"Teacher's Pest" is a short story by Orson Scott Card. It tells the story of John Paul Wiggin and Theresa Brown meeting for the first time in college. It was first published on August 5, 2003, in First Meetings: In the Enderverse along with the 1977 Ender's Game short story, "The Polish Boy", and "The Investment Counselor". It was republished again in 2004 as a softcover First Meetings in Ender's Universe.[1]
In April 2021, "Teacher's Pest" was republished in the illustrated anthology Ender's Way.[2]
Story Details[]
Years after his family had moved from Poland to the United States, John Paul Wiggin became a student at a university. While attending Human Communities class, the teacher (a young graduate student named Theresa Brown) proved herself to be smarter than John Paul, intriguing him.
After the class had ended, Theresa was called to the dean's office, where she was informed that, while she will still work on a project she created, she will not be given credit for it in an attempt to convince Theresa's father, Admiral Hinckley Brown, to come out of retirement.
As she returned to her office, John Paul caught up to Theresa and asked if he can talk to her in her office. She said no, and though he got a few words in, she proved her standpoint by slamming the door in John Paul's face.
Theresa was curious about what John Paul said, so she accessed the student files on her desk, and read John Paul's file. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary; none of it seemed like it would be a lie. Her father then called her via her desk, and they talked for a while about her project. She ended up hanging up on him, and started to cry.
Theresa opened the door to leave, and found John Paul sitting on the floor outside of her office with food set up on napkins. He explained that he didn't know when she was going to come out, and that he had just been ordering food and throwing it away every fifteen minutes so that when Theresa came out it would be hot and fresh.
They ate together and discussed the Hegemony and its lies, and how John Paul moved from Poland to the US when he was six. He told her that he had many brothers and sisters, not just one. As they continued to talk, John Paul told Theresa that he had fallen in love with her, but that it's "just a hair ball," and if she disregarded him, he'll get over it. John Paul kissed her on the cheek and forehead, and Theresa quickly kissed him on the lips. They discussed how funny it would be if the Hegemony and International Fleet were somehow forcing them to fall in love.