Roberta spoke to her daughter's back. "This letter says you've cut more than half your classes so far this term, Robin. This is terrible!"

"Oh mom," the teenager replied, her voice signaling exasperation beyond endurance.

"'Oh mom?' That's all you have to say? 'Oh mom?' You'd better have a lot more to say than that."

Robin folded her arms and sighed with an exaggerated rise and fall of her shoulders.

"Don't you understand that you won't be eligible to take accreditation exams if you don't attend classes? Things aren't like they were back when your dad and I were in school. You need to know so much these days to get any kind of job at all. Where I work, at the bank you know -- you do know that your mother works for the money that feeds and shelters you, don't you? -- we won't hire tellers who don't have at least a fiftieth in math and a sixtieth in speech. Even the janitor position requires a twenty-fifth in computers and a thirtieth in mechanics. It's all by the numbers these days. What are you going to do if you don't have any numbers?"

"You just hate me, that's all."

"I don't hate you! I just want you to add a byte or two of sense between your ears."

"Yeah right, whatever. I'm turning eighteen next week. I'm practically an adult. Why don't you leave me alone?"

"You don't act like an adult."

"Oh mom." Robin tossed her hair and turned around to make sure Roberta saw her eyes rolling. "You just totally don't understand. Can I puh-leeze go now?"

"It's 'may I'. Go? Go where?"

"I'm going out!" Roberta was clearly an idiot for not knowing this.

"You've been out every night this week, all night sometimes. Who are you going to be with, and where are you going?"

"Oh my gawd, like do you have to know every detail of my life? Aren't I entitled to any privacy? I'm not a little kid you know."

"Young lady, I am still and always will be your mother. Now I just asked you a question and I expect an answer."

"Fine! Whatever! I'm going with Jason and Sandy and a bunch of other people to a movie, or something. They're expecting me." Robin looked pointedly at her watch.

Or something.

"Okay. You may go."

"Oh . . . thank . . . you . . . so . . . very . . . much," Robin sing-songed.

"You may go, but you can't--you may not--take the car. No car privileges until you've put in a month of perfect attendance."

"What?"

"You heard me ... "

"You don't want me to have a life, that's all. Just because you can't pass the supervisor exams . . . "

"That's enough young lady. We're discussing your future, not . . . "

"And just because dad refuses to register for the career upgrade program."

"Your father is dealing with his stroke the best he can. When he's ready . . ."

"Oh right. Being disabled and all, he's eligible, but he's afraid to even try to take the tests. Why the hell should I give up my life to answer a bunch of stupid questions that have nothing to do with anything anyway?"

"Can't you see past the end of your nose? It's a different world out there, honey. I just want you to be able to succeed in it."

"I will succeed, mom. I'm not stupid you know."

"No, you're not, but if you don't take the tests and do well, no one's going to know that."

"I'm late." Another very pointed stare at her watch.

"Fine. Go. Go. It's your life . Do what you want with it. Just don't say . . . "

". . . I didn't warn you," Robin chimed in. She brushed past her mother, picked her i.d. chip off the mantel, and slammed the door much harder than necessary as she left.

Roberta took three deep "cleansing" breaths, like she'd read about in the wellness printzine at the library. She used to subscribe to printzines, but today--with the shortage of paper--only people in the eighty-sixth percentile of reading skills could get printed copy. She'd subscribed to e-zines for a while, but net bandwidth got so crowded that it had to be regulated, too. You needed a sixtieth in computer tech-- which she had--but a seventy-second in reading--which she lacked--to access e-zines. Roberta only had a seventy-first.

Funny, how you needed a higher literacy rating to read printzines than e-zines, she thought. They seem to carry pretty much the same articles, the same ads.

The cleansing breaths had helped a little, but gods that girl was driving her nuts. She decided to check her mail, take a hot herbal bath (another idea from the wellness zine) and go to bed. She'd try to talk to Robin again in the morning.

She had two messages. One was the weather forecast for tomorrow. Everyone with a job was allowed to get that. The other was from Credential College. She double-clicked the envelope icon and squeezed her eyes shut. Cleansing breath. She opened them.

		Dear Ms. Jackson:
		Although your application was most impressive, we regret to inform you that you have not been selected for the Management Upgrade Program (MUP). Admittance to the MUP is highly competitive. In ranking applicants according to their potential to succeed in the MUP, we consider every aspect of their prior knowledge and experience. Although each of your scores independently met the minimum standard, when we compared your scores from five years ago to your most recent scores, we found that your rate of improvement was less than the mean of the applicant pool. In addition, the weighted average of your literacy skills was lower than your stand-alone percentiles in both creative writing and electronic mail competencies, and analysis shows that students with this score profile perform as a whole one standard deviation below students whose stand-alone skills are more closely in alignment with their weighted average. Thank you for applying, and please consider Credential College when you are again eligible to apply for an upgrade.

Roberta read the letter once, then ran her eyes over the lines several more times without really seeing them. That was it then. She couldn't pass the management exam at work. She wouldn't be eligible to apply for upgrade again for another five years. She was stuck.

Couldn't her daughter see that she was going to end up stuck, too, if she didn't work hard in school? Life was entirely by the numbers. Getting the numbers mattered more than anything else.

The doorbell chimed. Roberta tapped the security sensor, and the top half of a woman in a police uniform appeared on the screen. The police officer held up a badge to the camera. Roberta double-clicked the doorknob icon and heard the front door open. She got up and hurried to meet her visitor.

"Are you Ms. Jackson?" the policewoman asked.

"Yes."

"I'm sorry." She removed her cap and clasped it in front of her in a respectful gesture. "I'm afraid I have bad news for you."

Roberta's eyes asked.

"Your daughter, Robin, was in an accident about half an hour ago, a few blocks from here. I'm sorry, she was dead when we got there."

"I don't understand."

"We took statements from the driver and surviving passengers. Apparently she and some friends were going to a party together."

Or something.

"Some partying had already been going on, and the individual driving the vehicle was intoxicated. Her friends said that Roberta always insisted on taking her own car in those circumstances, but she didn't have a car with her tonight and accepted the ride."

Roberta said something. The officer said something. Something, something, something, and Roberta was alone in the house and her husband was sitting in some bar or other and Robin wasn't coming home.

Robin wasn't coming home. Roberta found herself lying facedown on the living room floor, rubbing her hands hard against the lay of the shag rug until they burned, trying to capture some sense of reality as the world fell away from her.

Robin hadn't had a car. She'd forbidden her to take one. She'd taken her car privileges away because she wasn't qualifying to take her exams. She wasn't making the numbers.

Her daughter's voice haunted her:

Why the hell should I give up my life to answer a bunch of stupid questions that have nothing to do with anything anyway?

She'd answered her with numbers.

Life was by the numbers.

And Death was by the numbers.

These characters are a metaphor for every parent who ever thought his kid a smart-mouth brat; for every kid who ever thought his parents tyrannical boobs. The story begs a question: Do we prep our kids for the "real world" or do we insulate them from it for as long as we can? Do we run them by the numbers, or do we keep the numbers soft? I'll be interested in your responses on our BBS.--gm