Free Orphan Maker by D Jordan Redhawk Page B

envied. She had struggled with math for years, and at six years old, Delia was already beginning simple multiplication. Of course, the girl was barely able to read a word, so Loomis figured it must balance out in the end. Sitting beside Loomis, Megan practiced her penmanship. A book of letters lay open before her, and she carefully copied them onto her slate, her tongue sticking out in concentration. Loomis grinned and rubbed the girl’s back. She received a smile and snuggle in return before Megan went back to work.
    Heather and Cara each had one of the city girls for instruction. Heather and Lucky sat at the other end of the table with a stack of books. They had worked down from adult literature to children’s books, and had discovered that Lucky read at the fourth-grade level. She struggled with the words, but her skill was better than Kevin’s. That was more than Loomis had hoped; Lucky was sixteen, and had been in sixth grade at the time of the plague. She hadn’t lost as much as Loomis had feared.
    Cara and Gwen were on the couch doing the same exercise. Curious, Loomis left the table to see how they fared. As she drifted closer, she was amazed to hear Gwen reciting a paragraph from a history book, one that had been written for high school students. Considering how prickly the woman was, Loomis didn’t comment. She continued past them to sit at the breakfast bar with her brother. Gwen broke off a moment, glancing at her, but returned to her reading. Her vocabulary was a little rusty here and there as she stumbled, but all in all she comprehended what she was saying.
    How could someone who couldn’t speak a sentence without a swear word read so well? Gwen was cantankerous, contrary and prone to argument in Loomis’s opinion. But there she sat, smoothly reading an eyewitness account of the Black Hole of Calcutta from the mid-eighteenth century. It boggled the mind. She turned on the stool, looking at the project on which she and her brother were working. He had a large handmade map unfolded across the counter, and a number of notebooks spread across the remaining space. “How’s it going?”
    “Not bad.” He showed her his slate. Paper was a rarity, and they had to work mathematical equations and write out rough drafts with chalk before transferring them to the notebooks. “I’m still having a bit of trouble with the double moons. Since they’re on two different orbits, they’re messing up the tidal pattern.”
    “I hate math.” Loomis pulled the slate toward her.
    Their three older brothers had been avid gamers in their youth. They had given the bug to Loomis when she was eleven, and she had passed it on to Rick after the plague. Unfortunately, neither Cara or Heather were interested in Dungeons & Dragons, so gaming had been set aside in favor of more normal educational pursuits. Pining to be involved in some aspect of the game, she and Rick had spent the last two years building their own world from scratch. It had been illuminating as they researched astronomical and physical science textbooks from the junior high school library in town. The challenge had been to make this fictional place follow the recognized laws of physics.
    “You know, Terry’s almost old enough,” Rick said. “And the other three might find it interesting. Maybe we could actually play a game.”
    “Maybe.” Loomis frowned in concentration at his equation. “I know I’ve got a couple of adventures ready to go if they’ll go for it.”
    “Me, too.” He peered calculatingly over his shoulder at the others.
    Loomis slid the slate back. “Is this correct? I thought we decided the second moon had less mass than this.”
    Rick turned back to their project, and flipped through a notebook with a frown. “I thought so. Here it is.” He read the data and thumped his forehead. “You’re right. I put in the wrong numbers.”
    As much as she wanted to get lost in the creation of a world and its cultures, she sat back. “Fix it