The commanders of the Battle School are talking about whether they should isolate Ender from the rest of the school. They have to isolate him enough to keep him creative, but not so much that he loses his good ability to lead. They need Ender to keep his strength and powers, but he can't be too soft not to use it.

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Ender joins the group of boys heading towards Battle School, but he is scared. He is afraid of leaving his family, most of all Valentine. There were cameras recording them filing into the rocket, and Ender was tempted to go up and wave goodbye to Valentine. 'I must not cry' he told himself. The other boys were laughing and joking, but Ender couldn't bring up the courage to join them. As they disappeared further into the rocket, Ender began to notice things that were disorienting. Carpet on the floors and walls, carpet behind the ladder climbing into the cockpit. This is where Ender begins to re-orient himself to the space gravity. Then the group blasts out into space, and Colonel Graff appears to describe null gravity to the launchies*. Null gravity, or 'null-g' is no gravity. Right now in the book, the launchies are in space, so there is no gravity and the students float around. However, Colonel Graff uses Ender as an example, and describes him as a smart person who is better than than the rest of the launchies. This creates enemies with Ender, so another boy taps ender on the head, and Ender flips him over his shoulder, breaks his arm, and bounces the kid all around the room they are in. Ender then has a private conversation with Colonel Graff, who then says the he is not Ender's friend, it is not his job to be Ender's friend, his job is just to produce a good soldier. Later, Graff confides in another teacher that he is Enders friend.

 

*Launchies is a term for the new students at Battle School, instead of noobs, or noobies, ect.

 

One of the commanders of Battle School did not want the kids arm to be broken, he just wanted to isolate Ender more. Having Ender attack another student would push him farther from the other students. The commander is also adamant about not letting one of the teachers become Ender's friend. If they were, Ender would know he could fall back to that person for help in a tough spot. At the end of the conversation, he says that it is okay if Ender has friends, just not parents.

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Ender and the rest of the launchies arrive at Battle School. Unfortunatley, everone else had already chosen their bunks. Ender walks in to find the only bunk left was the one by the door. Ender then sets up his desk. The desk is a mini computer that students do their work and play games on. Dap walks in to meet his launchies. To them, he is Mom, and Mom announces that normally the most important people get the bunks by the door, pushing Ender farther from everyone again. The next day, the kids start their classes, where Ender is working hard to get good grades. After classes is recreation time. Ender discovers the Game Room, plays and beats older boys at the games, but nothing raises his popularity, just lowers it. Later that day, Ender makes a friend named Shen. Ender and Shen talk for a while, where Enders finds out the kid whose arm he broke is named Bernard. Ender then cracks the security code on the desks and sends messages to the rest of the kids under the name Bernard and God, which he gets a kick out of.