Zoe's Tale (Old Man's War, #4)(15)

"I said that teenage boys can't think beyond or without their newly dropped testicles," I said, staring at the boy who had been trying to talk sense into his pal. "Also, they smell funny."

The boy grinned. He knew what we were up to. I didn't grin back; I didn't want to mess with Gretchen's play.

"And I was so convinced that I was right and she was wrong that I actually made a bet," Gretchen said. "I bet every single dessert I'd get here on the Magellan that no one would be that stupid. That's a serious bet."

"She loves her dessert," I said.

"It's true, I do," Gretchen said.

"She's a dessert fiend," I said.

"And now you are going to make me lose all my desserts," Gretchen said, poking Magdy in the chest. "This is not acceptable."

There was a snerk from the boy Magdy had been facing off with. Gretchen wheeled on him; the boy actually flinched backward. "I don't know why you think this is funny," Gretchen said. "Your family would have been thrown off the ship just like his."

"He started it," the boy said.

Gretchen blinked, dramatically. "'He started it'? Zoe, tell me I heard that wrong."

"You didn't," I said. "He really said it."

"It doesn't seem possible that anyone over the age of five would be using that as a rationale for anything," Gretchen said, examining the boy critically.

"Where's your faith in humanity now?" I asked.

"I'm losing it," Gretchen said.

"Along with all your desserts," I said.

"Let me guess," Gretchen said, and waved generally at the clot of boys in front of her. "You're all from the same planet." She turned and looked at the other boy clot. "And you're all from another planet." The boys shifted uncomfortably; she had gotten their number. "And so the first thing you do is you start picking fights because of where you used to live."

"Because that's the smart thing to do with people you're going to spend the rest of your life living with," I said.

"I don't remember that being in the new colonist orientation material," Gretchen said.

"Funny about that," I said.

"Indeed," Gretchen said, and stopped talking.

There was silence for several seconds.

"Well?" Gretchen said.

"What?" Magdy said. It was his favorite word.

"Are you going to fight now or what?" Gretchen said. "If I'm going to lose my bet, now's as good a time as any."

"She's right," I said. "It's almost lunchtime. Dessert is calling."

"So either get on with it or break it up," Gretchen said. She stepped back.

The boys, suddenly aware that whatever it was they were fighting about had been effectively reduced to whether or not some girl would get a cupcake, dispersed, each clot headed pointedly in a separate direction from the other. The sane boy glanced back at me as he walked off with his friends.

"That was fun," Gretchen said.

"Yeah, until they all decide to do it again," I said. "We can't use the dessert humiliation trick every time. And there are colonists from ten separate worlds. That's a hundred different possible idiotic teenage boy fight situations."

"Well, the colonists from Kyoto are Colonial Mennonites," Gretchen said. "They're pacifists. So it's only eighty-one possible idiotic teenage boy fight combinations."

"And yet still only two of us," I said. "I don't like the odds. And how did you know about the Kyoto folks, anyway?"

"When my father was still thinking he'd be running the colony, he made me read the reports on all the colonists and their original planets," Gretchen said. "He said I was going to be his aide-de-camp. Because, you know, that's really what I would have wanted to do with my time."

"Comes in handy, though," I said.

Gretchen pulled out her PDA, which was buzzing, and looked at the screen. "Speaking of which," she said, and showed me the screen. "Looks like Dad's calling."

"Go be aide de camp-y," I said.

Gretchen rolled her eyes. "Thanks. Want to get together for the departure? And then we can go have lunch. You'll have lost the bet by then. I'll get your dessert."

"Touch my dessert and you will die in horrible ways," I said. Gretchen laughed and left.

I pulled out my own PDA to see if there were messages from John or Jane; there was one from Jane telling me that Hickory and Dickory were looking for me about something. Well, they knew I was onboard, and they also knew how to reach me by PDA; it's not like I went anywhere without it. I thought about giving them a call but I figured they would find me sooner or later. I put the PDA away and looked up to find the sane boy standing in front of me.

"Hi," he said.

"Uh," I said, a testament to my smoothness.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to sneak up on you like that," he said.

"It's okay," I said, only a little flustered.

He stuck out his hand. "Enzo," he said. "And you're Zoe, I guess."

"I am," I said, taking his hand and shaking it.

"Hi," he said.