Ungifted (4 page)

<<
Hypothesis: Athletic ability exists in inverse proportion to intelligence. Technically untrue—there are plenty of smart athletes. But not many compared with the number of brilliant sofa spuds
.>>

What about TV or video games? Oh, please. You're far too smart for that. Pep rallies? For what—the robotics team? Forget it—and the same goes for school dances, funny-hat day, drama club, charity drives....

“Dances?” repeated Abigail Lee when I brought up the subject in homeroom. “Who do you want to dance with? Him?” She pointed at skinny, needle-nosed Noah Youkilis.

She had a point. Most of the guys at the Academy for Scholastic Distinction weren't exactly what you'd call Hollywood hunks. I didn't expect bodybuilders, but it would be nice if they could grow a set of shoulders between the lot of them. And it wouldn't hurt to spend a little time outdoors to put some color in those prison-pale faces.

<<
Hypothesis: Sunlamp-enhanced computer monitors, perhaps …?
>>

Then again—being smart requires you to examine things from all sides—why pick on the guys? We girls weren't exactly homecoming queens either. Abigail was a genius biochemist, but her greatest fashion statement was her white lab coat. She looked like she hadn't combed her hair since 2007. Or me, for that matter. I'd scored a perfect 2400 on every SAT practice test since sixth grade, but who was I to talk? Here I was, almost fourteen, and I'd never danced with a guy who wasn't related to me. I'd never been to a party except for kiddy things with balloons. I wasn't going on the cover of
Seventeen
anytime soon, that was for sure.

“Okay, so it doesn't have to be a dance,” I told Abigail. “But why can't it be
something
? Every day millions of kids around this country do millions of normal activities, and they have a great time at it. Why can't we?”

“The statewide robotics meet is coming up,” she offered.

Sigh.

I took robotics. I was good at it. I was good at
all
of it. I totally belonged at this school. But why did it have to mean that I couldn't be a regular person too?

Mr. Osborne, our homeroom teacher, who was also head of the robotics program, breezed into the lab. “Let's hurry up and take attendance. We've got a lot to do today.”

We were all there. Where else would we be? We were any teacher's dream, yet at that moment it made me sad. I had no desire to cut class—but maybe that was the problem. When was the last time one of us broke the rules? This morning, while checking on my experiment in the growth of hydroponic flax, I'd noticed the paper I'd taped to my desk lamp to concentrate the beam onto the seedlings. It was a certificate of merit I'd received for perfect attendance at school. I'd earned seven of these over the years, and what use were they to me? Makeshift lampshades.

<<
Hypothesis: Is there a point where the robotics student becomes the robot?
>>

When was the last time anybody even showed up late?

“Sorry I'm late.” A tall sandy-haired boy appeared at the door. “Is this Mr. Osborne's class?”

“This is the robotics lab,” the teacher replied. “And you are?”

“Donovan Curtis,” the newcomer replied, waving a printed form. “I'm supposed to be in this homeroom.”

“Right—our fresh blood from Hardcastle Middle.” Oz accepted the paper and examined it.

Abigail leaned over to me. “That can't be right!
He's
coming to this school?”

I was intrigued. “You know him?”

“We went to the same elementary. He's the kid who jumped off the roof with one of those Gymboree parachutes.”

I sized him up. He was kind of cute in a careless, windblown way. Great eyes—black fringed, pale blue. “Well, he must be smart if he passed all the tests to get in here.”

Abigail was unconvinced. “Maybe. But he would have had to change a lot since I knew him.”

I bit my tongue. Okay, so Abigail thought he was dumb, but next to her,
everybody
was dumb.
I
was probably pretty dense compared with her. If Donovan Curtis didn't measure up to Lee standards, that hardly made him stupid. There were no dim bulbs at our school. But that's not to say that we didn't range from somewhat bright to superbright—and in a few cases, like Abigail and Noah, supernova.

She was telling me about Donovan getting his tongue frozen to a chain-link fence one winter, but by that time I'd stopped listening. I'd never met this new kid, but I already had him perfectly sized up in my mind.

Donovan Curtis was
normal
.

Normal! We had a lot of talents in our homeroom. Normalcy wasn't one of them. Noah's IQ was off the charts, but he'd yet to hold a conversation with a real human being this year. Most of the time, he didn't even make eye contact. He always seemed to be speaking to the empty space over your left shoulder. Or Jacey Halloran, who had already discovered an uncharted galaxy, but still couldn't figure out how to open a combination lock. Or Latrell Michaelson, our mechanical marvel, who took cars apart and put them together again blindfolded—for fun. He couldn't manage to wrap his mind around the fact that he had to wait in the food line to buy his lunch. Every single day was World War Three in the cafeteria.

We had kids who had set academic records, and published books, and won every conceivable prize and honor. We had kids who could quote you the exact line of dialogue that's spoken 94 minutes and 30 seconds into
The Matrix
or
Return of the Jedi
.

What was missing was somebody—
anybody
—normal.

“I am the great and powerful Oz,” Mr. Osborne told the newcomer in a mystical tone—he said that to everybody the first time he met them. “Technically, this is homeroom 107, but you've probably noticed that it looks like a cross between a mad scientist's lair and a garbage dump. We do robotics here. Even if you're not taking robotics this semester, I hope you'll help out with the team. It's a pretty big deal here at the Academy.” He turned to the rest of us. “Guys, meet Donovan. Donovan—the guys.”

There was a very lukewarm chorus of greeting. Another thing about the Academy—being gifted rarely extended to social skills. My enthusiastic “Hi!” stood out embarrassingly over the murmurs.

Donovan ignored us. Instead, he faced our latest robot, a work in progress for this year's competition. “What's his name?”

We were all stunned.

Noah spoke up. “It's not a
he
; it's an
it
. It's a mechanical device, and, as such, has no name.”

Donovan blinked. “Robots have names. Haven't you ever seen
Star Wars
?”

Was he kidding? Half of us could recite
Star Wars
.

“We've been doing this for a long time,” Abigail informed him in a superior tone. “We've made the finals three years in a row, and we did it with science, not by calling our entry Harry or Fred.”

A few others spoke up in agreement. To be honest, I was on their side. The robot wasn't a toy or pet; it was a machine. I kept my mouth shut, though. Poor Donovan had only been in our class about thirty seconds, and we were already jumping all over him.

It didn't seem to bother the newcomer. “Okay, no name.” He turned back to the robot. “Sorry, Tin Man.” Oz on the brain, I guess.

He grabbed hold of one of the forks of the lifting assembly and gave it a hearty handshake. With a snap, it came off in his hand.

There was nothing lukewarm about the class reaction to that. A babble of outraged accusations filled the lab. Abigail, our team captain, was on her feet barking, “You broke it!”

Donovan tried to press the broken fork back onto the chain drive. It clattered to the floor.

“All right! Quiet, everybody!” Oz held his arms up for order. “Donovan didn't break anything. The component hadn't been attached properly.” He turned to his newest student. “But it's not a bad lesson for your first day in the lab.”

“I won't mess with any more of your—stuff,” Donovan promised, chastened.

The robotics teacher shook his head. “I
want
you to mess with stuff. This is a place of tinkering, fiddling, experimentation. But,” he added pointedly, “before you touch,
ask
somebody.”

“Especially before you touch Tin Man,” Latrell added feelingly.

“He's a delicate piece of equipment,” Abigail pointed out. “And he's
not
Tin Man.”

I was fascinated. Now everybody was referring to this array of nuts and bolts and circuits as
he
. Was it possible that in
not
naming our robot, Donovan had just named our robot?

<<
Hypothesis: A name changes an “it” to a “he.”
>>

Kevin Amari raised his hand. “Even though he's not Tin Man, is it okay if we call him Tin Man for short? ‘The robot' is so impersonal.”

“Maybe because he's
not a person
!” By this time, Abigail was gritting through clenched teeth.

“He's not actually made of tin,” Noah mused thoughtfully. “But I guess Aluminum Man isn't appropriate either, since he's also made of titanium, steel, plastic, various polymers, and silicon computer chips.”

“How about Metallica?” suggested Latrell.

“That's good too,” Donovan approved. “Anything but ‘the robot.' Poor guy.”

“Squarepants,” Kevin offered. “You know, because he's so boxy.”

“Oh, perfect,” Abigail snarled. “Now all our hard work is named after a cartoon!”

“Let's live with it for a while,” Oz put in hurriedly. “We don't have to decide right away.”

Amazing—in a few minutes we had gone from no name to three. And all because Donovan Curtis had walked into our school.

I kept an eye on him through homeroom. Except for the mishap with Tin Man—or whatever the name was going to be—I saw no sign of the buffoon Abigail had described. If anything, Donovan was trying to be friendly—not that he was getting very far with our crew. Engaging Noah in conversation isn't the easiest thing to do under the best of circumstances. But Donovan was asking him for advice on what to expect in some of his classes.

“Well,” Noah replied thoughtfully, “math is easy, and the only thing easier than chemistry is biology or maybe physics. Social studies—easy. And English—well, you get the picture.”

Poor Donovan just stared at him. He'd probably spent his entire life hearing stories about the Academy's killer courses and crushing workload. And here Noah had dismissed them all in the space of about eight seconds.

<<
Hypothesis: If you want a realistic assessment of a challenge, don't ask the guy with the two hundred IQ
.>>

If Donovan had inquired about unraveling the genetic code, Noah would have said that was easy too.

“Thanks, I guess,” Donovan told him. “Is anything in this place—well—hard?”

“You know what's hard?” Suddenly, Noah's face flushed with emotion. “Trying to control your own destiny. It's not just hard; it's impossible.”

So Donovan shifted gears and talked to Latrell about the robot, which also backfired. Latrell got weirdly defensive, as if Donovan might be trying to steal his job as the team's top mechanic. And Jacey became so genuinely flustered by the newcomer's presence that she asked him which of the earth's continental plates was his favorite.

Abigail went over to Donovan and put her two cents in. “You know a Gymboree parachute isn't the same as a real parachute, don't you?”

Well, how could I
not
say something? He was going to think we were all nuts.

I caught up with him in the hall on the way to first period. “Hi, I'm Chloe Garfinkle from homeroom.”

I held out my hand, and he shook it lightly. Maybe he expected it to break off like that piece of robot.

“Hey, don't worry about the lift mechanism,” I soothed. “The weakness probably came from a bad weld that got jarred loose by the chain drive, or maybe too much compression from the Bimba cylinder.”

He looked blank. “What's it for?”

“Oh, the Bimba cylinder provides the pneumatic pressure—”

“I mean Tin Man,” he corrected. “What does he do?”

“The robot has multiple capabilities,” I enthused. “The electric eye can navigate color-coded tracks on the floor. The forks pick up inflatable rings that the lift mechanism places on various pegs at different heights. And it—uh—
he
can deploy a mini-bot that will climb a pole and strike a bell at the top.”

He seemed confused. “Is that how geniuses spend their time? Picking up toys and ringing bells?”

I bristled. “You're here, aren't you? If being smart's such a crime, you're just as guilty as the rest of us!” He had no answer for that, so I went on in a calmer tone, “Noah's the only one who's
really
a genius. Except that the work is a little more challenging, how's the Academy any different from Hardcastle?”