This was an old, unhealed grievance between us. "Those are the
twenty-fourth century facts of life," I replied evenly.
We reported to the receptionist robot in an alcove controlling the
inner set of doors.
"You are fifteen minutes late," said the machine. "I will announce you.
Be seated please."
We remained standing. I spied a public wall phone and jerked into
awareness. "Excuse me, honey. I have to call the office!"
I hastily dialed our number and got the busy signal. Wow! All nine
lines were tied up, including our human and our robot receptionists. I
immediately dialed our unlisted private number, and somebody answered
with a curse, and I knew it was my partner Charlie Spacker.
"Compete, man! Compete!" he shouted. "Where the hell are you?"
"Chicago Classical School. Personal problem. I told you about it."
"Well, get over here quick! That Venus situation is about to blow up,
and we're tied up to the tune of three hundred million in wheat and
soybeans!"
"I'll be over within a half hour. Meanwhile, have Claire book passage
on the next Venus rocket. One of us has got to go there."
"Willco," said Claire. She always monitored our calls.
"All right," stormed Charlie, "that may help us a month from now. But
what about now? Do I buy or sell? These customers are drowning me!"
Charlie was a great bluff man who inspired the clients' confidence, but
he quailed at policy decisions. I thought fast. I'd go there and make a
deal with the insurrectionists. Help finance the rebellion in exchange
for exclusive first option. If they won, good. If they lost, status quo
anyway.
Celia was gesturing urgently as the inner door opened.
"Buy!" I said and I slammed down the receiver.
* * * * *
It was hard to adjust to the dim lighting in the principal's office.
His room was loaded with antique fiberglass furniture of the
twenty-first century. He sat behind, or rather within, a donut-shaped
desk, a moon-faced man with short, monk-like haircut, and bulbous nose.
"You are the parents of Edmund Sponsor?" We nodded. He pressed a
button. "Very well. We will send for the boy."
He swivelled around to face a wall of slanting glass which overlooked
the children's playground. We could see two ranks of boys in a
tug-of-war, and some little girls playing red-rover.
"Scott," he said into a tiny microphone on his desk top. A playground
instructor looked up.
"Yes, sir?"
"Please send Edmund Sponsor to my office."
"He's not here, sir. I believe he's in the dormitory."
"How does that happen?" demanded the principal. "This is game time."
"He declined to join in the competition, sir."
"I see. Thank you."
I felt a hot flush of embarrassment. My son non-competitive? That
seemed impossible. He must be ill. It was an insulting accusation.
The principal flicked on the wall visa-screen. It showed a lean, rather
formally-attired man seated on a lounge in the anteroom, next to a
uniformed policeman.
"Masefield? I believe it would expedite matters if you would find
Edmund Sponsor in the dormitory and bring him here. Would you do that,
please?"
Masefield nodded and the screen darkened. The principal turned to us.
"This incident on the playground which you just witnessed may perhaps
spare us all an overly long explanation. Mr. Sponsor, I have been in
touch with your wife from time to time, and I assume she has kept you
informed on your boy's progress. Or should we say, lack of progress?"
I felt a sense of numb shock. Celia had told me nothing. I managed to
control my outward signs of surprise. "Yes, she has," I said calmly,
crossing my legs. "But of course we have a fiercely competitive line,
and I haven't been able to follow the situation as well as one might
wish.
"Would you tell me, in brief, what it all amounts to, and what you
suggest as a remedy? Both Mrs. Sponsor and I are willing and eager to
cooperate."
"I hope," said the principal, "that you will remember what you have
just said when I propose the remedy. As to the problem itself, I must
put it bluntly--your son Edmund refuses to compete."
If any other man had said this to me I would have smashed his face in.
Celia looked at me warningly. Again I masked my feelings.
"This is a terrible thing to hear," I said sweetly. "But surely
it can't be as stark and simple as that. Freddie must be ill or
emotionally disturbed. Have your doctors given him a checkup? Have your
psychoanalysts examined him?"
"Long ago and continually, Mr. Sponsor. That was your wife's original
suggestion. Your boy was completely uncooperative with the analysts.
Resistant. Negatively competitive, if you know what I mean. In fact,
I will repeat what one of our doctors said. If your boy could reverse
his attitude, and put all the energy he uses to fight the system into
battling his future economic opponents, he'd become a Top Competitor.
However, a year has gone by, and we have not been able to bring about
the slightest change. Now, in fact, the situation has gotten out of
hand."
"But," I said, trying to sound detached and clinical, "how does this
non-competitiveness, as you say, manifest itself in our son?" The
prefix _non_ had a bitter taste in my mouth.
"In every way," said the principal. "He won't play competitive games
with the other children. Intellectually, he won't exert himself against
his classmates. Financially, he refuses to earn bonus points selling
magazine subscriptions in his leisure time. This, as you know, goes
against the very principles on which our democracy is based. It's
subversive in its influence on the other children. If he were not so
young, if he did not come from a well-known competitive family, one
would almost be tempted to think Edmund an Australian spy!"
"Come now!" said Celia indignantly. "Expel Freddie from your school if
you wish, but don't slander him."
The door buzzed softly, then slid open. Freddie entered, followed
closely by Masefield.
Freddie had been crying. His eyes opened wide and an expression of joy
hit his face as he saw us.
"Mother!" he exclaimed, rushing to Celia's arms. She hugged him
fervently. I patted him manfully on the shoulder, but I felt shy and a
little inept. "Dad!" he added, running the back of one hand across his
tear-stained cheeks.
"How are you, son?" I said inadequately.
Freddie looked up at me imploringly. "Take me away from here, dad.
_Please_ take me away from here!" He buried his head on Celia's breast
and started to sob.
"We will, darling," said Celia. We exchanged swift glances.
"We certainly will, son, if you're unhappy here," I said rather
mechanically. I was, to tell the truth, rather shocked by the emotional
display. Freddie had always been such a self-contained little boy, so
beyond his years in control and understanding, so undemonstrative.
"I think," said the principal portentously, "that matters would be best
served if Edmund waited outside."
"I agree." There was no reason for Freddie to hear whatever remained to
be said.
The kid made quite a fuss about leaving us, even for a few minutes,
but in the end Masefield escorted him out with friendly firmness.
"We are all in accord then, that your son is to leave Chicago Classical
School?"
"I think so," said Celia, with unconcealed hostility.
"What steps do we take now?" I asked more civilly. "Do we enroll him
in the second grade of public school? I mean, is his work here fully
transferable?"
* * * * *
The principal seemed to reach very carefully for his next words.
He seemed in fact faintly apprehensive. "Mr. Sponsor, under normal
circumstances a child's credits from Chicago Classical are acceptable
at more than par in the public school system. But this is a case in
which the authorities are obliged to exercise jurisdiction."
"Just what do you mean by that?" Celia said angrily.
"Darling," I said patting her hand, "control yourself. Let's try to
hear this thing objectively."
"Yes, Mrs. Sponsor, as your husband has said, this is a matter
which requires considerable detachment. We two have had a number of
conversations in the past year, and I must say candidly that you did
not seem to realize the delicacy and seriousness of Edmund's problem.
By authorities I mean, of course, the juvenile delinquency courts."
"Now I'm the one who doesn't understand," I said very mildly.
"You are aware, Mr. Sponsor, that aggressive non-competitiveness is
carried on the statute books as a misdemeanor."
Scorn and ridicule were in Celia's voice. "But Freddie is a
seven-year-old!"
"Quite. But our concern as educators is with the future adult. And
unless the child's habits of thought are corrected in the early,
formative years, all of his aberrations are magnified by maturity.
Would you want your son to grow up a criminal, a seditionist?"
"You need not worry about that," I answered firmly. "I'll take Freddie
in hand. He'll learn the value of competition if I have to beat it into
him!"
"I'm afraid it's a little too late for that," said the educator.
"School is a powerful influence, but home is the decisive influence in
the molding of a child's character and outlook. The plain and simple
fact is that your home--Edmund's home--has been an _anti_-competitive
influence! No school can counterbalance it."
"That's absurd! Do you realize what line of business I'm engaged in?"
"I'm fully aware of that. However, how much time do you actually spend
with your son, teaching him the precepts of our democracy?"
"What are you driving at?"
He had made up his mind to say it. He leaned forward across his
donut-shaped desk and said very deliberately: "When the home fails in
its duty, the state must step in and do the job. We have recommended
that Edmund be placed in our city's Special Training and Re-Education
School, and that he be isolated from all parental influence for a
period of five years. Or until such time as his attitude shall have
displayed a fundamental change."