The Education of Bet Read Free

sense of relief at being understood for once was so strong I could almost reach out and touch it with my hand, touch him to show my sympathy.
    And yet I couldn't do that. It was rare for me to touch another person and just as rare to have another person touch me.
    So instead I settled for unleashing my anger. Will and I had known each other long enough that I could do that in front of him, provided we were alone; I could do it in front of no one else in the world.
    "And do
you
have any idea," I said, "how
insanely
angry you make me?"
    He drew back at this, startled.
    I continued before he could stop me.
    "I can read just as well as you can, Will Gardener! I am just as smart as you are! And yet I am stuck here, in this house, while you"—now it was my turn to seethe, and I gestured toward him with my hand, disgusted—"you are out there in the world!"
    "You are right," he admitted softly. "It is not fair."
    That softness, that sensitivity, was almost harder to bear than his infuriating behavior. In a way, I felt as though he'd be doing me a favor if he were to laugh at my ambition. Perhaps if he did, I would think my desires silly as well, and eventually, one day, I would stop wanting what I could not have.
    "Right," I said, crossing my arms firmly against my chest. "It is not fair."
    "But it is the way of the world," he said.
    I did not like this so much. I did not like thinking anything impossible. But now I worried that if we continued on in this vein, I would burst into tears of frustration in front of him, and this I did not want to do.
    So I changed the subject.
    "Tell me, Will. I know you do not want to be at school—I think even your great-uncle understands that, even if he does not like it—but if you could have whatever you wanted, if you could have your greatest wish, what would you be doing instead?"
    "Promise you will not laugh?"
    I did not promise. I merely gave him an offended look. The very idea—as though I could not be trusted not to laugh.
    Will took a deep breath and spoke on the exhale. "I should like to join the military."
    It was a good thing I had made no promise, because I did laugh.
    "But that is ... that is ... preposterous!" I laughed some more.
    "No, it is not."
    "But you are only sixteen!" I laughed even harder. "You are too young!"
    "No, I am not." His voice grew enthusiastic; his face became animated with excitement. "Do you know, Bet, that they have tents at fairs, stalls in the streets—all you need do is go to one of these places, say you are of age, and they will believe you. They
want
to believe you."
    His words sobered me instantly, the idea that such an idiotically dangerous thing could be so ridiculously easy. But then I thought about it some more and pulled a face.
    "Well, if it is that easy, then why don't you go enlist right now?"
    I thought I had him. He was fine at talk. But when it came down to it, he was too scared to reach for what he wanted.
    He gave a nod of his head toward the house, where his great-uncle snored by the dying fire inside. "Because of him," he said. "It would kill him if I left."
    "You leave him all the time when you go to school," I scoffed.
    "Not like this," he said. "When I go off to school, he has good reason to be sure that I will come back, and that when I come back I will be alive."
    Now there was a cheerful thought.
    And a sensitive one as well.
    It gave me pause to think that, amidst all the lying and cheating and mischief and arson, Will had managed to grow quite a bit of compassion for other people.
    "I am all he has left," Will went on.
    I was tempted to point out that his great-uncle had me also but I did know that it wasn't quite the same thing. Family was not something that could be replaced, as I well knew. And whatever else I might be to the old man—helper, reader, on some days even friend—I was not family.
    Will confirmed as much by adding, "I did try to raise the issue with him last time I was home—I thought perhaps I could join the