A War of Gifts: An Ender Story

race.”
    Zeck held himself still, so he could not shudder as his body wanted to. Mother’s boldness was rare, and always chancy. How would Father react to this? It was his place to speak, to act, to protect the family and the church.
    2

    ENDER’S STOCKING

    Peter Wiggin was supposed to spend the day at the Greensboro Public Library, working on a term paper, but he had lost interest in the project. It was two days before Christmas, a holiday that always depressed him. “Don’t get me any gifts,” he said to his parents last year. “Put the money into mutual funds and give it to me when I graduate.”
    “Christmas drives the American economy,” Father said. “We have to do our part.”
    “It’s not up to you what other people do and don’t give you.”
    Peter resented the contempt in her tone. “And stroking his stocking and crying over it, that’s supposed to make anything better?”
    “You really are a piece of work, Peter,” she said, pushing past him. He followed her into the kitchen. “I bet they hang up stockings for them up in Battle School and fill them with little toy spaceships that make cool shooting noises.”
    “I’m sure the Muslim and Hindu students will appreciate getting Christmas stockings,” said Mother.
    “Whatever they do for Christmas, Mother, Ender isn’t going to be missing us.”
    “Just because you wouldn’t miss us doesn’t mean he doesn’t.”
    He rolled his eyes. “Of course I’d miss you.”
    Mother said nothing.
    “I’m a perfectly normal kid. So’s Ender. He’ll be busy. He’s getting along fine. He’s adapting. People adapt. To anything.”
    She turned slowly, reached across and touched his chest, then hooked a finger through the neckline of his shirt and drew him close. “You never adapt,” she whispered, “to losing a child.”
    “It’s not like he’s dead,” said Peter.
    “It’s exactly like he’s dead,” said Mother. “I will never again see the boy who left here. I’ll never see him at age seven or nine or eleven. I’ll have no memories of him at those ages, only what I can imagine. That’s what the parents of dead children have. So until you actually know something about what you’re talking about, Peter-human feelings, for instance-why don’t you just shut up?”
    “Merry Christmas to you too,” said Peter. He left the room.
    His own bedroom, when he entered it, felt strange to him. Alien. Bare. There was nothing there that expressed a personality. That had been a conscious decision on his part-anything individual that he put on display would give Valentine an advantage in their endless dueling. But at this moment, with Mother’s accusation of his inhumanity still ringing in his ears, his bedroom looked so sterile that he hated the person who would choose to live in it.
    So he wandered back into the living room and reached into the box of Christmas stockings and pulled out the whole stack. Mother had cross-stitched their names and an iconic picture on each stocking. His own was a spaceship. Ender’s stocking had a steam locomotive. But it was Ender in space, the little twit, while Peter was stuck on land with the locomotives.
    Peter thrust his hand down into Ender’s stocking and started making it talk like a hand puppet. “I’m Mommy’s bestest boy and I’ve been very very good.”
    There was something in the toe of the stocking. Peter reached deeper into the sock, found it, and pulled it out. It was just a five-dollar piece-a nickel, as people had taken to calling them, though it was supposedly ten times the value of that long disused coin.
    “So you’ve taken to stealing things out of other people’s stockings?” said Mother from the doorway. Peter felt as embarrassed as if he had been caught in an actual crime. “The toe was heavy,” he said. “I was seeing what it was.”
    “It wasn’t yours, whatever it was,” said Mother cheerily.
    “I wasn’t going to keep it,” said Peter. Though of course he would have done exactly that, on the assumption that it had been forgotten and would never be missed.
    But that was the stocking she had been holding and weeping over. She knew perfectly well the nickel was there.
    “You still put stuff in his stocking every year,” he said, incredulous.
    “Santa fills the stockings,” said Mother. “It has nothing to do with me.”
    Peter shook his head. “Oh, Mother.”
    “It has nothing to do with you,” said Mother. “Mind your business.”
    “This is morbid,”