The Scorpion Rules by Erin Bow Read Free Book Online

and his proctor, keeping our faces blank and our bodies ready, in the manner of carefully trained Precepture children under threat. In contrast, Elián stood affable and loose-jointed, at ease and utterly alien. Our silence—disturbed, disapproving—wasn’t making a dent. He turned to me. “So,” he said. “Stoicism.”
    â€œSo,” I answered, carefully. “Potatoes.” I bent and grabbed one of the riddle’s two handles. The big proctor backed off a couple of steps, off the wickerwork. Elián’s breathing paused subtly when the proctor moved—he had enough sense to be frightened, then. And enough dignity to hide it. Both those things were promising.
    â€œHelp me with this,” I said. It was in part a kindness to orient him, to cue him. It was in part selfish: We would all feel safer if we got to work. “This is called riddling. We shake the dirt through the wicker. Then we can store them without scrubbing. It saves water.”
    â€œIt’s always water,” he said, nonsensically. But he picked up the other handle. We raised the big flat basket between us. I was relieved that he did not have trouble with it. Fifty pounds of potatoes is not a huge load, but this close, I could see that his muscles were still twitching. Electricity, as all we Children have cause to know, can be a tricky thing to get through, and Elián either had little tolerance for it, or had taken a large dose.
    â€œSo,” he said. “This is what it’s like to be royalty.”
    â€œYes . . . ?” I was beginning to think I’d been right to treat him like a skittish goat. Like our goats he seemed vaguely to be Planning Something. The wickerwork shook between us and dust bloomed and stuck to my skin. I tried not to sneeze. “Yes. This is what it’s like to be a Child of Peace.”
    â€œSomehow I thought there’d be air-conditioning,” Elián said. Grego swallowed a laugh, and Elián looked over his shoulder at him. “Look at me, though. I can’t believe I’m shaking out potatoes with Princess Greta.”
    â€œYes,” said Grego. “Greta is our best potato-shaker, no doubt. Perhaps tomorrow you will joint a goat with Thandi.”
    â€œNo,” said Elián—and the proctor at his feet flexed upward on its joints. Elián barely glanced at it. “I only mean— I’ve seen you in vids, is all.”
    â€œYou’ve seen my vids?” I was surprised. Of course I was in many vids. I was to be the ruler of my country one day, if I lived, and it was important that my people know and love me. They did, too. They loved me rather in the way they might love a child with cancer, because it was so sad, and I was so brave. Neither love—the cancer love or the hostage love—had much to do with the reality of life under threat, but it would serve. The vids made it serve. But I did not know that the vids reached beyond the Pan Polar borders.
    â€œSure. I’ve seen them all. That interview last Christmas? At the tree-lighting ball? You’re royalty, Greta. A celebrity. Like—like Guinevere.”
    Da-Xia actually laughed aloud. “Guinevere!”
    Elián shrugged, as well as one can when holding a potato riddle and shivering with recent shocks. “I think it’s mostly the hair.”
    â€œMy hair is fairly trivial, surely.”
    â€œWeeeellll,” said Elián, drawing it out to about four syllables. “The hair and the stick up your royal . . . bearing.”
    There was just enough spin on “bearing” to let even the most oblivious among us (all right, me) know that the word was a last-moment substitution. The comment was rude, and un-royal, and made Thandi laugh. Thandi, of all people. I felt as if Elián were melting us, one by one. But of course none of my friends had my reasons to stay frozen. Their nations were not squared off with his