A Place so Foreign, Cory Doctorow [famous ebook reader .TXT] 📗

couldn't imagine a blacker kettle.

"He says that Nussbaum, from 1952 New York, has rolled back relations with extraterrestrials by fifty years. He sold a Centurian half a million defective umbrellas from his brother-in-law's factory. The New Yorkers are all defending him. Caveat emptor."

"I never could keep track of who was friendly and who wasn't," Mama said. "It was all Greek to me. Politics."

Mr Johnstone opened his mouth to explain, but Mama held up one hand. "No, no, I don't want to understand. Les used to lecture me about this from dawn to dusk." She smiled a little sad smile and stared off at the cabbage-roses on our dining-room walls. Mr Johnstone put one hand over hers.

"He was a good man, Ulla."

Mama stood and smoothed her skirts. "I'll get dessert."

#

I didn't get a puppy. Mr Johnstone gave me an air-rifle that I was sure Mama would have fits over, but she just smiled. She gave me a beautiful fountain-pen and a green blotter and a ream of creamy, thick paper.

The pen made the most beautiful, jet-black marks, and the paper drank it up like a thirsty man in the desert. I recopied my essay the next day, sitting with Mama in the parlour while she darned socks. Mr Johnstone had given her a tin of cosmetics from Paris, that he'd ordered in special. I'd heard Mama say that only dancehall girls wore makeup, but she blushed when he gave it to her. I gave her a carving I'd done, of the robutler we'd had in 75. I'd whittled it out of a block of pine, and sanded it and oiled it until it was as smooth as silk.

Oly Sweynsdatter came by after supper and asked if I wanted to go out and play with the fellows. To my surprise, I found I did. We had a grand afternoon pelting each other with snow-balls, a game that turned into a full-scale war, as all the older boys back from high-school came out and joined in, and then, later, all the men, even the Sheriff and Mr Adelson. I never laughed so much in all my life, even when I got one right in the ear.

Mr Adelson led a charge of adults against the fort that most of the Academy boys were hiding behind, but I saw him planning it and started laying in ammunition long before they made their go, and we sent them back with their tails between their legs. I hit him smack in the behind with one ball as he dove for cover.

Oly's mother gave us both good, Svenska hot cocoa afterwards, with fresh whipped cream, and Oly and I exchanged gifts. He gave me a tin soldier, a Confederate who was caught in the act of falling over backwards, clutching his chest. I gave him my best marble. We followed his mother around their house, recounting the adventures in the snow until she told me it was time for me to go home.

#

School started again, and I went in early the first day to turn in my paper. Mr Adelson took it without comment and scanned the first few paragraphs. "Thank you, James, I think this will do nicely. I'll have it graded for you in the afternoon."

I met Oly out in the orchard, where he was chopping kindling for the school's stove, a job we all took turns at. "I hear you might be getting a new Pa for Christmas," he said. He gave me a smile that meant something, but I couldn't guess what.

"What is that supposed to mean?" I asked.

"My Mama says your Mama had old man Johnstone over for Christmas dinner. And the widow Ott told my Mama that she'd connected one or two calls between your house and the store every day in the last month. My Mama says that Johnstone is courting your Mama."

"Mrs Ott isn't supposed to talk about the calls she connects," I said, as my mind reeled. "It's like a telegraph operator: it's a confidential trust." Mr Adelson had told me that, once when he was telling me stories about his life before he went to sea.

"So, is it true?"

"No!" I said, surprising myself with my vehemence. "My Mama just didn't want him to be alone at Christmas."

Oly swung the axe a few more times. "Well, sure. But what about all the telephone calls?"

"That's business. The store is still partly ours. Mama's just looking after our interests."

"If you say so," he said.

I shoved him hard. I drew a line in the snow with my toe. "I do say so. Step across the line if you say otherwise!"

Oly got to his feet and looked at me. "I don't want to fight with you, James. I was just tellin' you what my Mama said."

"Well, your Mama ought to mind her own business," I said, baiting him.

That did it. He stepped over and popped me one, right in the nose. Oly and I had been chums since we could walk, and we'd had a few fights in our days but this time it was different. I was so angry at him, at my Mama, at my Pa, at New Jerusalem, and we just kept on swinging at each other until Mr Adelson came out to ring the bell and separated us. My nose was sore and I was limping, and I'd torn Oly's jacket and bent his fingers back, so he cradled his hand in the crook of his arm.

"Boys!" Mr Adelson said. "What the hell do you think you're doing? You're supposed to be friends."

His language shocked me, but I was still plenty angry. "He's no friend of mine!"
I said.

"That's fine with me," Oly said and glared at me.

The other kids were milling around, and Mr Adelson gave us both a look that could melt steel, then rang the bell.

#

I could hardly concentrate in class that day. My Mama getting married? A new Pa? It couldn't be true. But in my mind, I kept seeing my Mama and that Johnstone kissing under the mistletoe, and him sitting in my Pa's chair, drinking his whiskey.

Oly's desk was next to mine, and he kept shooting me dirty looks. Finally, I leaned over and whispered, "Cut it out, you idiot."

Oly said, "You're the idiot. I think you got your brains scrambled in France,
James."

"I'll scramble your brains!"

"Gentlemen," said Mr Adelson. "Do you have something you'd like to share with the class?"

"No sir," we said together, and exchanged glares.

"James, perhaps you'd like to come up to the front and finish the lesson?"

"Sir?" I said, looking at the blackboard. He'd been going through quadratics, an elaborate first-principles proof.

"I believe you know this already, don't you? Come up to the front and finish the lesson."

Slowly, I got up from my desk, leaving my slate on my desk, and made my way up to the front. Some of the kids giggled. I picked up a piece of chalk from the chalk-well, and started to write on the board.

Mr Adelson walked back to my seat and sat down. I stopped and looked over my shoulder, and he gave me a little scooting gesture that meant go on. I did, and by the end of the hour, I found that I was enjoying myself. I stopped frequently for questions, and erased the board over and over again, filling it with steady columns of numbers and equations. I stopped noticing Mr Adelson in my seat, and when he stood and thanked me and told us we could eat our lunches, it seemed like no time at all had passed.

Mr Adelson looked up from my essay. "James, I'd like to have a chat with you.
Stay behind, please."

"Sit," he said, offering me the chair at his desk. He sat on one of the front-row desks, and stared at me for a long moment.

"What was that mess this morning all about, James?" he asked.

"Oly and I had an argument," I said, sullenly.

"I could see that. What was it about, if you don't mind my asking?"

"He said something about my Mama," I said.

"I see," he said. "Well, having met your mother, I feel confident in saying that she's more than capable of defending herself. Am I right?"

"Yes, sir," I said.

"Then we won't see a repeat?"

"No, sir," I said. I didn't plan on talking to Oly ever again.

"Then we'll say no more about it. Now, about this morning's lesson: you did very well."

"It was a dirty trick," I said.

He grinned like a pirate. "I suppose it was. I wouldn't have played it on you if I didn't have every confidence in your abilities, though." He leaned across and picked up my essay from his desk. "It was this that convinced me, really. This is as good as anything I've seen in scholarly journals. I've half a mind to send it to the Idler."

"I'm just a kid!"

"You're an extraordinary boy. I'm tempted to let you teach all the classes, and take up whittling."

He said it so deadpan, I couldn't tell if he was kidding me. "Oh, you can't do that! I'm not nearly ready to take over."

He laughed. "You're readier than you think, but I expect the town council would stop my salary unless I did some of the work around here. Still, I think that's the most active I've seen you since you came to my class, and I'm running out of ideas to keep you busy. Maybe I'll keep you teaching maths. I'll give you my lesson plan to take home before school's out."

"Yes, sir."

#

Mr Adelson gave me a stack of papers tied up with twine after he dismissed the class for the day. I went home and did my chores, then unwrapped the parcel in the parlour. The lesson plans were there, laid out, day by day, and in the centre of them was a smaller parcel, wrapped in coloured paper. "Merry Christmas," was written across it, in his hand.

I opened it, and found a slim book. "War of the Worlds," by Verne. For some reason, it rang a bell. I thought that maybe it had been on our bookcase in 75, but somehow, it hadn't made it back home with us. I opened it, and read the inscription he'd written: "From one traveller to another, Merry Christmas."

I forced myself to read the lesson plans for the next month before I allowed myself to start the Verne, and once I started, I found I couldn't stop. Mama had to drag me away for dinner.

#

My trip back to 1975 wasn't planned, but it wasn't an accident, either. We'd gotten a new load of hay in for our team, and Mama added stacking it in the horsebarn to my chores. I'd been consciously avoiding the horsebarn since Pa had disappeared. Every time I looked at it, I felt a little hexed, a little frightened.

But Mama had a philosophy: a boy should face up to his fears. She'd been terrified of spiders when she was a girl, and she told me that she had made a point of picking up every spider she saw and letting it crawl around on her face. After a year of that, she said, she never met a spider that frightened her.

Mama had been sending me to the store more and more, too, and having Mr Johnstone over for dinner every Friday night. She knew I didn't like him one little bit, and she said that I would just have to learn to live with what I didn't like, and if that was the only thing I learned from her, it would be enough.

I preferred the horsebarn.

I worked close to the door the first day, which is no way to do it, of course: if you blocked the door, it just made it harder to get at the back when the time came. The way to do it is to first clear out whatever hay is left over, move it out to the pasture, and then fill in from the back forward.

Mama told me so, that first night, when she came out to inspect my work. "You sure must love working out here," she said. "If you do it that way, you'll be out here stacking for twice as long. Well, you have your fun, but I still