A War of Gifts: An Ender Story

know a great commander when I see one, and I can help get him ready. That’s good enough for me. I can take this stupid, ineffective school and accomplish something that actually might help us win this war. Something real.
    Not this stupid make-believe. Battle School! It was children’s games, but structured by adults in order to manipulate the children. But what did it have to do with the real war? You rise to the top of the standings, you beat everybody, and then what? Did you kill a single Bugger? Save a single human life?
    No. You just go on to the next school and start over as nothing again. Was there any evidence that Battle School accomplished anything?
    Sure, the graduates ended up filling important positions throughout the fleet. But then, Battle School only admits kids that are brilliant in the first place, so they would have been command material already. Was there any evidence that Battle School made a difference?
    I could have been home in Holland, walking by the North Sea. Watching it pound against the shore, trying to wash over and sweep away the dikes, the islands, and cover the land with ocean, as it used to be, before humans started their foolish terraforming experiment.
    Dink remembered reading-back on Earth, when he could read what he wanted-the silly claim that the Great Wall of China was the only human artifact that could be seen from space. In fact the claim wasn’t even true-at least not from geosynchronous orbit or higher. The wall didn’t even cast enough of a shadow to be seen.
    No, the human artifact that could be seen from space, that showed up in picture after picture without exciting any comment at all, was Holland. It should have been nothing but barrier islands with wide saltwater sounds behind them. Instead, because the Dutch built their dikes and pumped out the salt water and purified the soil, it was land. Lush, green land-visible from space. But nobody recognized it as a human artifact. It was just land. It grew plants and fed dairy cattle and held houses and highways, just like any other land. But we did it. We Dutch. And when the sea levels rose, we raised our dikes higher and made them thicker and stronger, and nobody thought, Wow, look at the Dutch, they created the largest human artifact on Earth, and they’re still making it, a thousand years later.
    I could have been home in Holland until they were actually ready to have me do something real. As real as the land behind the dikes.
    Free time was over. Dink went to practice. Then he ate with the rest of Rat Army-complete with the ritual of pretending that all their food was rat food. Dink noticed how Wiggin observed and seemed to enjoy the game-but didn’t take part. He stayed aloof, watching.
    That’s something else we have in common.
    Something else? Why had he thought of it that way? What was the first thing they had in common, that made it so standing aloof was something else?
    Oh, that’s right. I almost forgot. We’re the smartest kids in the room. Dink silently laughed at himself with perfect scorn. Right, I’m not competitive. I know I’m not the bestbut without even thinking about it, I assume that I’m therefore second best. What an eemo. Dink went to the library and studied awhile. He hoped that Petra would come by, but she didn’t. Instead of talking to her-the only other kid he knew who shared his contempt for the system-he actually finished his assignments. It was history, so it mattered that he do well. He got back to the barracks a little early. Maybe he’d sleep. Maybe play some game on his desk. Maybe there’d be somebody in a talkative mood and Dink would have a conversation. No plans. He refused to care.
    Flip was there, too. Already getting undressed for bed. But instead of putting his shoes in his locker with the rest of his uniform and his flash suit and the few other possessions a kid could have in Battle School, he had set his shoes down on the floor near the foot of his bed, toes out. There was something familiar about it.
    Flip looked at him and smiled wanly and rolled his eyes. Then he swung up onto his bed and started reading something on his desk, scrolling through what must be homework, because now and then he’d run his finger across some section of the text to highlight it.
    The shoes. This was December fifth. It was Sinterklaas Eve. Flip was Dutch, so of course he had set out his shoes.
    Tonight, Sinterklaas-Sint Nikolaas, patron saint of children-would come from his home in