Free Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

it.”
    Ender smiled tentatively.
    “Yeah, funny, but no joke. I got nowhere here. I’m getting big now. They’re going to send me to my next school pretty soon. No way it’ll be Tactical School for me. I’ve never been a leader, you see. Only the guys who get to be leaders have a shot at it.”
    “How do you get to be a leader?”
    “Hey, if I knew, you think I’d be like this? How many guys my size you see in here?”
    Not many. Ender didn’t say it.
    “A few. I’m not the only half-iced bugger-fodder. A few of us. The other guys—they’re all commanders. All the guys from my launch have their own teams now. Not me.”
    Ender nodded.
    “Listen, little guy. I’m doing you a favor. Make friends. Be a leader. Kiss butts if you’ve got to, but if the other guys despise you—you know what I mean?”
    Ender nodded again.
    “Naw, you don’t know nothing. You Launchies are all alike. You don’t know nothing. Minds like space. Nothing there. And if anything hits you, you fall apart. Look, when you end up like me, don’t forget that somebody warned you. It’s the last nice thing anybody’s going to do for you.”
    “So why did you tell me?” asked Ender.
    “What are you, a smartmouth? Shut up and eat.”
    Ender shut up and ate. He didn’t like Mick. And he knew there was no chance he would end up like that. Maybe that was what the teachers were planning, but Ender didn’t intend to fit in with their plans.
    I will not be the bugger of my group, Ender thought. I didn’t leave Valentine and Mother and Father to come here just to be iced.
    As he lifted the fork to his mouth, he could feel his family around him, as they always had been. He knew just which way to turn his head to look up and see Mother, trying to get Valentine not to slurp. He knew just where Father would be, scanning the news on the table while pretending to be part of the dinner conversation. Peter, pretending to take a crushed pea out of his nose—even Peter could be funny.
    It was a mistake to think of them. He felt a sob rise in his throat and swallowed it down; he could not see his plate.
    He could not cry. There was no chance that he would be treated withcompassion. Dap was not Mother. Any sign of weakness would tell the Stilsons and Peters that this boy could be broken. Ender did what he always did when Peter tormented him. He began to count doubles. One, two, four, eight, sixteen, thirty-two, sixty-four. And on, as high as he could hold the numbers in his head: 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192, 16384, 32768, 65536, 131072, 262144. At 67108864 he began to be unsure—had he slipped out a digit? Should he be in the ten millions or the hundred millions or just the millions? He tried doubling again and lost it. 1342 something. 16? Or 17738? It was gone. Start over again. All the doubling he could hold. The pain was gone. The tears were gone. He would not cry.
    Until that night, when the lights went dim, and in the distance he could hear several boys whimpering for their mothers or fathers or dogs. Then he could not help himself. His lips formed Valentine’s name. He could hear her voice laughing in the distance, just down the hall. He could see Mother passing his door, looking in to be sure he was all right. He could hear Father laughing at the video. It was all so clear, and it would
never
be that way again. I’ll be old when I ever see them again, twelve at the earliest. Why did I say yes? What was I such a fool for? Going to school would have been nothing. Facing Stilson every day. And Peter. He was a pissant, Ender wasn’t afraid of him.
    I want to go home, he whispered.
    But his whisper was the whisper he used when he cried out in pain when Peter tormented him. The sound didn’t travel farther than his own ears, and sometimes not that far.
    And his tears could fall unwanted on his sheet, but his sobs were so gentle that they did not shake the bed, so quiet they could not be heard. But the ache was there, thick in his throat