thirteenth child, they’d behave just like everyone back in Helvan Shores. Besides, if I did really, truly make friends with someone, and they didn’t mind when they found out I was a thirteenth child, I might drag them down when I went bad.
So I spent most of that summer on the roof of our porch. There was a window at the end of one hall that you could crawl out, next to a little niche where the storeroom stuck out. If I backed into the niche, I was invisible from the window and really hard to see from the ground unless you knew just what to look for. Rennie never found me, and I could sit and think, or read, or write in the little diary-book that my sister Diane sent me for my ninth birthday.
Things perked up around August when Mama came home, and then it was fall and Lan and I started the fourth grade. That was how they listed us, at least—Lan and I were both in fifth-grade history and natural science, and they decided to put me all the way up into sixth grade for reading and composition. Schools out in the territories weren’t so strict about keeping people all in one grade, the way they did back in Helvan Shores. We had one girl in our fifth-grade natural science class who was only seven, and there were a couple of older boys who were back with us in arithmetic.
Everyone was excited about fourth grade. Our very first class was with Miss Ochiba, who taught most of the classes in magic at the day school. For fourth grade, that meant theory and background; we wouldn’t be doing actual spells until we were ten. The magic classes were the one area where nobody was ever put ahead in school, though if you were slow about learning you might be kept back. Hardly anyone was slow—magic was too important. Out past the Great Barrier, it could save your life, even if you weren’t a full magician with the strength and knowledge to cast one of the Major Spells.
Usually, the fourth grade was split into three classes, but for the basic magic class we were all packed together into the big classroom at the end of the school. The boys were on one side of the room, and the girls on the other, so I couldn’t take a seat next to Lan. I picked a spot near the front, next to Debbie Buchowski, where I could see the big blackboard without craning my neck to look around somebody’s head.
The blackboard in Miss Ochiba’s classroom was half hidden behind a big painting in a carved frame. The painting showed a forest of towering pines, coming down to the shore of a lake. Right at the edge, you could just see a group of people and tents down along the water, and three raw stumps where some trees had been cut.
“Hey, Kristen, do you know what that’s for?” one of the boys called, pointing at the picture.
“No,” the blond girl in front of me yelled back. “And if I did, I wouldn’t tell you.” She turned to the girl next to her and said in a lower voice, “My sister took this class last year, and he thinks she told me all about it.”
“Didn’t she?” the second girl asked. “Didn’t you
“Of course I asked,” Kristen replied. “But she said Miss Ochiba never does class twice the same, so there’d be no point to talking.”
“I heard that she never takes attendance or looks at the class list, but she always knows who’s skipped,” the girl on the other side of Kristen said.
“Hsst! Here she comes.”
The general ruckus ebbed just a bit as Miss Ochiba took her seat at the table in front and opened a little blue book. She paid no mind to us one way or the other, so after a minute or two the noise picked up again. I was starting to wonder if she was going to let us go on for the whole time, when the school bell tolled the last time to mark the start of the day.
Miss Ochiba closed the book with a snap and stood up. The noise started to die down, but not fast enough for Miss Ochiba. She gave it a second or two, then raised her left hand and said in a soft voice, “Silence.”
The noise stopped. I could see Jack Murray’s mouth moving over on the other side of the room, but no sound was coming out. His eyes went wide as ever they could stretch, and so did everyone else’s. We all turned back to the front, but there wasn’t a rustle or a scrape or a squeak to mark it. The only sound in the whole world was Miss Ochiba’s soft voice saying, “In the future, I expect your silence and complete attention at the bell, without the necessity of enforcement. I trust I am clear?”
We all nodded, and for almost the whole rest of the year, silence just slammed down on that classroom the minute the school bell rang for the last time, without Miss Ochiba having to even raise her eyes.
“Very good.” Miss Ochiba lowered her hand and the little rustling and scraping and coughing sounds came back. “Let us begin.” She stepped to one side and pointed at the painting that was hanging in front of the blackboard. “Who can tell me what this is?”
Several hands went up. “Thom,” she said.
“That’s the timberlands up north, by Three Forks,” he said. “My father works there,” he added, as if he thought he’d better explain how he came to know such a thing.
Miss Ochiba nodded. “That it is,” she said. “Thank you, Thom. What else is it? Kristen?”
“It’s a lumber camp,” Kristen said. “You can see the tents, and the place where they’ve been cutting down trees.”
“Very observant,” Miss Ochiba said. “Thank you, Kristen. What else is it?”
Miss Ochiba didn’t have very many hands to pick from this time. “Susan?”
“It’s a forest? And ... and a lake, or maybe a river?”
“Excellent. Thank you, Susan.” Miss Ochiba paused. “What else is it? Anyone?”
The silence was as profound as it had been when Miss Ochiba had called the class to order. We all stared at the picture, wondering what else it was a picture of. There didn’t seem to be anything left that hadn’t been mentioned. I felt a prickle down my back, and all of a sudden I knew the answer—or at least
Finally, I lifted my hand from the desk. “Yes, Eff?” Miss Ochiba said.
“I-it’s a picture,” I said. “A painting.”
Miss Ochiba nodded. “Yes. Thank you, Eff.” She looked around and everyone tensed, wondering if we would have to think of something else. “This is a painting; a picture of a lumber camp; a picture of the northern timberlands; a place where a forest meets a lake. All these things are true, and they are all true at the same time. What you see depends on how you look. And it is one more thing.” She turned and waved her hand past the picture, and it shimmered and disappeared, as if folding itself up too small to see. “It is an illusion.” There was a quiet sigh from the class.
“This is the most important lesson you must learn about magic,” Miss Ochiba went on. “There are many ways of seeing. Each has an element of truth, but none is the whole truth. If you limit yourselves to one way of seeing, one truth, you will limit your power. You will also place limits on the kinds of spells you can cast, as well as their strength. To be a good magician, you must see in many ways. You must be flexible. You must be willing to learn from different sources. And you must always remember that the truths you see are incomplete.”
Miss Ochiba paused. We all stared blankly for a minute, and then heads started bending and chalk scraped on slates as everyone took a note. Miss Ochiba smiled and went on. “We will begin the year by taking a general look at the three great theoretical systems of magic: the Avrupan, the Hijero—Cathayan, and the Aphrikan. We will then review some of the great magicians of history from Socrates to the present day their contributions to the development of modern magic theory and the spells and techniques they invented or discovered.
“First, last, and always, however, I expect you to learn to see. Therefore—” Miss Ochiba picked up a piece of chalk from the desk in front of her and tossed it to one of the boys in the front row. “How many different ways can you see this? What is it?”
We spent the rest of the class looking at ordinary things and thinking up all the other things they were, that you wouldn’t just up and pick straight-out. Miss Ochiba’s blackboard chalk was a mineral and a cylinder; Debbie Buchowski’s blue sweater was a birthday present; Jamie Fremont’s lucky piece was a Cathayan coin, a souvenir.
When we got home that day, William was waiting impatiently on the front porch. “Hey, Lan!” he yelled. “Where’ve you been? I got Father to give me the afternoon, and now it’s almost gone.”
“School,” Lan yelled back, and added “dummy” under his breath. Then he ran for the porch, with Robbie right behind him. I trudged along after, knowing that they’d talk with me for a moment or two before they went off to their fort, if only out of neighborliness. When I came up to them, they were arguing about Miss Ochiba’s class.
William was at his most annoying, all superior and know-everything; Robbie was bouncing around like the lid
