"Ender's Stocking" is a short story written by Orson Scott Card. It tells the story of how Peter Wiggin figured out how he could get people to do what he wanted. It was first published in Card's webzine, the InterGalactic Medicine Show in October 2007.[1]
In April 2021, "Ender's Stocking" was republished in the illustrated anthology Ender's Way.[2]
Story Details[]
Two days before Christmas, Peter was in the library and decided to try and act friendly to one of his classmates. After the girl rejected him, Peter went home and had a fight with his mother because she was sad about Ender being away at Battle School. Later that day, Peter went for a walk and began to think about why people didn't like him. He came to the conclusion that people hated him because they were afraid of him and because he frequently tried to use force to get people to do what he wanted. It then occurred to Peter that the best way to get people to do what he wanted was to convince them that he cared about them and that he wanted to help them. He tried this out on his family and found that it worked. As a result, he started doing it to other people as well.
Connection to A War of Gifts[]
After completing the novel A War of Gifts: An Ender Story and while waiting for it to be published, Card decided to flesh out the story of Peter seen in Chapter 2 of the novel. This became "Ender's Stocking". Chapter 2 of A War of Gifts is 900 words; "Ender's Stocking" expands it to 8,000.
Trivia[]
- According to Card, he came up with the idea for the short story "The Gold Bug" while in the pre-planning stages of "Ender's Stocking".[3]