Hazards of Time Travel. Joyce Carol Oates

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       “GOOD NEWS!”

      Or so at first it seemed.

      I’d been named valedictorian of my class at Pennsboro High School. And I’d been the only one at our school, of five students nominated, to be awarded a federally funded Patriot Democracy Scholarship.

      My mother came running to hug me, and congratulate me. And my father, though more warily.

      “That’s our girl! We are so proud of you.”

      The principal of our high school had telephoned my parents with the good news. It was rare for a phone to ring in our house, for most messages came electronically and there was no choice about receiving them.

      And my brother, Roderick, came to greet me with a strange expression on his face. He’d heard of Patriot Democracy Scholarships, Roddy said, but had never known anyone who’d gotten one. While he’d been at Pennsboro High he was sure that no one had ever been named a Patriot Scholar.

      “Well. Congratulations, Addie.”

      “Thanks! I guess.”

      Roddy, who’d graduated from Pennsboro High three years before, and was now working as a barely paid intern in the Pennsboro branch of the NAS Media Dissemination Bureau (MDB), was grudgingly admiring. I thought—He’s jealous. He can’t go to a real university.

      I never knew if I felt sorry for my hulking-tall brother who’d cultivated a wispy little sand-colored beard and mustache, and always wore the same dull-brown clothes, that were a sort of uniform for lower-division workers at MDB, or if—actually—I was afraid of him. Inside Roddy’s smile there was a secret little smirk just for me.

      When we were younger Roddy had often tormented me—“teasing” it was called (by Roddy). Both our parents worked ten-hour shifts and Roddy and I were home alone together much of the time. As Roddy was the older, it had been Roddy’s task to take care of your little sister. What a joke! But a cruel joke, that doesn’t make me smile.

      Now we were older, and I was tall myself (for a girl of my age: five feet eight), Roddy didn’t torment me quite as much. Mostly it was his expression—a sort of shifting, frowning, smirk-smiling, meant to convey that Roddy was thinking certain thoughts best kept secret.

      That smirking little smile just for me—like an ice-sliver in the heart.

      My parents had explained: it was difficult for Roddy, who hadn’t done well enough in high school to merit a scholarship even to the local NAS state college, to see that I was doing much better than he’d done in the same school. Embarrassing to him to know that his younger sister earned higher grades than he had, from the very teachers he’d had at Pennsboro High. And Roddy had little chance of ever being admitted to a federally mandated four-year university, even if he took community college courses, and our parents could afford to send him.

      Something had gone wrong during Roddy’s last two years of high school. He’d become scared about things—maybe with reason. He’d never confided in me.

      At Pennsboro High—as everywhere in our nation, I suppose—there was a fear of seeming “smart”—(which might be interpreted as “too smart”)—which would result in calling unwanted attention to you. In a True Democracy all individuals are equal—no one is better than anyone else. It was OK to get B’s, and an occasional A−; but A’s were risky, and A+ was very risky. In his effort not to get A’s on exams, though he was intelligent enough, and had done well in middle school, Roddy seriously missed, and wound up with D’s.

      Dad had explained: it’s like you’re a champion archer. And you have to shoot to miss the bull’s-eye. And something willful in you assures that you don’t just miss the bull’s-eye but the entire damned target.

      Dad had laughed, shaking his head. Something like this had happened to my brother.

      Poor Roddy. And poor Adriane, since Roddy took out his disappointment on me.

      It wasn’t talked about openly at school. But we all knew. Many of the smartest kids held back in order not to call attention to themselves. HSPSO (Home Security Public Safety Oversight) was reputed to keep lists of potential dissenters/ MIs/ SIs, and these were said to contain the names of students with high grades and high I.Q. scores. Especially suspicious were students who were good at science—these were believed to be too “questioning” and “skeptic” about the guidelines for curriculum at the school, so experiments were no longer part of our science courses, only just “science facts” to be memorized (“gravity causes objects to fall,” “water boils at 212 degrees F.,” “cancer is caused by negative thoughts,” “the average female I.Q. is 7.55 points lower than the average male I.Q., adjusting for ST status”).