The Report Card (9 page)

Getting the news about me to the kids had been Stephen's job. It hadn't been hard. Philbrook Elementary School had a gossip grapevine, and Jenny Ashton was the chief grape. One whispered phone call to Jenny on Sunday night was as good as a live press conference on CNN.

Mrs. Hackney had taken care of getting the news to all my teachers. I saw the principal's memo on Mrs. Noyes's desk during homeroom. It said, “After testing and observation, Dr. Trindler has determined that Nora Rowley is a profoundly gifted child. She has apparently been keeping this to herself for quite some time.”

So everybody was expecting to see a genius. Which was fine. Stephen and I were ready for that. On Thursday I was going to live up to everyone's expectations. And maybe create
some new ones.

In language arts class we were studying reading strategies like scanning and prereading and predicting. Mrs. Noyes passed out a three-page story and we had to leave the sheets face down on our desks. Then she said, “When I tell you to begin, I want all of you to turn the sheets over, and you'll have fifteen seconds to scan the story. Then we'll turn the pages face down again and talk about predicting what the whole story might be about from what you've been able to scan. So is everyone ready? . . . Begin scanning.”

Fifteen seconds later Mrs. Noyes told us to turn the sheets over, and she said, “All right, now based on what you saw in your scan, who can predict what happens in this story?”

When I raised my hand, the other kids who had their hands up pulled them down. They wanted to hear what the genius had to say.

I was the only person with a hand in the air, so Mrs. Noyes said, “Nora, what do you think this story's about?”

I took a deep breath and said, “This story's about a girl who lived during the Great Depression, and she needed to earn money so
she could buy a birthday present for her father. Her mother had died the year before, and she knew her dad was so sad about it that he was almost ready to give up. There were no real jobs, but the girl finds this shopkeeper who says he'll pay her ten cents every afternoon to sweep the sidewalk in front of his store. Some of her friends from school see her working and they make fun of her, but she doesn't care. She keeps working, but time is running out and she can't earn enough money. She tells her best friend and the friend tells the other kids at school. The day before her dad's birthday, all of the other kids chip in enough so she can buy the present—it's a little silver frame for her dad's favorite photograph of her mom. Her dad had been so sad, but when he sees how much his daughter loves him, his whole outlook changes and he sees that he has a lot to be glad about and so much to live for. And I think this is a story about how hard work and love and unselfishness can change a person's life.”

Mrs. Noyes didn't know what to say. I had just told her exactly what happened in the story, because during that fifteen seconds I had
read all three pages. I've always been able to read that way—I sort of see a whole page as one or two big blocks of words.

Mrs. Noyes said, “That's very good, Nora. But was that really predicting? Didn't you just give us a summary of the whole story?”

I nodded my head in agreement. “Yes. What I said was more like reviewing. When you know for certain what's already happened, you can't actually predict about it anymore. Because that's an epistemological impossibility. Prediction has to include the idea of uncertainty—like a theory in scientific analysis, or an educated guess based on heuristic evidence.”

Mrs. Noyes nodded slowly and said, “Um . . . yes. Well, class, let's move on and see if we can spot some of the clue words on the first page of the story. Remember, we're looking for words that will help us make some predictions.”

I could feel everyone in the class staring at me. Showing off and using some big words like that made me feel uncomfortable. Then I took a quick glance over at Stephen, and he had this big, proud grin on his face. And instantly I felt perfectly at ease.

The class moved ahead, slowly picking out clue words. Mrs. Noyes didn't call on me again during the rest of the period.

I was obnoxious all day long. In every class I found a way to put on my genius show. During art I got going with Ms. Prill about spectroscopic analysis and the different wavelengths of the primary and tertiary colors, and in social studies I had quite a lot to say about the effects of an unregulated financial market on the Great Depression.

In math class Mrs. Zhang and I had a ten-minute discussion about the best way to design a statistical analysis to try to discover the percentage of kids who would ever need to use the process of deriving the lowest common denominator once they left elementary school.

In music, when Mrs. Card said that the musical scale is made up of eight notes, I was able to point out that that's true only if you are talking about the traditional Western diatonic scale—because there are also scales like the pentatonic scale and the twelve-tone scale. And then that led naturally into a brief discussion of the use of different modal scales like
the Mixolydian or the Dorian mode as the basis for musical composition.

Gym class was a challenge because it's not easy to get a conversation going with Mr. McKay. Still, I managed to offer some general comments about the structure of the inner ear and the way it affects balance and coordination.

Science was my best performance of the day. Mrs. Zhang was explaining about the speed of light. She said, “Since the sun is 93 million miles away, and since light travels at 186,000 miles per second, if the sun went out right
now,
we would still have another seven minutes of sunlight. The light traveling from the sun to the earth takes seven minutes to pass through that much space.” Which was interesting and quite true. But then she said, “Nothing travels faster than light.” And an idea popped into my mind.

I raised my hand, and when Mrs. Zhang nodded at me, I said, “But what about thought? If you say the word ‘sun,' my thought can travel all the way across that 93 million miles to the sun and all the way back again in
about one second. So since there are 420 seconds in seven minutes, doesn't that mean that thought actually travels 840 times faster than light?”

Mrs. Zhang made a strange face as she tried to get her mind around that idea. Then she shook her head. She said, “But thought isn't like light. Light is real. You can see it. You can't see thought.”

I said, “Are you saying that a light wave or a light particle is more real than a thought is?”

Mrs. Zhang said, “Well . . . no, not exactly.”

And I said, “So are you saying that my thought can't travel that far that fast? How about if I say ‘Alpha Centauri'? See? My thought has already traveled out into space, all the way to that star and all the way back again. And light would take almost nine
years
to make a round-trip to Alpha Centauri. Unless you can prove that my thought didn't just go all the way there and back, then I'm sticking with my theory: Thought travels at least 840 times faster than light.” And all around the room, kids were nodding their heads, agreeing with me.

Now, if Mrs. Zhang had said, “Nothing
material
travels faster than light,” then she would have had me, and we could have talked for a while about the difference between physics and metaphysics. But she didn't take her thinking that far.

Like I said, I was obnoxious all day Thursday. A real know-it-all.

When I went to the library after school, Mrs. Byrne smiled and nodded at me when I came in, but instead of motioning me to come and talk, she quickly turned away to do some other work. Which was probably the smart thing to do. She had apparently decided to keep clear of me for a while.

Stephen came in a little after I did and sat at the opposite end of my study table.

“Well?” I whispered. “Was I horrible enough?”

He grinned at me. “You were fantastically
awful
! Every kid is talking about you. And probably all the teachers, too. I bet they're in the teacher's room right now, swapping Nora stories. It was a perfect setup—
perfect
!”

Because that was the idea. Thursday was the
setup day, the day to build up some expectations. Then we had some important events on Friday. And the big payoff would come on Monday. And probably Tuesday, too.

Our plan was in motion.

F
riday's important events went perfectly. Stephen and I were all set for the next steps on Monday or Tuesday. But once again I learned that things don't always happen according to plan. Because Friday after school, as I sat in the library doing my outside reading, Mrs. Hackney came marching up to my table and said, “Nora? Please follow me.”

The principal turned around and marched out of the media center, across the hall, and into her office. I barely had time to glance at Stephen, and he gave me a quick thumbs-up as I hurried after Mrs. Hackney. We hadn't thought this part of our plan would begin until after the weekend.

Mrs. Hackney stood behind her desk and said, “Please sit down, Nora.” When I was in the chair across from her, she held up three pieces of paper and said, “I want to know something and I want to know it
right
now.
This
is your spelling
test from this morning. And you got a zero on it.
This
is your math test from fourth period. And you got a zero. And
this
is your science test from two hours ago. Another zero. Three tests and you got a zero on each one. I want to know the meaning of this. We all know you are a brilliant child, Nora. And the only possible conclusion is that you have gotten these zeroes on purpose. And I
demand
to know why. Right now. Out with it—
why
did you get these zeroes?”

I had told Stephen I would be brave when our plan started to heat things up. And now I was having my hardest test of the day—the angry-grown-up-shaking-papers-in-my-face test.

Mrs. Hackney repeated the question. “Why did you get zeroes on these tests?”

I had been rehearsing my answer to that one. I said, “I got zeroes because I got all the answers wrong.”

Mrs. Hackney's face bunched up until her eyes were little slits below her eyebrows. Then she found her voice and it wasn't pretty. “Don't you
dare
be smart with me, young lady! Why did you
deliberately
get every question wrong on these tests? Tell me!”

I looked her right in the eye and said, “Because all three of these tests are nothing but simple memorization, same as almost all the other tests we take. So I decided to express my opinion about this kind of testing. These tests each got the score they deserved. Zero.”

This was the tricky moment. Because if Mrs. Hackney just kept getting madder and madder, I could get suspended. Or even expelled from school.

I was hoping something else would happen. And it did. Because Mrs. Hackney wasn't just a shouter, and she wasn't just some lady with an office. She was mad, but she was still a teacher—the top teacher of the whole school. She was in charge of the learning program for every grade, and I had just thrown down a challenge.

Mrs. Hackney glared at me for another few seconds, and then she sat down in her chair and began to look at the tests.

About a minute later, in a much calmer voice she said, “I see what you mean, and it's true that these tests all require students to
memorize a lot of information. But knowing basic information is important. It's like the foundation. You get bored with this kind of test because you've been trying to pretend you're average—and you're not. This kind of test is fine for most of the kids. You need to be in the gifted program, Nora. In the gifted program you'd have lots of creative challenges. That's what you need. I've already talked with your mother, and I have recommended that you start that program as soon as possible. Maybe you should even skip ahead into sixth grade. Or even eighth.”

I could tell Mrs. Hackney liked that skipping-grades idea. Even skipping to sixth grade would move me right out of her school. It was the instant solution: no more Nora.

But I shook my head. “What about all the other kids? I get to go and do creative and exciting things, and all the other kids get worksheets and memorization and the same old stuff, week after week. That's not fair.”

Mrs. Hackney was still the principal, and she wasn't going to sit around and argue with a fifth grader.

So she stood up and said, “You may go back to the library now. I'm sorry I lost my temper, but you have upset all your teachers. A gift like yours comes with responsibilities, Nora. I want you to think about that. You have responsibilities. You may go now. But this matter is not over.”

As I walked back into the library, I obeyed Mrs. Hackney: I thought about what she had just said—how a gift like mine comes with responsibilities.

Mrs. Hackney was absolutely right. I
did
have responsibilities. Except she and I had different ideas about what those responsibilities were.

And Mrs. Hackney was absolutely right about something else, too: This matter was
not
over.

W
hen I got back to my table in the library, Stephen pounced on me. “What happened? What'd she say? Are you in trouble?”

“Not too much,” I said. “But she got pretty mad. And she wants to put me in the gifted program right away.”

“What else?” he asked. “What about the tests and everything?”

I shook my head. “I'll tell you all about it on the bus, okay? I need to finish this reading.”

That wasn't exactly true. What I really needed was time to think. Because I could see where all this was going—but I couldn't tell where it would end. The plan Stephen and I had made had sounded good when we were talking about it, and it had been kind of fun to be a show-off genius one day and then get three zeroes the next.