After what felt like hours, Ravina found herself on the office couch, tea cup in hand, and quiet had been restored to the room. As Madam Pelman reviewed the documents, the girl enjoyed her tea, her ears still warm from the good madam’s tongue-lashing. It was a fine tea, something rich about it, homely but not earthly… If this were another lesson with Annelore Essler, she would be expected to name the tea, the location of its export and growth, as well as the seasons in which the flowers bloomed. It had taken quite a lot away from the enjoyment of the tea, but there were moments like this when she could drown the headache out with the very liquid that started to cause it.
“It’s a big shift,” Madam Pelman said as she carelessly tossed the last of the papers aside.
“Maybe, but it does allow the county to benefit from the Initiative in a more tangible way, that's sure to please the nobles,” Ravina hastily defended her project.
“And it will be all the more complicated as well. You want to change good and noble teachers for common rabble?”
“There is no reason for nobles to teach at these institutes, even if they are mostly baronets. While it's commendable that they managed to get them to start teaching in the meantime, a change to commoners would save 69% of the budget alone.”
Madam scoffed at her. “Do it or die does tend to make nobles feel rather charitable, my dear, however, there is no position of teacher in the common ranks. They just don't have the ability,” she shrugged the idea off.
“They don't have the resources,” Ravina corrected her. “Take half the budget from the teachers, ah that’s because we would need to hire more people to accommodate the per child cost, but we would have about 36,000 annually. That's money we can put to better use, or take out completely. Still, if we keep it, we can ensure that there are plenty of tools they could use to continue the class: books, paper, desks, even food would be easy to provide.”
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
“Food is provided.”
“True, but the right food is imperative for learning.” Or so her science teacher had told her once… Was that in high school or middle school? She couldn't even remember what he looked like now. What did she even look like then?
The brief recollection was interrupted by the older woman's words. “Does it now, and what is the right food, may I ask?”
“Well… not potatoes.” That was all the orphanages were given. Any other food they had was donated by someone else, but each one of the over 200 orphanages were given simple potatoes, and only one at that. Survivable? Sure, but if it weren't for the church already dipping their altruistic finger in the orphanages, they would be nothing more than bones. “They need more than potatoes, just a little protein even.”
“Protein? Are you asking us to provide them with meat?”
“Maybe once a week, once we pull this gift from the church, they are not going to want to feed them anymore.”
“And how much is that going to cost?”
“Well…” Ravina hesitated. The cost of meat was variable. One day, you could buy a cow for 10 silver, the next, 30 gold. “They need protein,” she finally said. Everyone does. Meat, fruits, and vegetables. That's what the human body needs. Why? She didn't know, only that a food pyramid was plastered all over her school, telling her to eat less bread and more green stuff. The green stuff was easy; people here turned their noses up at it. Yet, meat was on there as well, near the top but still deemed necessary.
“They can do fine enough without it,” Madam Pelman dismissed.
“If I—no, what I meant to say is, they could work for it,” Ravina corrected herself, halting abruptly with a sharp, slightly panicked breath. In her eagerness to persuade Madam Pelman of her project's merits, she found herself on the brink of making a desperate plea for support—a move likely to offend rather than sway. She and the count had much in common: results mattered more than anything.