Hannah Asks about the War, Although she Does Not Know She is Asking about the War

Hannah's mother lived a few streets over because Hannah's father didn't like Hannah's mother and Hannah's father liked Hannah and Hannah's father knew Judge Drayton, so Hannah's father paid Judge Drayton to give him Hannah and now Hannah's father has Hannah. Hannah's father comes home at five and Hannah comes home at three, so when she gets home she deactivates the security barrier with her watch, puts her backpack in her bedroom, reactivates the barrier, and walks to her mother's house where they eat tangerines and play cards.

Hannah loved books. Had loved books since she was three and her mother read a book to her and she smiled and smiled. But she couldn't read until she was in the second grade. It made her feel stupid and sad. And it's hard for a second grader to feel sad! Not only do you have to deal with not being able to read, you have to deal with being in second grade. But then, in March, she learned to read. Not in a month, not in a day, but in an hour. Something happened and suddenly she could read better than her teacher. No one could explain it, especially not Hannah. When Hannah told her teacher the teacher said, "That is remarkable dear, you may be of great use to our side." "Our side of what?" Hannah asked, but her teacher was already walking back to her desk.

When Hannah got to her mother's house she asked her mother why her teacher would say something like that. Hannah's mother said "Oh, I'm sure she meant when you play against other schools in the Trivia Challenge next year, you'll do really well." "Oh, Ok," Hannah said, and went back to eating her tangerine.

When Hannah got home she asked her father the same question. He said, "Oh, I bet she meant you'll be great when you start poetry competitions against the Riverside and Central in a couple years. What else could she have meant?" Hannah didn't know what else her teacher could have meant, but she knew when two people, especially two parents, have different answers to the same question, they're usually lying. And they were. The one thing Hannah's mother and Hannah's father had ever agreed upon was never to mention, not even once, the war of the 3rd Coalition, which was right then burning itself into history far above them.