“Here we are,” he says as the car stops.
You could have fooled me. This doesn’t look like a school.
This time I wait for him to walk around, open my door, and offer me his hand. I grip the handle above the door and lower myself down without touching him, keep my chin up, and walk toward the front entrance of the school. Kosztylan is close enough to Solkovian that I can read the legend printed above the door: Secondary Elementary, No. 19. No name, nothing like that.
“Secondary elementary?”
“What you would call…” he furrows his brow, “fourth grade through sixth. Older children, not yet adolescents.”
“Tell me about it. The education system here.”
He steps beside me and opens the door.
“School begins at three. From birth to the child’s third birthday, the mother is given a stipend and expected to stay home from work.”
“Generous, but then she can’t advance her career.”
“There is no advancing of careers here. Work is not a competition. From each according to their ability.”
I stop in the lobby, at least I think it’s a lobby, and look at him.
“Who decides what their ability is?”
“Let me finish telling you. At age three children enter a crèche… I think the American expression is day care. It lasts from an hour before the workday begins at six in the the morning… What?”
He must be reading the look on my face. Admittedly it’s not going to be hard to read. My jaw dropped.
“You make them get up at six in the morning?”
“No, they are collected at six. Most of the younger children are still asleep when the caregivers pick them up from their homes and take them to the crèche. They spend the next twelve hours there—”
“You make everyone work twelve hours a day?”
“No, nine with an hour lunch period in the middle. The extra time is to allow parents some time to prepare meals for their children.”
“Can I ask you something before you finish?”
“Ask.”
“What kind of meals?”
“Food is rationed based on the results of biyearly blood tests and a yearly physical to… You’re staring at me again.”
“My God,” I breathe. “That’s horrible. You tell people what they can eat?”
“Yes. Would you rather I have an obesity and heart disease epidemic?”
“I’d rather kids get to have some cake or candy.”
“The restrictions are lifted during the festival days. As I was saying, academic instruction begins at the age of seven. Given your background in the field, you should know that the latest research indicates that instruction before that age is generally wasted, outside of basic reading and arithmetic skills. My early education teachers are trained to guide the children through structured play to help them build…”
I make a rolling motion with my hand. “Right, then what?”
He grits his teeth then sucks in a breath. “They are further divided by age. Seven, eight, and nine year olds together, then ten through thirteen. At age thirteen, children are put into small classes designed to assess their various intelligences and skills, administered a test, and start on a career path when they reach their fourteenth birthday.”
“It’s by age? There’s no summer vacation?”
“Don’t be absurd. What an enormous waste of time that would be. They get four days off per month, same as adults. If they fall ill, they are taken to a clinic and…”
“I can’t believe I’m hearing this. You don’t let them have sick days? You don’t let mothers care for their sick children?”
“Why? Their mothers aren’t nurses. Well, some of them are. I thought you wanted to see the school.”
“Is this the lobby?”
He nods. “I suppose. A place for parents to wait when they are called in for meetings. There is a bimonthly review process…”
“You can stop telling me about your processes now. God. This doesn’t look like any school I’ve been in.”
He folds his big arms and cocks his head. “What do schools look like, then?”
“There’s no drawings, no art, no trophy cases here. Where’s all the finger paintings and class projects the kids do? It looks like no one even comes here.”
“There are no drawings because I don’t waste their time with unproductive activities. There are no trophy cases because I don’t make them compete. They’re all equal.”
“That’s horrible,” I whisper. “I’m not sure I want to see this.”
“Then we should go—”
“No. It’s lunchtime, right? Take me to the cafeteria.”
“They eat at their desks. I learned the custom from a visit to Japan. Very efficient, and promotes unity—”
“Whatever, just show me.”
I can feel him bristling, but I’m starting to lose my patience.
I love kids. I always loved kids. I started working with them while I was still a student myself, tending to preschoolers for a class credit when I was a senior in high school. When I remark on this to the prince, he gives me a side eye and keeps walking.
He chooses a door, seemingly at random, and knocks.
The teacher opens it a moment later and, judging by the look on her face, nearly shits herself when she sees who just knocked on her door. Her face goes milk white and she steps back in quickly, lowering her gaze to his shoes.
I step past him and walk inside. She doesn’t acknowledge me. The kids all look up from their lunches at once. There’s a cart for their food trays where lunch was brought in. They’re eating steamed carrots and broccoli, and what looks like boiled chicken with a little pepper and salt.
Oh, he gives them a cookie. At least, I think it was a cookie. Almost every single kid ate theirs first except one, who is biting on hers in between bites of bland veggies and unflavored chicken to try to make it taste like something.
They all just stare at me.
The teacher trembles, no doubt wondering what offense she’s committed to draw this kind of attention on herself. I can almost see her formulating a plea and weighing whether or not to offer it to this man who has total authority over her entire existence.
God, it’s so plain in here. Even the teacher wears a plain gray dress, and the kids are all wearing uniforms, identical down to their shoes, all gray and black. The only color is from a world map and the coat of arms hanging from the wall, mustard yellow and black. There are no drawings, no pictures, no projects, no hermit crab in a terrarium, nothing but books with plain gray covers. Even the pencils are a drab neutral shade.
I start to shake looking at this. It takes everything I have not to turn around and vent my fury on him.
Then I hear a whisper, from the back row. They’re talking. My lips twitch, and I fight to suppress a smile.
Kids are kids. They’re afraid of spiders and the dark and monsters under their beds. They’re afraid when Mommy is sick or when Daddy is late from work, but they’re too inexperienced, or maybe too smart, to be scared of the stupid shit that frightens adults. They look at the prince with absolute wonder, like they’ve never seen a man before. It wouldn’t surprise me if he has some dumb rationale for all the teachers being female; it might be they never have seen a man at school before.
I take a good look at him. I meet his eye. Then I grab a spare chair and sit down right in front of the closest kid.
The prince turns to the teacher.
“Ring the office and tell them to bring a teacher’s lunch for the lady and myself.”
“No,” I add haltingly, in broken Kosztylan splashed with Solkovian. “Give me what they eat.”
“It’s not enough for an adult,” the prince interjects.
“Then I’ll eat a double lunch. Please.”
He eyes me then nods at the teacher. “As she commands… As she says. The same for me, no teacher lunch.”
Meanwhile this kid is staring at me, wide eyed and shaking a little, wit
h excitement or fear, maybe both.
“Hi,” I say to the kid.
His brown eyes go even wider.
“Hello. I am proud to speak English.”
I jerk back, surprised. “You speak very well. My name is Penny.”
“I am Klaus.”
“A pleasure to meet you, Klaus.”
I offer him my hand. He wraps his tiny fingers around mine and gives me a fair shake.
“Are you from America?”
“Yes I am.”
Another voice chirps out, “What’s it like there?”
The entire room goes silent. The little girl who asked me sinks into her seat like she wants to disappear, and the teacher looks at me, mortified. I look at the prince.
“You may ask her questions. One at a time.”
I put on my teacher voice and speak slowly, to make sure they understand me.
“That’s a big question! America is a very big country, much, much, much bigger than Kosztyla. The state of Pennsylvania where I come from is bigger than this whole land.”
The girl frowns. “But…”
“That doesn’t mean it’s better, honey. Just different. In America there are forests and plains, deserts and jungles, mountains and deep lakes. You can drive for days and days and you’ll still be in America. It’s three thousand miles from one side to the other, and that doesn’t include Alaska and Hawaii, way up north and out in the ocean!”
Someone, either a custodian or a cafeteria worker, arrives with another cart with our lunches.
I stand up and take mine then walk over and sit on the floor at the front of the room, leaning up against the wall.
I look at the prince and pat the floor next to me.
He shifts on his feet, and for a fleeting second looks at the kids—nervous. Then he walks over and sits down, legs folded, back straight, shoulders back.
The kids look at me like I’m an alien until the boy I was sitting in front of gets the hint. He picks up his lunch and walks over, sits down, and balances the tray in his lap, seated in front of me, waiting for me to go on. I lift the lid from my tray and use the plastic spork and knife I’ve been provided to saw into my chicken.
It’s not bad, it’s just so bland.
“Needs barbecue sauce,” I say with a shrug between bites.
Another kid who’s just sat down in front of me asks, “What is ‘barbecue sauce’?” She says the words very slowly, sounding out each syllable to make sure I understand that she’s repeating what I said.
“It’s…a condiment? A sauce. It’s made of molasses and sugar and pepper, but some people use tomato paste instead, and spices, and sometimes peppers to make it spicy. People make it different ways in different places.”
“However they want?”
“That’s right, however they want.”
The kids all murmur between each other, and more of them drift over and sit down. Within a few minutes they’re all sitting there, almost but not quite talking over each other as they ask me dozens of simple but earnest questions.
“You said you can drive for days,” one of them asks me. “How do you get papers? My momma asked for papers to take us to see the ocean and she was denied.”
“Papers? You don’t need papers. You need a license to drive a car, but you only need to prove you can operate it safely, then you can go where you like.”
Another kid immediately asks, “Everyone in America has a car?”
I can feel the prince shift next to me. He’s not eating, just poking the bland nasty chicken with his fork as it goes cold. The little girl next to him stares at his cookie like she’s dying of thirst and she just found a canteen.
I reach over, pluck the cookie from his tray, and hand it to her.
He looks at me, bristling, teeth clenched. I look back evenly.
“Go ahead, honey.”
I give mine away, too. To my surprise, the kids break the cookies into halves, then quarters, and pass them around.
“Get more—” the prince starts, but I silence him with a look.
“They can share, it’s fine. No, not everyone in America has a car. Not everyone wants one.”
“So you can have one if you want? No application? No denial?”
“As long as you’re old enough and licensed, yes.”
“Are you a teacher too?”
“I… Yes. I was teaching English in Solkovia, then I came here.”
“Why?”
I look at the prince. “Ask him.”
All twenty kids look right at him. The room goes silent.
“It’s not proper for them to address me,” he says under his breath, “you just told them to…”
“Does he like you?”
Every kid, and their teacher, looks at the little girl who just asked me. She clamps her hand over her mouth and sinks down.
I glance over at the prince. “He says he does. He wants to show me how beautiful your country is.”
“Do you like it here?”
“It’s different from my home,” I say quickly.
I’m not going to do that to them, tell them the truth. I shift from side to side a little and eat a few broccoli florets. They’re fresh, at least.
“She has enjoyed it so far,” the prince says. “You may speak to me, children.”
They all look around, as if trying to confirm from each other what they just heard.
The little girl who asked me if he likes me is almost jumping up and down, she’s fidgeting so hard in her spot.
“Are you going to marry the prince? Is there going to be a wedding? You’re pretty. You look like a princess.”
I glance over at the prince. I can’t help it.
He’s turning red. At first my stomach sinks and I start to feel a little pang of nausea, wondering what he’ll do to these little children for offending him… But he’s not red with fury, he’s blushing. He looks over at me and then looks away, his expression very deliberately and forcefully neutral.
“That depends on him,” I say.
“Children,” the teacher finally says, “that is a rude question to ask. Ask her something else.”
As the lunches disappear into their little stomachs, the questioning turns back to food. They want to know what a cheeseburger is like, what Kentucky Fried Chicken means, why people eat hot dogs when they don’t know what’s in them. I answer all of their questions, until the teacher starts to look agitated. I turn to her.
“The lunch hour is over.”
“You have my leave to continue until Penny wishes to depart.”
The teacher goes quiet again, listening.
“You look like you want to ask me something,” I say to her.
She goes even paler. “No, I was…” She looks nervously at the prince. “Forgive me if I…”
“Just ask me.”
She sighs. “Perhaps later if I am given leave. It is not an appropriate question to ask in front of the children.”
I turn back to the kids. Now they want to hear about music and television. They seem fascinated by the idea of media that isn’t state run. One of them asks me if I know Lady Gaga. One little boy turns beet red after he blurts out, “Can people in the America look at girls with no shirts on their computers?”
I smirk and tell him, “People in America don’t usually put shirts on their computers.”
He blinks a few times then laughs awkwardly and tries to hide behind one of his classmates. The prince glares at him.
I put my hand on the prince’s arm.
Everyone else in the room gasps loudly. It’s like all the air just sucked out through the windows.
Oops.
The prince very lightly rests his hand on mine, and squeezes. The kids all stare at it like he just kissed me full-on in the face.
I pull my hand back.
I sigh.
“Children aren’t allowed to.” They’re not supposed to be allowed to, but I don’t clarify that. “Adults can, but we don’t need to talk about that. Everyo
ne can use the Internet, though.”
A little girl seems confused by that. “What do they use it for? Research?”
“Yes, there’s a free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. People use it for many, many things. Buying things, selling things, talking with their friends, sharing pictures, talking about their favorite shows and books.”
“People can edit the encyclopedia? Can they make websites of their own?”
“Of course, anyone can. It costs money but there are free ways to do it, too. There are lots of ways to tell the whole world how you feel and what you think about any subject you want.”
“You come from a magic place,” one of them says reverently. “My momma is right about red hair. You are a witch!”
The prince tenses, but I laugh it off. “I can’t do magic, honey. Magic isn’t real. It’s just a different country with different rules.”
“It sounds bett—”
She cuts herself off sharply. Her eyes snap to the prince and she sinks down, tears welling in her eyes.
I set my lunch aside and jump to my feet, drop down next to her, and hug her to my side.
“I didn’t mean it,” she chirps in rapid Kosztylan, her clipped English forgotten. “I didn’t mean to be bad. Don’t take me away.”
The prince rises to his feet. He turns to the teacher.
“Escort all the other students out.”
“Your grace—”
His voice is even but hard like stone. “Anywhere but here. Go. Now.”
“Children, follow,” she says nervously.
It takes her a moment to gather them all and rush them out of the room, pulling the door shut behind her. That leaves me sitting on the floor with a sobbing little girl in my lap, clutching me like she expects her dear leader to snatch her away with his own two hands.
I hold her tighter.
“I’m not going to let you hurt her.”
“Is that what you think of me? Child, what is your name?”
“Anna.”
“Anna, listen to me. No harm will come to you. You made a mistake.”
“Francois said America was better last year,” she says, clutching my dress hard in her little fingers. “He went away and never came back.” She starts to sob harder. “Don’t take me away.”
Player's Princess (A Royal Sports Romance) Page 40