“Excuse the impertinence, but wouldn’t it be better to reverse the queuing order so that the oldest papers were last marked? It would allow pupils to know their results sooner, and as far as I can see, would not be against the Rules, since queue direction is not specified.”
She stared at me oddly, then smiled kindly after having given the matter no thought at all.
“A fine idea, but since everyone is above average, improvement to the system is really not that important.”
“Then why mark them?” I asked, emboldened by the rejection of my suggestion.
“So we can make sure the education system is working, of course,” she replied as though I were simple.
“If I work really hard I might be able to clear the backlog to the fifty-year mark by the time I retire—and we can know just how well we were doing half a century ago. If we commit ourselves wholly to the task, in twenty years we might know how well we are doing right now.”
“You must have very little time for teaching.”
“No time at all,” she replied airily, “which explains why Useful Workers like you are now essential to the smooth running of the school. Why, we’ve not had a teacher actually teaching for over three centuries.
She introduced me to the class, and I gave the afternoon lesson. Because Munsell had attempted to make the world knowable for everyone by simply reducing the number of facts, there wasn’t that much to teach. But I did my best, and after doing some long-division practice and talking a little about my home village, I set them a puzzle in which they had to estimate how many Previous there had once been by using Ovaltine sales projections of the year known as 2083. Following that, we discussed why the Previous might have been as tall as they were, which foodstuffs made it through the Epiphany, then possible reasons why the Previous had apparently denied the future by ranking their year system without a double-zero prefix. After that, we had a general Q&A session, where they asked me stuff about Riffraff eating babies, and why the Previous’ tables had four legs rather than the more stable three we used at present. I answered as best as I could, and after giving them a brief introduction to the skill of reading bar codes, we ended up talking about the rabbit. I was very glad that I had earlier found an article in Spectrum that described a visit to the rabbit six years ago. I sounded almost expert.
We finished up with a song of praise to Munsell as the clock moved around to four, and as soon as I dismissed them there was a flurry of banged desk lids and they were all gone.
I was rather pleased with myself, and after pushing in the chairs and placing their homework in the waste bin, I went to find Miss Bluebird, who asked me how it went without much interest, and then gave me positive feedback and ten merits.
“Find anything useful to teach them?”
Jane was waiting for me outside the school. She looked almost pleased to see me, and that instantly made me suspicious.
“I . . . like to think so,” I replied cautiously, looking around to see if there were witnesses in case she tried something.
She picked up on my nervousness and raised an eyebrow. “What are you so worried about?”
“The last time you smiled at me, I found myself under a yateveo.”
She laughed. The sound was lovely—yet quite out of character. It would be like hearing a fish sneeze.
“Honestly,” she said, “are you going to drag that up every time we meet? So I threatened to kill you.
What’s the big deal?”
“How can you not think it’s a big deal?”
“Okay, I’ll demonstrate. You threaten to kill me.”
“I’d rather not.”
“Come on, Red, don’t be such a baby.”
“All right: I’ll kill you.”
“You have to say it like you mean it.”
“I’LL KILL YOU!”
And she punched me in the eye.
“Ow! That hurt. And how could that possibly demonstrate that it’s no big deal?”
“You might have something there,” she said thoughtfully. “It could have been a bit rude of me. But let’s face it, you are a bit pointless, and the world will certainly carry on spinning without you.”
I rubbed my eye. “You really have a winning personality, don’t you?”
“Steady,” she said, again with a slight smile. “I’m supposed to be the sarcastic one.”
“What in Munsell’s name is going on?” Miss Bluebird had just walked out of the school. She was carrying a huge pile of papers, and had a look of shocked disbelief on her face. “Did I just witness a lethal threat and an up-color assault?”
It was time to think fast, and when it comes to making up lieful deceits on the spot, I soon realized that Jane was even better than Tommo. “Far from it,” she replied innocently. “Master Edward and I were discussing the best way to mock-fight in Red Side Story.”
“We’re attending the auditions together,” I added, “aren’t we, Jane?”
She gave me a brief grimace, but nodded.
“It was most convincing,” replied Mrs. Bluebird, full of admiration. “I’m adjudicating this evening—perhaps you might demonstrate the technique for us all?”
“As many times as you want,” replied Jane happily.
“Splendid!” replied Mrs. Bluebird. “See you there, then.”
As soon as she was out of earshot, Jane turned to me and said in a low growl, “We’re not going to the auditions.”
I had to agree, as being punched endlessly wouldn’t be much fun. In fact, I’d prefer to just lose an eyebrow and be done with it.
“We should keep moving,” said Jane, “before we raise any suspicions. If anyone comes within earshot, talk to me about what you’d like for dinner, and then castigate me about the poor starching of your collar.”
We walked off, and after a moment of silence I said, “You were waiting for me. Did you want something?”
“No,” she said, “but you do. Word in the Greyzone is that a sad Red wannabe with no imagination and a lump in his trousers needs help to get his leg over some unobtainable Alpha crumpet back home.”
“Aside from the subtly imbedded ‘I don’t like you’ message hidden in your statement, what does that mean?”
“It means I heard you wanted some poetry written.”
“And you’re the best poet in the village?”
“By a long way.”
I attempted to take advantage of the narrow window of opportunity that had just opened, and asked if she’d like to discuss it down at the Fallen Man over a d’nish pastry.
“I’d sooner stick a bodkin through my tongue.”
“You really don’t like me, do you?”
“It’s not just you. You might say I am impartial in the politics of the Colortocracy—I despise all Chromatics equally.”
“Would there be any point in asking what’s going on in Rusty Hill, and how Zane and you relate to Ochre and the selling of the village swatches?”
“None whatsoever.”
“I thought you might say that . . . and we should have mutton on Wednesday,” I said, as Yewberry was walking past, deep in conversation with the Colorman about pipeline routing, “and with salad, not vegetables.”
Yewberry acknowledged my presence with a nod of his head, but the Colorman actually greeted me with a polite “Edward.” I replied, “Matthew,” which I could see impressed Yewberry.
“Right,” said Jane as soon as they had passed, “poetry. Who’s the bunny?”
I took a deep breath. “The ‘bunny,’ as you so indecorously call her, is an Oxblood, Constance Oxblood, and her father runs the stringworks in Jade-under-Lime. We’ve been seeing each other for several years, and we’ve even—”
“Do I look as though I’m interested?”
“Not really.”
“You’re right. The details of your hopeless quest to sacrifice your individuality on the altar of Chromatic betterment is about as exciting to me as pulling clodworms out of the juniors. Do you love each other?”