Cull and Waver

Cull spread her cloth scoop over the poll. "First — who did we scoop?" she said. "All ten were creatures loitering by the tart stall at noon." She smoothed the scoop. "We asked the folk already standing next to the berry-tarts. Of course they leaned berry-tart. The honey-cake lovers were off by the cake stall, or still at home, or working." She tapped the page. "This handful wasn't drawn from all through the pond. It was drawn from one corner — and the corner smells of tarts." She looked up. "A fair handful takes a little from everywhere: some at each stall, some at home, some at different hours. Fix that, and at least the six-to-four isn't just the tart corner talking."

Then Waver drifted over the numbers, his two threads spreading wide. "And even a fair ten," he said, "is a very small handful — so whatever answer it gives wobbles a lot." He set his threads a full hand's width to either side of the six. "From only ten answers, 'six out of ten' could just as easily have come out five, or seven, purely by which ten happened to wander past. The gap between six and four is inside the wobble of a ten-creature poll." His threads overlapped across both numbers. "So even if Cull makes the handful perfectly fair, ten is too few to crown a winner. The two foods are, as far as this poll can tell, tied — the four-lead is just the numbers breathing." He steadied his threads. "A bigger handful would wobble narrower. Ten wobbles too wide to be sure of anything this close."

A young frog named Pip had been holding the festival banner, looking from Cull to Waver in dismay. "But you're each telling me something's wrong for a different reason," he said. "Cull, you say the ten weren't fair. Waver, you say ten's too few. Do I fix the fairness or the fewness?"

Cull and Waver looked at each other and, together, said: "Both."

"Watch," said Cull, and sent Pip round the whole festival — every stall, the benches, the paths home — to gather a fair handful this time, not just the tart corner.

"And gather plenty," said Waver, hovering alongside. "The more you fairly ask, the narrower my threads close."

Pip worked all afternoon. He came back with sixty answers, drawn fairly from all through the festival. Cull checked the spread: every corner was in it, no stall over-counted. Then Waver hovered over the tally — thirty-one berry-tart, twenty-nine honey-cake — and drew his two threads. This time, with sixty fair answers, the threads pulled in closer than before... but still, gently, overlapped across the two numbers.

"Fair now," said Cull, nodding at the even spread.

"And narrower," said Waver, "but look — even sixty fair answers still can't split thirty-one from twenty-nine. The bands nearly part, but they still touch." He let the threads rest. "So the honest finding isn't 'berry-tart wins.' It's 'the pond is split almost evenly, and leans berry-tart by a hair we can't yet be sure of.' Fair and wide, both — that's the truth."

Pip stared at his sixty fair answers. "So I can't crown a winner even now?"

"You can say something truer than a winner," said Cull gently. "You can say the pond is divided, and roughly in half. That's real news."