lurking in the corners of my eyes, and he put both of his hands on my shoulders.
“Mia,” he said. “I realize that it isn’t easy for you, but in less than two years you will be your own master and then you can live where you please and do as you like. If you can’t take an unpleasant decision now, what kind of an adult will you make then? Right now—no arguments—I am moving. You have a choice. Move with me, or move into the dormitory here in Alfing Quad.”
I’d lived in a dormitory and I had no desire ever to go back. I did want to stay with Daddy, but it was still a hard decision for me to make. It was a question of which of my two certainties I wanted to give up. In the end, I made my decision.
After I wiped my eyes once again with the lower edge of my shirt, I walked slowly back down to the quad yard. When I got there, both soccer games had broken up and the whole yard was a turning kaleidoscope of colored shirts and shorts. I didn’t see Venie Morlock anywhere in the mass of playing kids, so I asked a boy I knew if he had seen her.
He pointed, “She’s right over there.”
“Thank you,” I said.
I got her down. I rubbed her nose in the ground. Then I made her beg to be let up. I got a black eye for my trouble, but it was worth it to make her remember who was who, even if I did live on the Fifth Level now.
After that, Daddy and I moved.
Chapter 2
THE PEOPLE WHO RUN OUR SCHOOLS are very conservative—that probably holds true just about everywhere, not just on our Ship. In any case, usually once you get assigned to a tutor you don’t change to another for years. In fact, I knew a boy in Alfing Quad who hated his tutor and got along so badly with him that they could both show scars, and it took him three years to change to another.
Compared to that, anything less has to seem frivolous.
Monday morning, two days after we moved, I reported to my new school supervisor in Geo Quad. He was thin, officious, prim, and exact, and his name was Mr. Quince. He looked at me standing in front of his desk, raised his eyebrows as he took in my black eye, finished examining me, and said, “Sit down.”
The supervisor is in charge of all the school’s administrative work—he assigns tutors, handles class movements, programs the teaching machines, breaks up fights if there are any, and so on. It’s a job with only a minimum of appeal for most people so they don’t make anybody stay with it for longer than three years.
After looking through all my papers with pursed lips, and making a painstaking entry in a file, Mr. Quince said, “Mr. Wickersham.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, puzzled.
“Mr. Wickersham will be your tutor. He lives at Geo C/15/37. You’re to meet him at his home at two o’clock Wednesday afternoon, and thereafter three times a week at your mutual convenience. And please, let’s not be late on Wednesday. Now come along and I’ll show you your room for first hour.”
School is for kids between the ages of four and fifteen. After fourteen, if you survive, they let you give up all the nonsensical parts. You simply work with a tutor or a craft master and follow your interests toward some goal.