A War of Gifts (Ender's Saga 1.10)

You'll find it on your breakfast tray.

It's not as if there were a lot of things available to the kids in Battle School. Their only games were in their desks or in the game room; their only sport was in the Battle Room. Desks and uniforms; what else did they need to own?

This bit of paper, thought Dink. That's what he'll have in the morning.

It was dark in the barracks, and most kids were asleep, though a few still worked on their desks, or played some stupid game. Didn't they know the teachers did psychological analysis on them based on the games they played? Maybe they just didn't care. Dink sometimes didn't care either, and played. But not tonight. Tonight he was seriously pissed off. And he didn't even know why.

Yes he did. Flip was getting something from Sinterklaas--and Dink wasn't. He should have. Dad would have made sure he got something from Black Piet's bag. Dink would have hunted all over the house for it on Sinterklaas morning until he finally found it in some perverse hiding place.

I'm homesick. That's all. Isn't that what the stupid counselor told him? You're homesick--get over it. The other kids do, said the counselor.

But they don't, thought Dink. They just hide i

t. From each other, from themselves.

The remarkable thing about Flip was that tonight he didn't hide it.

Flip was already asleep. Dink folded the paper and slipped it into one of the shoes.

Stupid greedy kid. Leaving out both shoes.

But of course that wasn't it at all. If he had left only one shoe, that would have been proof positive of what he was doing. Someone might have guessed and then Flip would have been mocked mercilessly for being so homesick and childish. So...both shoes. Deniability. Not Sinterklaas Day at all--I just left my shoes by the side of my bed.

Dink crawled into his own bed and lay there for a little while, filled with a deep and unaccountable sadness. It wasn't homesickness, not really. It was the fact that Dink was no longer the child; now he was the one who helped Sinterklaas do his job. Of course the old saint couldn't get from Spain to Battle School, not in the ship he used. Somebody had to help him out.

Dink was being, not the child, but the dad. He would never be the child again.

5

SINTERKLAAS DAY

Zeck saw the shoes. He saw Dink put something into the shoe in the darkness, when most kids were asleep. But it meant nothing to him, except that these two Dutch boys were doing something weird.

Zeck wasn't in Dink's toon. He wasn't really in any toon. Because nobody wanted him, and it wouldn't matter if they had. Zeck didn't play.

Which made it all the more remarkable that Rat Army was in second place--they won their battles with one less active soldier than anybody else.

At first Rosen had threatened him and tried to take away privileges--even meals--but Zeck simply ignored him, like he ignored other kids who shoved him and jostled him in the corridors. What did he care? Their physical brutality, mild as it might be, showed what kind of people they were--the impurity of their souls--because they rejoiced in violence.

Genesis, chapter six, verse thirteen: "And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth."

Didn't they understand that it was the violence of the human race that had caused God to send the Buggers to attack the Earth? This became obvious to Zeck as he was forced to watch the vids of the Scouring of China. What could the Buggers represent, except the destroying angel? A flood the first time, and now fire, just as was prophesied.

So the proper response was to forswear violence and become peaceful, rejecting war. Instead, they sacrificed their children to the idolatrous god of war, taking them from their families and thrusting them up here into the hot metal arms of Moloch, where they would be trained to give themselves over entirely to violence.

Jostle me all you want. It will purify me and make you filthier.

Now, though, nobody bothered with Zeck. He was ignored. Not pointedly--if he asked a question, people answered. Scornfully, perhaps, but what was that to Zeck? Scorn was merely pity mingled with hate, and hate was pride mixed with fear. They feared him because he was different, and so they hated him, and so their pity--the touch of godliness that remained in them--was turned to scorn. A virtue made filthy by pride.

By morning he had forgotten all about Flip's shoes and the paper that Dink had put into one of them the night before.

But then he saw Dink step out of the food line with a full tray, and walk back to hand the tray to Flip.

Flip smiled, then laughed and rolled his eyes.

Zeck remembered the shoes then. He walked over and looked at the tray.

It was pancakes this morning, and on the top pancake, everything had been cut away except a big letter "F." Apparently, this had some significance to the two Dutch boys that completely escaped Zeck. But then, a lot of things escaped him. His father had kept him sheltered from the world, and so he did not know many of the things most of the other children knew. He was proud of his ignorance. It was a mark of his purity.