10 lb Penalty Read Free Page A

it ... little against.
    “You agreed I should have a gap year,” I protested.
    “I didn’t prohibit it. That’s different.”
    “But ... can you prohibit it? And why do you want to?”
    “Until you are eighteen I can legally do almost anything that’s for your own good or, rather, that I consider is for your own good. You’re no fool, Ben. You know that’s a fact. For the next three weeks, until your birthday on August thirty-first, I am still in charge of your life.”
    I did know it. I also knew that though by right I would receive basic university tuition fees from the state, I would not qualify for living expenses or other grants because of my father’s wealth. Working one’s way through college, although just possible in some countries, was hardly an option in Britain. Realistically, if my father wouldn’t pay for my keep, I wouldn’t be going to university, whether Exeter or anywhere else.
    I said neutrally, “When I asked you, ages ago, you said you thought a gap year was a good idea.”
    “I didn’t know that you intended your gap year to be spent on a racecourse.”
    “It’s a growing-up experience!”
    “It’s a minefield of moral traps.”
    “You don’t trust me!” Even I could hear the outraged self-regard in my voice. Too near a whine. I said more frostily, “Because of your example, I would keep out of trouble.”
    “No bribes, do you mean?” He was unimpressed by my own shot at flattery. “You’d throw no races? Everyone would believe in your incorruptibility? Is that it? What about a rumor that you take drugs? Rumors destroy reputations quicker than truth.”
    I was silenced. An unproven accusation had that morning rent apart my comfortable illusion that innocence could shield one from defamation. My father would no doubt categorize the revelation as “growing up.”
    A knock on the door punctuated my bitter thoughts with the arrival of a breakfast designed to give me a practically guilt-free release from chronic hunger. The necessity of keeping down to a low racing weight had occasionally made me giddy from deprivation. Even as I fell on the food ravenously I marveled at my father’s understanding of what I would actually eat and what I would reject.
    “While you eat, you can listen,” he said. “If you were going to be the world’s greatest steeplechase jockey, I wouldn’t ask ... what I’m going to ask of you. If you were going to be, say, Isaac Newton, or Mozart, or some other genius, it would be pointless to ask that you should give it up. And I’m not asking you to give up riding altogether, just to give up trying to make it your life.”
    Cornflakes and milk were wonderful.
    “I have a suspicion,” he said, “that you intended your gap year to go on forever.”
    I paused in mid-munch. Couldn’t deny he was right. “So go to Exeter, Ben. Do your growing up there. I don’t expect you to get a First. A Second would be fine; a Third is OK, though I guess you’ll manage good results, as you always have done, in spite of the disadvantage of your birth date.”
    I zoomed through the bacon, tomatoes and mushrooms and accompanied them with toast. Because of the rigid education system that graded schoolchildren by age and not ability, and because I’ d been born on the last day of the age-grading year (September 1 would have given me an extra twelve months), I had always been the youngest in the class, always faced with the task of keeping up. A gap year would have leveled things nicely. And he was telling me, of course, that he understood all that, and was forgiving a poor outcome in the degree stakes before I’d even started.
    “Before Exeter,” he said, “I’d like you to work for me. I’d like you to come with me to Hoopwestern and help me get elected.”
    I stared at him, chewing slowly but no longer tasting the mouthful.
    “But,” I said, swallowing, “I don’t know anything about politics.”
    “You don’t have to. I don’t want you to make speeches