Page 1654 - Enders_Game_Full_Book

"Are you awake?" Peter asked. "Come in," said Mother.
They chatted mindlessly for a few minutes about dinner and Sister Carlotta and that delightful little Julian Delphiki, so hard to believe that a child that young could possibly have done all that he had done in his short life. And on and on, until Peter interrupted them.
"I have something to tell you," said Peter. "Tomorrow, some friends of Bean's and Carlotta's will be starting a phony movement to get Locke nominated as Hegemon. You know who Locke is? The political commentator?"
They nodded.
"And the next morning," Peter went on, "Locke is going to come out with a statement that he has to decline such an honor because he's just a teenage boy living in Greensboro, North Carolina."
"Yes?" said Father.
Did they really not get it? "It's me, Dad," said Peter. "I'm Locke."
They looked at each other. Peter waited for them to say something stupid.
"Are you going to tell them that Valentine was Demosthenes, too?" asked Mother.
For a moment he thought she was saying that as a joke, that she thought that the only thing more absurd than Peter being Locke would be Valentine being Demosthenes.
Then he realized that there was no irony in her question at all. It was an important point, and one he needed to address-the contradiction between Locke and Demosthenes had to be resolved, or there would still be something for Chamrajnagar and Achilles to expose. And blaming Valentine for Demosthenes right from the start was an important thing to do.
But not as important to him as the fact that Mother knew it. "How long have you known?" he asked.
"We've been very proud of what you've accomplished," said Father. "As proud as we've ever been of Ender," Mother added.
Peter almost staggered under the emotional blow. They had just told him the thing that he had wanted most to hear his entire life, without ever quite admitting it to himself. Tears sprang to his eyes.