“Aw, sick of us already?” said Ames, smirking.
“I grew up with all y’all since I was eight. Of course I’m sick of you.”
Taye snorted.
Ames popped a hush puppy into her mouth. “Nah, you love me, B. You know it, I know it, even the new kid knows it. I’m lovable.”
“Since you wereeight?” Noam interrupted before Ames could keep going—and she looked like she wanted to. “How young do people usually start?”
“I was nine,” Taye said helpfully. He wasn’t eating a proper dinner, just picking the red pieces from a bag of sour candies. He’d accumulated quite the pile next to his lukewarm potatoes.
“Seven,” said Ames.
Seven. No wonder none of them thought Noam belonged here. They’d spent their formative years studying Rousseau and physics; Noam had spent his taking shifts at the corner store.
He abandoned his dinner, propping his elbows up on the table and clasping his hands in front of his mouth.
Why was Lehrer letting him stay?
It was all well and good to talk about antibody levels and “dynamics,” but Swensson was right. Noam couldn’t learn additional powers. Not quickly, at least. He was little use to Carolinia as a soldier either, considering his record for undermining legal authority. Was technopathy just that good?
Of course, working for Lehrer wasn’t the same thing as working for Sacha. There’d been a big scandal in all the papers a couple years back, right after Sacha’d been elected. The two loathed each other, or so the gossip went. Lehrer thought Sacha too capitalistic, too eager to build Carolinia’s economy at the expense of the working class, that the only thing Sacha cared about was making peace with the notoriously antiwitching Texas and Britain. And Sacha kept trying to push through all these reforms: health care, pensions, lower taxes...
So Lehrer had threatened to step down as minister of defense.
Whatever Sacha thought of Lehrer personally, he’d backed off right quick after that. No one wanted to be the chancellor who made Calix Lehrer resign.
“I suppose Lehrer must think I can catch up,” he mused aloud. “Otherwise he wouldn’t tutor me.”
That got their attention.
“Lehrer’s tutoring you?” Taye asked through a mouthful of candy; he’d moved on from picking through his sweets to devouring them.
“You are talking aboutMinisterLehrer, right?” Ames said dryly.
Noam shrugged. Taye and Ames exchanged looks. Taye lifted an eyebrow, and Ames shook her head ever so slightly.
Bethany set down her fork. “I guess that means you’ll be sharing lessons with Dara. I can’t imagine Lehrer has time to teach both of you separately.”
Right. The mysterious Dara.
“I suppose. Howard said Dara’s getting tutoring from Lehrer too.”
At least Noam wasn’t the only one so far behind.
Taye waved a dismissive hand. “Dara’s a special case. He’s top of our class. Lehrer raised him since he was four.”
Oh.
“Yeah, I heard he’s aprodigy,” Ames said, and both she and Taye snickered at some indiscernible inside joke. Even Bethany smiled.
Noam sat in silence, at the same table as the rest yet not there at all.
He wished he had an excuse to get up and go back to the bedroom. Maybe sit on the floor of the shower and pretend for a while that he was back home in the bookstore. That any second now a neighbor would rap at the door, demanding he hurry up. That his father waited back in their apartment, gazing out the window across his city.
“How long’s Lehrer keeping him, anyway?” Bethany said eventually. It took Noam a moment to realize she was still talking about Dara. She looked at Ames. “He’s been gone three days.”
“Why’re you asking me?” Ames said. “I already said he didn’t leave a note or anything.” She dumped more salt on her plate. “He’s liable to show up soon enough. Lehrer probably has him off doing fancy training for people with fancy powers. It’s fine.”
