First meetings in the Enderverse

said John Paul. Half their neighbors did.
    “Because this is Poland,” said Andrew, “and we’re Catholic.”
    “What, does the priest give people extra babies?” John Paul couldn’t see the connection.
    “Catholics believe you should have as many children as God sends you. And no government has the right to tell you to reject God’s gifts.”
    “What gifts?” said John Paul.
    “You, dummy,” said Andrew. “You’re God’s gift number seven in this house. And the babies are gift eight and gift nine.”
    “But what does it have to do with going to school?”
    Andrew rolled his eyes. “You really are dumb,” he said. “Schools are run by the government. The government has to enforce sanctions against noncompliance. And one of the sanctions is, only the first two children in a family have a right to go to school.”
    “But Peter and Catherine don’t go to school,” said John Paul.
    “Because Father and Mother don’t want them to learn all the anti-Catholic things the schools teach.”
    John Paul wanted to ask what “anti-Catholic” meant, but then he realized it must mean something like against-the-Catholics so it wasn’t worth asking and having Andrew call him a dummy again. Instead he thought and thought about it. How a war made it so all the nations gave power to one man, and that one man then told everybody how many children they could have, and all the extra children were kept out of school. That was actually a benefit, wasn’t it? Not to go to school? How would John Paul have learned anything, if he hadn’t been in the same room with Anna and Andrew and Peter and Catherine and Nicholas and Thomas, overhearing their lessons?
    The most puzzling thing was the idea that the schools could teach anti-Catholic stuff. “Everybody’s Catholic, aren’t they?” he asked Father once.
    “In Poland, yes. Or they say they are. And it used to be true.” Father’s eyes were closed. His eyes were almost always closed, whenever he sat down. Even when he was eating, he always looked as though he were about to fall over and sleep. That was because he worked two jobs, the legal one during the day and the illegal one at night. John Paul almost never saw him except in the morning, and then Father was too tired to talk and Mother would shush him.
    She shushed him now, even though Father had already answered him. “Don’t pester your father with questions, he has important things on his mind.”
    “I have nothing on my mind,” said Father wearily. “I have no mind.”
    “Anyway,” said Mother.
    But John Paul had another question, and he had to ask it. “If everybody’s Catholic, why do the schools teach anti-Catholic?”
    Father looked at him like he was crazy. “How old are you?”
    He must not have understood what John Paul was asking, since it had nothing to do with ages. “I’m five, Father, don’t you remember? But why do the schools teach anti-Catholic?”
    Father turned to Mother. “He’s only five, why are you teaching him this?”
    “You taught him,” said Mother. “Always ranting about the government.”
    “It’s not our government, it’s a military occupation. Just one more attempt to extinguish Poland.”
    “Yes, keep talking, that’s how you’ll get cited again and you’ll lose your job and then what will we do?”
    It was obvious John Paul wasn’t going to get any answer and he gave up, saving the question for later, when he got more information and could connect it together.
    That was how life went on, the year John Paul was five: Mother working constantly, cooking meals and tending the babies even while she tried to run a school in the parlor, Father going away to work so early in the morning that the sun wasn’t even up, and all of the children awake so they could see their father at least once a day.
    Until the day Father stayed home from work.
    Mother and Father were both very quiet and tense at breakfast, and when Anna asked them why Father wasn’t dressed for work, Mother only snapped, “He’s not going today,” in a tone that said, “Ask no more questions.”
    With two teachers, lessons should have gone better that day. But Father was an impatient teacher, and he made Anna and Catherine so upset they fled to their rooms, and he ended up going out into the garden to weed.
    So when the knock came on the door, Mother had to send Andrew running out back to get Father. Moments later, Father came in, still brushing dirt from his hands. The knock had come