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survival of the species, all these planetside trivialities are put aside until the crisis passes.
    And it has not passed, whatever you little twits might think about it. 6

    HOLY WAR

    Dink left Graff’s office seething. “If they can’t see the difference between praying eight times a day and putting a poem in a shoe once a year…”
    “It was a great poem,” said Flip.
    “It was dumb,” said Dink.
    “Wasn’t that the point? It was a great dumb poem. I just feel bad I didn’t write one for you.”
    “I didn’t put out my shoes.”
    Flip sighed. “I’m sorry I did that. I was just feeling homesick. I didn’t think anybody would do anything about it.”
    “Sorry.”
    “We’re both so very very sorry,” said Flip. “Except that we’re not sorry at all.”
    “No, we’re not,” said Dink.
    “In fact, it’s kind of fun to get in trouble for keeping Sinterklaas Day. Imagine what would happen if we celebrated Christmas.”
    “Well,” said Dink, “we’ve still got nineteen days.”
    “Right,” said Flip.
    By the time they got back to Rat Army barracks, it was obvious that the story was already known. Everybody fell silent when Dink and Flip stood in the doorway.
    “Stupid,” said Rosen.
    “Thanks,” said Dink. “That means so much, coming from you.”
    “Since when did you get religion?” Rosen demanded. “Why make some kind of holy war out of it?”
    “It wasn’t religious,” said Dink. “It was Dutch.”
    “Well, eemo, you be Rat Army now, not Dutch.”
    “In three months I won’t be in Rat Army,” said Dink. “But I’ll be Dutch until I die.”
    “Nations don’t matter up here,” said one of the other boys.
    “Religions neither,” said another.
    “Well it’s obvious religion does matter,” said Flip, “or we wouldn’t have been called in and reprimanded for cutting a pancake into an ‘F’ and writing a funny poem and sticking it in a shoe.”
    Dink looked down the long corridor, which curved upward toward the end. Zeck, who slept at the very back of the barracks, couldn’t even be seen from the door.
    “He’s not here,” said Rosen.
    “Who?”
    “Zeck,” said Rosen. “He came in and told us what he’d done, and then he left.”
    “Anybody know where he goes when he takes off by himself?” asked Dink.
    “Why?” said Rosen. “You planning to slap him around a little? I can’t allow that.”
    “I want to talk to him,” said Dink.
    “Oh, talk,” said Rosen.
    “When I say talk, I mean talk,” said Dink.
    “I don’t want to talk to him,” said Flip. “Stupid prig.”
    “He just wants to get out of Battle School,” said Dink.
    “If we put it to a vote,” said one of the other boys, “he’d be gone in a second. What a waste of space.”
    “A vote,” said Flip. “What a military idea.”
    “Go stick your finger in a dike,” the boy answered.
    “So now we’re anti-Dutch,” said Dink.
    “They can’t help it if they still believe in Santa Claus,” said an American kid.
    “Sinterklaas,” said Dink. “Lives in Spain, not the North Pole. Has a friend who carries his bag-Black Piet.”
    “Friend?” said a kid from South Africa. “Black Piet sounds like a slave to me.”
    Rosen sighed. “It’s a relief when Christians are fighting each other instead of slaughtering Jews.”
    That was when Ender Wiggin joined the discussion for the first time. “Isn’t this exactly what the rules are supposed to prevent? People sniping at each other because of religion or nationality?”
    “And yet we’re doing it anyway,” said the American kid.
    “Aren’t we up here to save the human race?” asked Dink. “Humans have religions and nationalities. And customs. Why can’t we be humans too?”
    Wiggin didn’t answer.
    “Makes no sense for us to live like Buggers,” said Dink. “They don’t celebrate Sinterklaas Day, either.”
    “Part of being human,” said Wiggin, “is to massacre each other from time to time. So maybe till we beat the