The Foster Children of Time

Chapter Eighteen: Paz

Chapter Eighteen

  

“Who was the first ruler of a united Kingdom of England?” asked Mrs. Livingston. 

“Huh?  Where am I?” asked Tony.  He tried to clear the fog from his head.  He was sitting in an empty classroom in an antiquated school desk.  Mrs. Livingston, wearing a Diaz Panthers t-shirt, stood with arms folded, leaning back against her desk at the front of the classroom.

“Pay attention, Tony.  You are being tested.”

“It was Athelstan.  He was the first ruler of a united England, in the early years of the Tenth Century, A.D.”

“Correct.  In what year was the Christian reconquista of the Iberian Peninsula completed?”

“1492.”

“When did the Austro-Hungarian Empire fall?”

“End of World War I.  1918.”

“Who was the first woman in space?”

“The Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova.”

“Whose death prompted the Surgeon General of the United States to speak out against the “insidious incubus of internet addiction,” and proclaim a national epidemic?”

“Um?”

“Oh, sorry.  Getting ahead of you there.  In what year did Christopher Columbus set off on his fourth voyage to the Americas?”

“1502.”

“And was this a good thing?”

“What?”
            “Was this voyage a good thing?”

“It was a historical event.  It can’t be quantified as good or bad.  It is just something that occurred.”

“Important events may be shaped by chance and natural factors -- disease, famine, prosperity, even weather – but the thoughts and desires of men, whether those of the most pious men and women or those of the most shameless rogues are often the driving hand on the tiller of history.   History isn’t just names and dates, Tony.  It is a vast and dense panoply of intersecting lives; a world changing force driven by dreamers, schemers, nobles and rascals, kings and peasants, saints and sinners, circumstances and random chance.”

***

Caroline threw herself down on her bed.  She could hear barking outside.

“Bosco!  Leave that cat alone!”

She moved the palms of her hands back and forth across the smooth fabric of the comforter, luxuriating in its cushioned coziness.

“You look tired,” said Elizabeth, standing at the door.

“Oh!  You startled me,” said Caroline, sitting up quickly.  “It’s been a while since you were here.”

“I guess it has.”

“We had planned to do so many things.  Weren’t you going to cut my hair?  We have so much to catch up on.”

“Yes, chulita.  We’ll have time for that now.  How about that boy you once told me about?”

“Oh, him.  That was nothing.  And that was so long ago that I told you about him…”  

Caroline paused in confusion.

“Is something wrong?”

“No.  I’m fine.  Only...can you answer a question?”

“What is that, chulita?”