Save
Alai saw the tears but had the grace not to say so. “They’re fartheads, Ender, they won’t even let you take anything you own.” Ender grinned and didn’t cry after all. “Think I should strip and go naked?”Alai laughed, too.On impulse Ender hugged him, tight, almost as if he were Valentine. He even thought of Valentine then and wanted to go home. “I don’t want to go,” he said.Alai hugged him back. “I understand them, Ender. You are the best of us. Maybe they in a hurry to teach you everything.””They don’t want to teach me everything,” Ender said. “I wanted to learn what it was like to have a friend.”Alai nodded soberly. “Always my friend, always the best of my friends,” he said. Then he grinned. “Go slice up the buggers.””Yeah,” Ender smiled back.Alai suddenly kissed Ender on the cheek and whispered in his ear, “Salaam.
