Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -… [554]

Some of my students are my age and older, and a couple of these—Aura Moss and Michael Talcott—got up and left. They knew I understood the work. I got the last of my high school work and tests out of the way almost two years ago. Since then I’ve done uncredited (free) college work with Dad. Michael and Aura know all that, but they’re much too grown up to learn anything from the likes of me. The hell with them. It’s a pity, though, that my Curtis has to have a brother like Michael—not that any of us gets to choose our brothers. — , Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -…, 554

Note

A miniature portrait of an adolescent’s authority problem: the narrator lists her credentials at the reader in the middle of describing a classroom walkout, then delivers ‘The hell with them’ with no transition — the professional summary is really self-justification. The closing pivot to Curtis relocates the grievance onto someone else’s brother, which is also a muffled way of saying what she can’t say about her own.