A War of Gifts: An Ender Story

responsibility to build morale,’ is that correct, sir?” asked Zeck.
    “And that remark falls under the category of ‘You won’t get out of Battle School by being a smartass,’” said Graff.
    “Better a smartass than an insufferable twit, sir,” said Zeck.
    “Get out of my office.”

    An hour later, Flip and Dink had been called in and reprimanded and the poem confiscated.
    “Aren’t you going to take his shoes, sir?” asked Dink. “And I’m sure we can recover his initial when he shits it out. I’ll reshape it for you so there’s no mistaking it, sir.”
    Graff said nothing, except to send them back to class. He knew that word of this would circulate throughout Battle School. But if he hadn’t done it, then Zeck would have made sure that word of how this “religious observance” had been tolerated would spread, and then there really would be a nightmare of kids demanding their holidays.
    It was inevitable. The two recusants, Zeck and Dink, both of whom refused to cooperate with the program here, were bound to become allies. Not that they knew they were allied. But in fact they werethey were deliberately stressing the system in order to try to make it collapse. Well, I won’t let you, dear genius children. Because nobody gives a rat’s ass about Sinterklaas Day, or about Christian nonviolence. When you go to war-which is where you’ve gone, believe it or not, Dink and Zeckthen childish things are put away. In the face of a threat to the survival of the species, all these planetside trivialities are put aside until the crisis passes.
    And it has not passed, whatever you little twits might think about it. 6

    HOLY WAR

    Dink left Graff’s office seething. “If they can’t see the difference between praying eight times a day and putting a poem in a shoe once a year…”
    “It was a great poem,” said Flip.
    “It was dumb,” said Dink.
    “Wasn’t that the point? It was a great dumb poem. I just feel bad I didn’t write one for you.”
    “I didn’t put out my shoes.”
    Flip sighed. “I’m sorry I did that. I was just feeling homesick. I didn’t think anybody would do anything about it.”
    “Sorry.”
    “We’re both so very very sorry,” said Flip. “Except that we’re not sorry at all.”
    “No, we’re not,” said Dink.
    “In fact, it’s kind of fun to get in trouble for keeping Sinterklaas Day. Imagine what would happen if we celebrated Christmas.”
    “Well,” said Dink, “we’ve still got nineteen days.”
    “Right,” said Flip.
    By the time they got back to Rat Army barracks, it was obvious that the story was already known. Everybody fell silent when Dink and Flip stood in the doorway.
    “Stupid,” said Rosen.
    “Thanks,” said Dink. “That means so much, coming from you.”
    “Since when did you get religion?” Rosen demanded. “Why make some kind of holy war out of it?”
    “It wasn’t religious,” said Dink. “It was Dutch.”
    “Well, eemo, you be Rat Army now, not Dutch.”
    “In three months I won’t be in Rat Army,” said Dink. “But I’ll be Dutch until I die.”
    “Nations don’t matter up here,” said one of the other boys.
    “Religions neither,” said another.
    “Well it’s obvious religion does matter,” said Flip, “or we wouldn’t have been called in and reprimanded for cutting a pancake into an ‘F’ and writing a funny poem and sticking it in a shoe.”
    Dink looked down the long corridor, which curved upward toward the end. Zeck, who slept at the very back of the barracks, couldn’t even be seen from the door.
    “He’s not here,” said Rosen.
    “Who?”
    “Zeck,” said Rosen. “He came in and told us what he’d done, and then he left.”
    “Anybody know where he goes when he takes off by himself?” asked Dink.
    “Why?” said Rosen. “You planning to slap him around a little? I can’t allow that.”
    “I want to talk to him,” said Dink.
    “Oh, talk,” said Rosen.
    “When I say talk, I mean talk,” said Dink.
    “I don’t want to talk to him,” said Flip. “Stupid prig.”
    “He just wants to get out of Battle School,” said Dink.
    “If we put it to a vote,” said one of the other boys, “he’d be gone in a second. What a waste of space.”
    “A vote,” said Flip. “What a military idea.”
    “Go stick your finger in a dike,” the boy answered.
    “So now we’re anti-Dutch,” said Dink.
    “They can’t help it if they still believe in Santa Claus,” said an American