Free Araminta Station by Jack Vance Page A

notification.
     
     
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    Chapter I, Part 6
     
    As soon as Arles appeared at Clattuc House, Spanchetta demanded an explanation of the Urgent Notice. “Apparently you are repeating last year’s work, a fact which I am now learning for the first time! Why was I not notified at the start of the term?”
    “Of course you were notified!” declared Arles. “I told you myself, and you said, ‘You must do better this year,’ or something like that, and I said I would.”
    “I recall no such occasion.”
    “You might have been thinking about something else.”
    “How is it that you are doing so poorly even on the repeat course? Don’t you ever study?”
    Throwing himself down in a chair, Arles cast about for some plausible excuse. “I’m certainly capable of better work, but it’s not all my fault! I blame it mostly on those dreary little bookworms who call themselves instructors. You can’t imagine the stupefying boredom to which they put you nowadays! I’m not the only one who complains. But I get singled out for criticism and bad grades!”
    Spanchetta surveyed him with eyes half closed. “Odd. Why should that be?”
    “I suppose it’s because I have an inquiring mind and I can’t take everything for granted, just to get a good grade. I consider them a snobbish little clique of pettifoggers, and they know it.”
    Spanchetta nodded with ominous deliberation. “Hmm. Why do other students manage so well? Glawen has won a certificate.”
    “Don’t talk to me of Glawen! He uses every smarmy little trick imaginable to ingratiate himself! Everyone knows it and everyone but Glawen feels as I do! We all want reasonable teachers, who play no favorites!”
    “I’ll have to look into this,” said Spanchetta.
    In sudden alarm Arles asked: “What are you going to do?”
    “I am going to get to the bottom of the situation, and one way or another straighten things out.”
     “Wait!” cried Arles in poignant tones. “I’d prefer that you just give me a letter, stating that I have many responsibilities and do not need such a heavy concentration of mathematics and science!  It won’t look well if you go down there yourself.”
    Spanchetta gave her head an impatient shake, which caused her great pile of ringlets to sway and lurch, but by some miracle maintain their shape. “When I want something, I get it, no matter how it looks. You must learn to be thick-skinned if you want to get on in life.”
     “Bah,” muttered Arles. “I’m doing quite well enough already.”
    “If you lose Agency because of bad grades you will sing a different song.”
    The next morning Spanchetta took herself to the lyceum and approached Instructor Arnold Fleck in the hall outside the mathematics classroom.
    Spanchetta halted. Looking Fleck up and down, she took note of his slight physique, thin pale face and mild blue eyes. Could this be the malevolent ogre of the many revenges so feelingly described by Arles?
    Fleck recognized Spanchetta and instantly divined the nature her mission. “Good morning, madame. Can I assist you in any way?”
    “That remains to be seen. You are Instructor Fleck?”
    “I am indeed.”
    “I am Spanchetta Clattuc of Clattuc House. My son, Arles, so I believe, is under your supervision?”
    Fleck considered. “Nominally so, and for a fact I see him from time to time.”
    Spanchetta frowned. She wanted a brisk businesslike and understanding, without evasions or glib little ambiguities. This Instructor Fleck had made a bad beginning. “Please, sir, if you will! You are Arles’ instructor in mathematics?”
    “Yes, madame.”
     “Hm. He seems to be having problems and he insists that he is not to blame. He feels that the material is presented incorrectly.”
    Instructor Fleck smiled a cool sad smile. “I will teach him any way he likes, so long as he does the work. He cannot absorb the subject by osmosis; he must do the drills and work out the problems, all of which is admittedly