The Education of Bet Read Free Page A

military in the usual fashion, go to an appropriate training school first before entering into the service—but I had to stop when he became upset. 'Don't you realize you are my only remaining relative? If something happened to you, I would die.'" Will attempted a casual shrug but couldn't quite pull it off. "It was awful."
    It
was
awful, to think of the old man so upset. But it was also awful, perhaps even more so, to think of people not pursuing the things they wanted most in life.
    I had one dream in this world, wanted one thing: the chance to be at school. Will had that thing I wanted most, and yet he valued it cheaply, dreamed of something else. Was there not some way Will and I could both achieve our dreams?
    I was thankful that Will was so dejected about the hopelessness of his situation that, for once, he remained silent long enough to allow me time to think. That was the thing whenever Will was home: it was wonderful having his energy fill up the musty corners of the house, bring life back to the old place, but his energy
did
fill it up, entirely, so there was little space for anything
but
Will.
    But now...
    I asked myself the question again: Was there not some way both Will and I could achieve our dreams?
    And within that blessed silence, I began to see the glimmering of an idea, which fast formed into a full-fledged plan.
    Could we...? If we both agreed...?
    As the excitement grew in me, I began to find fault with my own idea. For one thing, it could never work. For another thing, and perhaps more important in terms of my own vanity, Will would no doubt laugh in my face. If he, as evidenced earlier, did not like to be laughed at, I liked it even less. When you possess little in the world except your own pride, it is an awful thing to have it taken from you.
    But what was I talking about? Why let pride stand in the way of what I wanted? And why give up and declare a thing impossible before even trying?
    I
had
to try.
    But before that, I did still have to point out, breaking the silence:
    "You do realize war is stupid?" I said, eyes narrowing at Will.
    "I do know that girls think that," he allowed.
    "And girls are
right.
" I paused. "Still..."
    "Still
what,
Bet?" he prompted when I did not speak for a long time.
    Considering how often males were the center of attention in the household, never mind in the greater world, it was nice to feel as though I could occupy that place as well, when I had a mind to.
    "Let's see," I said. "You want something I don't understand and have no use for—to go to war. And I want something you think is silly and do not want—to get an education. Have I got that right?"
    Will shrugged, looking perplexed and even a trifle annoyed at what he no doubt regarded as my pointless statement of the obvious: facts of life that could never be changed. "I suppose."
    "Perhaps," I said, feeling the smile stretch across my face, "there is a way we can help one another out."

Chapter two
     
    Will called me Bet because when we first met he hadn't been able to say Elizabeth. For my part, I could not say Will and called him Ill instead, but whereas he was allowed to keep his nickname for me, I was hastily dissuaded from using mine for him.
    We set eyes on each other for the first time when we were four years old, even though we had lived under the same roof since we were born, Will screaming his way into the world just a month before me.
    I had no memory of Will's parents, but I had seen paintings of them in Paul Gardener's home.
    Will's father, Frederick Gardener, had been that most masculine of clichés, tall, dark, and handsome, like his only son, and he had made his personal fortune in the import-export business. His wife, Victoria, was also tall, but there all physical similarities between husband and wife ended. In her portrait, Will's mother had hair the color of honey shot with gold, and eyes that looked as though the artist had borrowed parts of a summer sky to re-create them. And where