That afternoon, Huahua visited three neighboring countries where, with superlative eloquence, he quickly convinced the leadership. On the riverside at their common border, they held a meeting formally establishing the Four Country Alliance.
Another member joined the observers stationed in Sunland.
The directorate established itself inside a TV repeater station at the top of the hill, where it had a bird’s-eye view of the entire valley. That evening, after the founding of the Four Country Alliance, Zheng Chen arrived at the repeater compound and looked out at the nighttime valley for a long while, as she had done on previous evenings. The children were asleep after an exhausting day of work, so a few scattered lanterns were all that was visible.
By this point she had thrown herself fully into the project and no longer asked what it all was for. Not a single one of the countless answers she had dreamed up made sense, and the previous day she had heard a few kids in Sunland discussing the issue, too.
“It’s a science experiment,” Specs said to a few other children. “Our twenty-four little countries are a model of the world, and the adults want to see how this model develops. Then they’ll know what our country should do in the future.”
“Then why don’t they run the experiment with adults?” someone asked.
“If the adults know it’s a game, they won’t play it seriously. We’re the only ones who’ll play a game seriously, and that’s what makes the outcome real.”
It was the most reasonable explanation Zheng Chen had heard. But the premier’s words still echoed in her brain: “The world isn’t what it used to be.”
Now Zhang Lin walked out of the door to the cabin that once had served as the lodgings for repeater station workers and came over next to Zheng Chen to survey the valley. He said, “Ms. Zheng, your class has been the most successful of all of them. Those children are made of good stuff.”
“What do you mean by success? As I hear it, at the western end of the valley there’s a country that has absorbed its five neighbors and now has six times its original land area and population, and it’s still expanding.”
“No, Ms. Zheng. That’s not important to us. What we’re looking at is a country’s success in building itself, in cohesion, and in its judgment of the makeup of the world it inhabits, as well as the long-term decisions those lead to.”
The game in the valley allowed free exit, and over the past couple of days children from practically every country had come to the directorate to say they were finished playing, that the game was getting boring, that the work was too tiring, and that the gun fighting was too scary. The directors said the same thing to each of them: “That’s okay. Go home.” And they were returned home at once. When they later found out what they had missed, some of them stayed angry the rest of their lives, while others were secretly glad. Sunland was the only country that didn’t lose any children, a key data point for the directors.
Zhang Lin said, “Ms. Zheng, I’d like to learn more about those three young leaders.”
Zheng Chen said, “They’re from ordinary families. But if you look more closely, their families really are a little different.”
“Start with Huahua.”
“His father is an engineer with an architecture institute, and his mother’s a dance instructor. He takes after his father, who also comes across as open-minded, taking the long view toward things with little regard for the details of his own life. When I went to their home, he held forth on global affairs and the strategy China ought to adopt in the future, but didn’t ask any questions about his son’s performance at school.”
“He’s aloof.”
“No, not aloof. He wasn’t discussing those things for disinterested amusement. He talked about national and world affairs with a powerful sense of participation. He had a strong initiative, and that excessive broad-mindedness and disregard for his immediate surroundings might be why he’s been unsuccessful in his career. Huahua does take after him, but one major difference is that the kid has charisma and an inclination to action, enough to bring together other children to accomplish unbelievable things. For example, he’s gotten the class to set up a street stall, to build and fly a hot-air balloon, and to take a boating trip on a river in the distant suburbs. He’s got motivation and resourcefulness far beyond his years. His weakness is a tendency toward fantasy and impulsiveness.”
“You know your students very well.”
“They think of me as a friend. Yan Jing—that’s Specs—comes from a typical family of intellectuals. His parents are college professors, his father in the humanities and his mother in science.”
“He seems to me to be very knowledgeable.”
“That’s right. But his greatest strength is how thoroughly he considers a problem, far more carefully than other children. He can pick up things from all angles that no one else notices. You might not believe it, but when I’m preparing my lessons I’ll often seek his feedback. His weakness is obvious: He’s introverted and isn’t good at social interaction.”
“The other students in your class don’t seem to mind that.”
“True. His erudition appeals to them and wins him their respect. Specs is always involved in discussions of major problems, and in any decision-making. That’s why they elected him.”
“And Xiaomeng?”
“Her background is unusual. Her family was a good one: her father was a reporter, and her mother a professional writer. When she was in the second grade, her father died in a car accident pursuing a story, and then her mother had kidney failure and needed dialysis. And she had a grandparent in bed at home. Both of them died last year, but for the past three years Xiaomeng basically has had to run the household. Still, she managed to get the best marks in class. She was right in the worst of it when I came on as homeroom teacher, and each morning when I came into class I’d look for signs of fatigue on her face, but there never were. Just…”
“Maturity.”
“Right. Maturity. You’ve seen her expression, mature beyond her years. One thing I remember most clearly was when I took the class on a tour of the Aerospace Command and Control Center in western Beijing last semester. The other kids immersed themselves in all the high-tech marvels, and during a forum with the center’s engineers, they all said that we should put an astronaut in space, and then build a huge space station, and land on the moon, all at once. Xiaomeng was the only one who asked how much a space station would cost, and when she was given a rough estimate, said that the money could fund the education of every poor child in the country through middle school. Then she rattled off statistics for unschooled children, and how much it would cost to educate them through middle school, taking into account regional differences and price increases. All of the adults in the forum were stunned.”
“Is there anything about her that makes her popular with the others?”
“Trustworthiness. She is the most trusted kid in class. She can sort out tons of problems the kids have, even complicated ones that have me stumped. She’s got management talent. She’s very methodical in carrying out her duties as the class’s studies monitor.”
“There’s one more student I’d like to know a little more about: Lü Gang.”
“I don’t know him very well. He’s a transfer from the second half of last semester. He comes from an unusual family, too. His father’s a general. And under his father’s influence, he likes weapons and the military. The one thing that impressed me most about him is that when he joined the sports committee after transferring to our class, in just one week he took our soccer squad from second-to-last to first. School rules prohibit adding extracurricular practices, but he didn’t run any practices at all, he just made some adjustments to our strategy. The surprising thing is that his previous school lacked the facilities for him to have much exposure to soccer at all, and he doesn’t really play. His indomitable spirit is another impressive characteristic. During a cross-country race, he twisted his ankle and his foot swelled up so big he couldn’t put his shoe on, but he finished the race anyway, even though there was no one left at the finish line when he came in. You don’t see that kind of resolve in many children.”