"Ender's Stocking" is a short story written by Orson Scott Card. It tells the story of how Peter Wiggin figures out how he can get people to do what he wants. It appears in Card's webzine, the InterGalactic Medicine Show.
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
The first part of this short story became Chapter 2 of the book A War of Gifts: An Ender Story. However, this chapter seems to be unrelated to the rest of the book and has been criticized for detracting from the rest of the story.
