Work Text:
“Susan, I’ll be honest with you. You’re brilliant,” says Mr. Chesterton — and Susan feels a rush of pride. She was never a particularly good student back home, and a teacher’s praise is still novel enough to come with a thrill every time.
Even when she’s being praised for something every child knows before they can talk, like the fundamentals of the fourth dimension.
(Mr. Chesterton himself — the teacher! — hardly seems to distinguish the fifth, which is just ridiculous. She likes the twentieth century, mostly, but how are people so ignorant?)
“But,” Mr. Chesterton goes on, “I have to be fair to the other students. And I simply can’t pass you if you don’t do any classwork at all.”
Susan suppresses an eye-roll. She likes Mr. Chesterton, really, and she doesn’t want to hurt his feelings. It’s only, the science work he assigns is so dull. It’s so easy, it comes all the way around to difficult again. Doing it makes her feel empty, mechanical, like some kind of robot — and not the sentient kind, either.
Isn’t school supposed to make you think?
She wishes she could complain to Grandfather. But he would just grumble about how he told her going to Coal Hill was a ridiculous idea to begin with; what else did she expect, going to school with humans?
The last thing she wants is for Grandfather to pull her out of school. He doesn’t understand that she likes Coal Hill for reasons other than curriculum.
Susan sighs. “Yes, Mr. Chesterton,” she says politely.
He’s so kind, so well-intentioned, and he actually is intelligent for this century. He’s one of her favorite teachers, despite the painful simplicity of the material he teaches.
She just wishes she could somehow let him see how much more there is to the universe.