"That stuff's easy. It's the tricky parts that get you. Politics is the kind of thing you can't get right just by sitting and thinking about it; you have to find out how things actually work first."

"Right. I'd have to talk to a lot of people and figure out what they wanted. Or at least have someone who was good at that."

"I'm good at that."

"You could be my not-evil vizier, then. Assuming you aren't evil."

"Of course not."

"Hmm, I wonder what the best way to figure that out for sure is."

"There isn't one."

"I think you would be more likely to say that if you were evil," says Bella, stroking her chin thoughtfully.

"Interesting. Why?"

"Well, it's either true or not true, and you either know it or you don't, and I don't think you being evil affects those odds either way - I don't think evil people know more or fewer things, or that you being evil would make it likelier or less likely that there's a way to find out about it for sure or vice versa. Well, maybe vice versa, if there were a way to find out and you knew it and decided not to be evil since somebody could find out if you were, but that's not a very big slice of maybe. But whether it's true or not and whether you know or not, you would want me to think I couldn't know for sure, if you were actually evil. ...No, that's not quite right, is it, because maybe you could make up a test and then pass it, so I take it back."

"The thing that I am that makes me say that is 'cynical'," she says, helpfully.

"People call me cynical sometimes. I'm not sure if I agree with them."

"Why do they say it, and why aren't you sure if you agree?"

"They usually say it when I talk about people wanting things and getting them by trading off other things. I don't really know why, though, so I can't follow their reasoning and see if it's right."

"Well, tell me more and I'll see if I can figure it out."

"I'd have to look in old notebooks for really accurate reconstructions of cases... Renée said it once when she explained why we have secret ballots. I said that they only worked for their stated purpose if the people who might be bullied into voting certain ways really believed they weren't being watched and it just being against the law to watch them might not work completely. Or something like that. I'd have to look it up."

"That is a cynical thing to say. But it's not wrong."

"Why is there a mean-sounding word for saying things that include things that aren't wrong? Do people not like to be right or something?" asks Bella with the tone of someone who has asked similar questions many times and never gotten a satisfactory answer.

"Cynical and idealistic aren't inherently related to right and wrong," says Elizabeth. "But kids aren't supposed to be cynical because we're not supposed to know any horrible things about the world yet."

"Then why did she even tell me about why we have secret ballots? The horrible things about that are pretty obvious. And if she'd just patted me on the head and said 'never you mind' then I might have been mad but I couldn't have done a whole lot about it if no grownups were willing to tell me."

"Just because people think things should be a certain way, doesn't necessarily mean they're good at making them turn out like that. Especially because a lot of this stuff is things people assume without really thinking about how it happens."

"People," says Bella expressively.

"Yep," says Elizabeth. "Also, you're being cynical again. But then, so am I."

Bella giggles.

Elizabeth grins.