All the Colors of Time (21 page)

“Miss Tindall, who defines which clothes are male and which
are female? Medieval gentlemen (such as they were) wore leggings and skirts.
Scotsmen wear kilts to this day. And in Egypt, at this very moment, men stroll
the avenues wearing what you would call dresses while their wives do the
shopping in what you would call pants.”

“This is America, Dr. Jones, not Egypt. And it’s 1950, not
the Middle Ages.”

“Miss Tindall,” said Helen quietly, “our children have led a
much less sheltered life than their classmates. They’ve accumulated a vast
library of diverse experiences. Anastasia’s spent most of her life in jeans and
khaki field trousers, digging up history your students here have only read
about. It’s going to take while for her to make the adjustment to this more
restrictive lifestyle. All we’re asking is that you try to understand that what
seems bizarre or out of place to you is normal to Stasi.”

“Normal,” repeated Miss Tindall. “Maroon hair, dresses that
look like ankle-length sacks and earrings made from giant fishing lures?”

“Her hair is burgundy, Miss Tindall,” said Helen, “and all
of those things you just mentioned were quite normal the last place we lived.”

Miss Tindall pursed her lips. “Paris, she said.”

“Paris,” agreed Helen.

“Mrs. Jones—”

“
Doctor
Jones.”

“Doctor Jones, I’m aware that Paris is the birth place of
modern fashion, but I find it hard to believe that young ladies there wear such
outlandish styles.”

“Well, they wore them while we were there.”

“I see.”

“Do you?” asked Helen. “You see that Stasi is different, but
do you see that there’s nothing wrong with that?”

Miss Tindall sighed. “Dr. Jones—”

“There is
nothing
wrong with that, Miss Tindall. Stasi is an excellent student. A model
teenager—honest, caring, mature beyond her years. Stasi is an individual. That
individuality, that diversity, is very precious to her and to us. If you try to
make her over in the image of some narrow ideal, if you try to squelch that
individuality, we will have no choice but to withdraw our children from this
school.”

Miss Tindall’s face went crimson. “That’s illegal, Mrs.
Jones.”

“
Doctor
Jones,”
Helen corrected her. “And we’ll worry about the legality of it. This is not a
threat; please don’t take it that way. We simply want you to understand that we
are willing to go to great lengths to protect our children’s individual rights.
Stasi’s qualities, Miss Tindall, are on the inside; they are not woven into her
clothing.” She looked at her husband, who was nodding thoughtfully. “I think we’ve
done all we can here, dear. Shall we go?”

“Certainly.” He rose and reached across the desk/barricade
for Miss Tindall’s hand. “Thank you for your time, Miss Tindall.”

They left the cubicle, drawing the gazes of the office staff
after them.

Royalty in khaki,
thought Mildred Tindall, and wondered where they’d come from.

oOo

Constantine Jones had a problem. He had come to school
without his book bag. He had no pencils, no pens, no paper and, worst of all,
no textbooks. When the teacher asked the class to take out paper and a pencil,
he sat, frozen inside, glancing nervously around the room.

Two rows to the right, Tahireh caught his eye.

“What?” she mouthed.

He shrugged and signed that he had forgotten the sacred bag.

She looked thoughtful for a second, then pointedly lifted
her desktop and put her own pencil in. Then she withdrew it.

Constantine knew what she was suggesting. He tried to
swallow the lump of panic in his throat, but it wouldn’t budge. “Here?” he
mouthed.

“Constantine, paper and pencil, please,” said Mr. Matthews.

“Yes, sir.”

Constantine lifted the top of his desk, reached inside and,
after a moment of eye clenched hesitation, pulled out a pencil and a piece of
lined paper.

Mr. Matthews smiled pleasantly and proceeded to hand out
in-class assignments. Everything was fine until he asked them to take out their
history readers. Constantine panicked again. He could just say he’d forgotten
his books, but that would mean a mandatory after-school session, an extra
assignment and utter humiliation before a council of his peers. His eyes cast
about, clutching the boy next to him who had withdrawn the little textbook from
his desk. It was covered in a crisp, brown paper bag.

Constantine echoed the movement, pulling out his own smartly
attired book. His neighbor opened his book. He opened his, frowned in
consternation, and quickly curved his arms around it.

“Page fifteen, please,” said Mr. Matthews. “I want you all
to take a moment to read page fifteen, then we’ll talk about the New World.”

Constantine put his head down and sweated. He could feel his
sister’s concern wash around and over him, felt it intensify to matching panic
when Mr. Matthews took a bad turn and strolled up the aisle behind him.

Seeing a child hunkered so low over a textbook raises
immediate suspicions in the mind of a teacher, and Mr. Matthews’ teacherly
instincts were about as fully developed as they could be. He stopped right over
Constantine and looked down. Then, he tapped Constantine on the shoulder.

“How are we doing, Mr. Jones?”

“Fine.”

“And what are we reading about?”

“The New World.”

“Isn’t it a little difficult to read about the New World all
hunched over like that?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, straighten up, please. We don’t want you to ruin your
eyes.”

Constantine stared at him for a moment, a wrinkle of pure
anguish between his brows. Then he straightened up.

Mr. Matthews reached over his shoulder and nudged the book
out of his protective embrace. After a moment of silence, during which
Constantine was certain the entire Cosmos had collapsed, Mr. Matthews drew in a
long breath and said, “Mr. Jones, can you explain to me why the pages of this
book are blank?”

oOo

Constantine, clutching his older brother’s hand, cowered
tearfully in the principal’s office. The offending volume was in the hands of
the enemy and all was lost. He had no true conception of the magnitude of his
crime, but he was certain it would mean the end of the world as he knew it.

Beside him, Tamujin breathed confidence and comfort into the
ether.

“It’s really very simple, sir,” Tam said. “Connie just
picked up the wrong book.”

“The wrong book?”

“Yes, sir. That’s mine.”

“Yours? But it has blank pages.”

“Yes, sir. It’s a writer’s journal. You know, a thought
book. I got it just before we left Paris. Connie must have mistaken it for his
history book. He’d wrapped that in a paper bag too, and they’re about the same
size.” He smiled engagingly. “I guess I should’ve put my name on it. Sorry,
sir. I feel real bad about putting Constantine through this.” He squeezed his
little brother’s trembling shoulder and turned the smile down into his
tear-streaked face.

Mr. Benoit looked at Tam for a moment, then turned his
spectacled gaze to Constantine. “Well, no harm done, I suppose. Be more careful
next time, young man. Check the contents of a book before you carry it to
school.”

Outside in the corridor, Constantine’s gratitude was
effusive.

“Whatever possessed you to do that?” Tam asked, completely
ignoring his worshipful elegy.

“Tahireh.”

Tam looked down and shook Con’s shoulder. “Try again.”

“I forgot my book bag and the rule says if you forget your
books, you have to do detention.”

“Oh, yeah,” Tam conceded. “I do recall that, now that you
mention it. So, you just thought you’d go for a lesser penalty?”

Constantine glowered. “I didn’t mean to get caught.”

“Who does?”

“Do you think they’ll tell Mom and Dad?”

Tam shook his head and rolled his eyes. “You’d better hope
not. You know the rules about ‘importing technologies across cultural
boundaries.’ Dad would have a fit.”

Constantine stared down the empty corridor toward the
distant classroom. “Yeah, he sure would.”

oOo

“Miss Tindall hates me,” said Stasi. “What did you say to
her?”

Helen blinked. Next to her, her husband echoed the movement,
staring at his eldest child as if she were an anthropological specimen that had
suddenly risen up to protest being dug out of the ground.

“We just spoke to her about the importance of your
individuality,” said Helen. “That’s all.”

“Well, now she’s treating me like—like a pariah. She won’t
call on me unless I’m the only one with my hand raised, and even then she won’t
look at me or smile at me or anything.”

Helen glanced at Troy, who was glancing at his notes as if
he were preparing to dive back into them. She caught his eye pre-dive and he
shrugged.

“If it gets too bad, we’ll talk to her again,” he promised.

“Oh, great!”

“Now, Anastasia, your father and I were only trying to help.”

Stasi had the grace to look contrite. “I know, but I’m
afraid she’ll flunk me or something.”

Her mother laughed. “Good heavens! Why worry about something
as trivial as that? It’s not like she’s actually teaching you anything. A local
educator’s arbitrary marks aren’t going to affect your degree, honey.”

“I know, but you can get black marks for failure to
acculturate. She might make Professor Amadiyeh think I have a bad attitude.”

“We’ll tell him otherwise.”

Stasi was silent for a moment, feeling incredibly freighted
down and lonely. Thinking about Professor Amadiyeh made her think of Home and
Danice Patten and all the other friends that now seemed light-years away.
Friends she couldn’t reach by land or by sea.

“Can’t we please go home?”

Her mother looked sympathetic (she always looked
sympathetic) and said, “Stasi, honey, your father and I are in the middle of a
Project.”

“Can’t you finish it at home?”

“How can we study the culture in and around military
installations in Post World War Two America without having access to those
installations?”

“Couldn’t you use QuestLabs as a home base and just pop into
a military base when you need to look at one?”

Her father laughed. “Stasi, you crack my mind! Do you have
any idea how prohibitively expensive that would be? We blow over a hundred
grand every time we power up the Grid, hon. Just settle down and enjoy
Papillion, okay? It’s not such a bad little town. When we’re done here at
Offutt, I’ll see if we can’t cut straight to the Pentagon. You kids’ll love Washington
D.C.. Now, why don’t you go study before dinner?”

She stared at him, at her mother, already bending over the
thin plate display in her hands, scanning faux-3D pictures of military
personnel in their monotone uniforms.

They’re so happy,
she thought.
Like two kids in a sand box.

She went upstairs. On the second floor landing, Tam met her.

“Secret meeting of the Jones Gang,” he said out of the side
of his mouth. “My room. Five minutes.”

“Thank you, Bugsy Malone,” she said.

Tam deflated. “That was my best John Wayne.”

“John who?”

“God, a current-cultural illiterate. You’d better bone up on
your Twentieth Century films.”

“Yeah, yeah. What’s the meeting?”

Tam pointed at her nose. “It’s a secret. Be there or be a
rhombus.” He turned and headed downstairs.

Five minutes later, they shared soda pop and greasy potato
chips on the floor of Tam’s room. Of the four, only Tahireh seemed disinclined
to glower.

“I guess you’re wondering why I’ve called you here,” said
Tam, munching.

“Get on with it,” growled Stasi.

“I have an idea about how we might just possibly get Home
before Mom and Dad retire.”

Stasi snorted. “Oh, this should be good. We’re gonna mutiny
and take over the Grid Controller, right? Tie up Mom and Dad and slam this baby
into reverse.”

“Close.” Tam took a swig of soda, looking arch.

“Well?” prompted Constantine. “C’mon, Tam. I could be out
catching bugs, y’know.”

“Mutiny,” said Tam deliciously, dangerously.

“Mutiny,” repeated Stasi. “Where’d you get a fuzz-brained
idea like that?”

“Actually, I got it from you and Connie.”

“Con.”

Tam toyed with a chip crumb on the hardwood floor, scooting
it around and around with his finger.

“Have you ever wondered what would happen if we didn’t try
so hard to fit in wherever we go—if we sort of, oh, had trouble blending into
the landscape?”

Stasi looked at him—hard. “Go on.”

“What would Mom and Dad do if these little settling-in
problems kept happening—maybe even got worse?”

“Ignore them?” suggested Constantine.

“They might try.” Tam shrugged. “But if it got really bad
and the teachers all got in an uproar and the Education Council got wind of it—”

Stasi’s face finally lit up. “Professor Amadiyeh! If we all
flunked out of school or started upsetting the local golf cart—”

“Apple cart.”

“I can have any kind of cart I want, thank you. He’d have to
get involved, wouldn’t he? I mean, after all, it’s his responsibility to see
that our educational environment is sound.”

“Yeah,” Tam agreed pleasantly.

Constantine just folded his arms and smiled.

Between them, Tahireh, clutching a favored doll, stared at
her siblings in horror. “Oh, you can’t! You can’t do something like that. Why,
Mom and Dad would be . . . Well, they’d think there was
something wrong with us.”

“There is something wrong with us, Tahireh,” said Stasi. “We’re
from another century, another world, almost. We don’t belong here. We’re . . .
an anachronism.”

“But Mom and Dad are so happy here!”

“Mom and Dad are happy anywhere they can dig up something or
write papers,” said Tam.