A Place so Foreign | Page 6

and Cellular Biology, Physics and Astrophysics, Esperanto, Cantonese and Mandarin, and an alien language whose name translated as "Standard." I'd been exempted from History, of course, along with the other kids there from the past -- the Chinese girl from the Ming Dynasty, the Roman boy, and the Injun kid from South America.
Pa laughed around his cigar and crossed his legs. His shoes were so big, they looked like canoes. "There surely is, son. There surely is. And how are you doing with your classmates? Any tussles your teacher will want to talk to me about?"
"No, sir! We're friendly as all get-out, even the girls." The kids in 75 didn't even notice what they were doing in school. They just sat down at their workstations and waited to have their brains filled with whatever was going on, and left at three, and never complained about something being too hard or too dull.
"That's good to hear, son. You've always been a good boy. Tell you what: you bring home a good report this Christmas, and I'll take you to see Saturn's rings on vacation."
Mama shot him a look then, but he pretended he didn't see it. He stubbed out his cigar, hitched up his suspenders, and put on his tailcoat and tophat and ambassadorial sash and picked up his leather case.
"Good night, son. Good night, Ulla. I'll see you on Wednesday," he said, and stepped into the teleporter.
That was the last time I ever saw him.
#
"He died from bad snails?" Oly Sweynsdatter said to me, yet again.
I balled up a fist and stuck it under his nose. "For the last time, yes. Ask me again, and I'll feed you this."
I'd been back for a month, and in all that time, Oly had skittered around me like a shy pony, always nearby but afraid to talk to me. Finally, I'd grabbed him and shook him and told him not to be such a ninny, tell me what was on his mind. He wanted to know how my Pa had died, over in France. I told him the reason that Mama and Mr Johnstone and the man from the embassy had worked out together. Now, I regretted it. I couldn't get him to shut up.
"Sorry, all right, sorry!" he said, taking a step backwards. We were in the orchard behind the schoolyard, chucking rotten apples at the tree-trunks to watch them splatter. "Want to hear something?"
"Sure," I said.
"Tommy Benson's sweet on Marta Helprin. It's disgusting. They hold hands -- in church! None of the fellows will talk to him."
I didn't see what the big deal was. Back in 75, we had had a two-week session on sexual reproduction, like all the other subjects. Most of the kids there were already in couples, sneaking off to low-gee bounceataria and renting private cubes with untraceable cash-tokens. I'd even tussled with one girl, Katebe M'Buto, another exchange student, from United Africa Trading Sphere. I'd picked her up at her apt, and her father had even shaken my hand -- they grow up fast in UATS. Of course, I'd never let on to my folks. Pa would've broken an axle. "That's pretty disgusting, all right," I said, unconvincingly.
"You want to go down to the river? I told Amos and Luke that I'd meet them after lunch."
I didn't much feel like it, but I didn't know what else to do. We walked down to the swimming hole, where some boys were already naked, swimming and horsing around. I found myself looking away, conscious of their nudity in a way that I'd never been before -- all the boys in town swam there, all summer long.
I turned my back to the group and stripped down, then ran into the water as quick as I could.
I paddled around a little, half-heartedly, and then I found myself being pulled under! My sinuses filled with water and I yelled a stream of bubbles, and closed my mouth on a swallow of water. Strong hands pulled at my ankles. I kicked out as hard as I could, and connected with someone's head. The hands loosened and I shot up like a cork, sputtering and coughing. I ran for the shore, and saw one of the Allen brothers surfacing, rubbing at his head and laughing. The four Allen boys lived on a ranch with their parents out by the salt flats, and we only saw them when they came into town with their folks for supplies. I'd never liked them, but now, I saw red.
"You pig!" I shouted at him. "You stupid, rotten, pig! What the heck do you think you were doing?"
The Allens kept on laughing -- I used to know some of their names, but in the time I'd been in 75, they'd grown as indistinguishable as twins: big, hard boys with