Hypergifted, p.4
Hypergifted, page 4
I settled in for a long conversation: Noah in love? What elderberries? And mostly, how are you doing, our darling son, who we abandoned for an entire summer so we could bounce across France on a grand tour?
“Gotta run,” Mom chimed in. “The bus is waiting to take us to the Louvre. Glad you’re doing so well, dear!” Click.
Never mind that I didn’t get to say a single word about how I was doing, because they didn’t ask. They were going to see the Mona Lisa. I was going to see if Victor the Underestimator was going to make it to the bathroom before disaster struck.
But if I had to be honest with myself, this summer wasn’t turning out to be as terrible as I’d feared. It wasn’t the endless weeks of butt-on-couch I had planned, but living in a college dorm was actually kind of cool. Nobody bugged you to take out the garbage or to pick yesterday’s socks up off the floor. Screen time was unlimited, at least until your phone died. You went to sleep when you felt like it. You could even eat potato chips in bed.
The closest thing to parents was the resident assistant. The RA was an older college student who was kind of like a hall monitor for the dorm. Ours was a girl named JoJo, who was twenty-two—although to us, she was the same age as everybody else who lived there: older. We’d only met her once so far, on our first night. We thought she was there to welcome us, but she was actually delivering a warning. Last semester, some kids tried to flush a grapefruit down their toilet, causing a gigantic plumbing meltdown. From now on, the rule was “No citrus, please.” I promised to do our best and shut the door before Noah could bring up the elderberries growing in the bushes around the dorm she was supposed to be in charge of. I wasn’t sure if her duties extended to agriculture.
JoJo ignored us because all the college kids ignored us. They had been sick of hearing about Noah before Noah even got there. That was the university’s fault for making such a big deal out of the middle school genius and his glorious 206 IQ. And the Wilderton students definitely couldn’t figure out what I was doing here. I could barely figure it out myself.
I could tell Noah was a little hurt that the college kids weren’t more welcoming, but I sort of understood. This was their place, not ours. And who would love the idea of a thirteen-year-old shrimp who could think them all into the ground? I was never too jealous of Noah’s big brain. Mostly, I felt sorry for him because he didn’t fit in anywhere. And here, he fit in even less than anywhere else.
The Wilderton freshmen were five years older than Noah and me, which was the same age gap between us and the eight-year-olds in the Explorers Program. Did they see us the way I saw Manny, Victor, Jalen, Luna, and Claire? If they did, no wonder we were outsiders.
Speaking of camp, our meeting place every morning was the football stadium. As I stepped out onto the crowded field, I scanned for our Baloney sign. There it was . . . and there was Raina, looking miserable to be holding it. Man, she hated our group name—almost as much as the kids loved it. And she was never going to forgive me for being the person who suggested it in the first place.
Raina was okay. Her main problem was she took working at a camp way too seriously. She never missed a chance to point out that she was a full counselor while I was just a counselor-in-training. Like I cared.
But for some reason, the kids always turned to me first when they had a question—almost as if I was the boss and Raina was number two. I bet that bugged her. A lot. But it wasn’t my fault—even though I kind of enjoyed it deep down.
Spying me, Manny bellowed, “Donovan!” and the group lined up for our morning high fives. Victor, who was a little clumsy, kicked the sign, and the poster board bumped Raina in the side of the head.
“All good,” Raina declared through clenched teeth. I’d bet she saw stars.
If you went by our schedule, you’d swear we had two weeks of stuff crammed into one seven-hour day. We did a lot, but we never stuck to one activity for very long. Mr. Arthropod called it the Principle of Short Attention Spans. Before anybody would start to get bored, we were always moving on to the next thing.
That morning, we had relay races against Taco Tuesday and the Big Cheese. We came in dead last and Manny took it personally, so Claire cheered him up by trash-talking the other teams. Luna was our best athlete, but she had trouble concentrating because there were wildflowers on the property. She was a major sucker for wildflowers.
Raina tried to get everybody focused with a rousing pep talk, but I’d already accepted the fact that there were no superstars in Group Baloney.
“I guess we’re probably not going to win a lot of ribbons this summer,” I commented to Jalen.
He smiled sweetly. “That’s okay. Winning isn’t everything. I’m just happy being Baloney.”
I liked all the kids, but Jalen was definitely my favorite. He was so laid-back and chill—you could just tell he wasn’t going to cause any problems. That was important in a camp where the golden rule was “Leave me alone.” I wished we had five of him. Claire had a big mouth; Manny was too competitive and got emotional every time the wind blew; Luna had her head in the clouds; and Victor—well, no mystery what his problem was. But at least we had it easy with Jalen.
After the relay races came arts and crafts, where we made lanyards, and Luna created a masterpiece that belonged in a museum. The ropes course at the playground was next. This was all before eleven, when we reported to the pool complex for swimming.
I threw myself onto a deck recliner while we waited for our group to come out of the changing rooms. “It isn’t even lunch and I’m already exhausted,” I commented to Raina. “Why’s it so hard to keep up with a bunch of eight-year-olds?”
“Maybe you’re feeling the pressure of being everybody’s favorite,” she shot back.
“Aw, come on, Raina. If you weren’t so uptight, they would love you too.”
“If I’m uptight, it’s because they’re my responsibility,” she insisted. “I’m the full counselor.”
“Relax,” I told her. “They’re just changing into bathing suits. What could go wrong? There are bathrooms in there, so we don’t even have to stress over Victor underestimating anything.”
She mixed a frown with a far-off look. “Jalen worries me.”
“Jalen? He’s the best kid we’ve got!”
“He’s too quiet,” she explained. “His grandfather is Dr. Aberfoyle, the president of the university. He probably lives this fancy life, surrounded by professors, never having any kid fun. We could make this the best summer he’s ever had.”
“I know exactly what you’re doing,” I accused her. “You’re trying to impress Dr. Hydrofoil by schmoozing his grandson.”
“That’s Aberfoyle,” she corrected. “And I’m not schmoozing anybody. But as Jalen’s counselors, it’s our job to bring him out of his shell.”
“That’s the opposite of what we should be doing,” I argued. “His shell is awesome. It means he isn’t going to give us any problems. I wish we had a shell for every one of them.”
At that moment, the girls came out of the changing room and entered the pool, Claire with a seismic cannonball and Luna one toe at a time. They were followed thirty seconds later by Manny and Victor.
“Hey, where’s Jalen?” I called after them.
Manny didn’t hear me. Victor gestured back in the direction of the changing room.
I sighed. “I’ll check on him.” Bummer—I really wasn’t in the mood to get out of the recliner. It was the nearest thing to the butt-on-couch I had promised myself for this summer.
I entered the boys’ locker room to find it deserted. No Jalen. No anybody.
A dry bathing suit sitting on the bench looked kind of familiar. I checked the waistband. A label had been sewn into it: Jalen A.
I ran like a fool to every exit, figuring he picked the wrong one and locked himself out. I checked the bathroom. No Jalen.
Raina’s words began to circle my brain: Jalen worries me.
I scrambled back out to the pool deck and found Raina. “Did Jalen come out?”
She leaped to her feet. “No! You went into the locker room to find him!”
“Well, he isn’t there!”
“Where can he be?” Raina shrilled.
Full panic. “If I knew that, we wouldn’t be having this conversation!”
Raina did an amazing imitation of a person running in four directions at the same time. I was a little more controlled but no less panicky. We searched the pool deck and even went into the water. Little kids look pretty much alike with their hair plastered to their scalps, so we stared straight into faces. Nobody looked like Jalen.
By this time, Raina was the color of an overripe tomato. “We have to tell Mr. Arthropod!”
“That’s the last thing we should do,” I countered. “What, you want to tell the crankiest guy on campus that we lost the grandson of the president of the whole university? That would be a gross violation of ‘Leave me alone’!”
“But our camper could be in danger!”
“He’s not in danger. He was with us a few minutes ago. How far away could he be?”
The other four weren’t thrilled to be dragged out of the pool before everybody else, but when I explained that we’d qualified for the camp hide-and-seek championships, they seemed pretty gung ho about that.
“Baloney power!” Manny cheered. “Who are we playing? The Big Cheese? I hate those guys!”
“We’re going to kill them!” Claire assured him.
Victor had a question. “How come we’re already in the championship when we haven’t played any games yet?”
“Hide-and-seek is different,” I explained. “Here’s how it works. Jalen is hiding somewhere. If we find him, we’re top seed in the tournament.”
It must have been the right thing to say. The four of them scrambled into their shorts and T-shirts, and off we went in search of our missing man.
“Ready or not, here we come!” bellowed Manny in a voice that would have been loud for an NFL linebacker, much less an eight-year-old.
“What are you going to tell them when we find Jalen and they expect to be presented with the hide-and-seek championship trophy?” Raina asked me as we jogged along behind the kids.
“Well, then we’ll have our missing kid back, so problem solved,” I replied. “We’ll make up some story about how we advanced to the next level, and that’ll be the end of it.”
She seemed like she was about to give me an argument, but she was just too worried. To be honest, I was starting to get a little scared myself. The campus wasn’t too crowded during summer session and the terrain was mostly flat. It shouldn’t have been this hard to spot one wayward camper.
Raina remembered the system of underground passages for when the campus was covered in snow, so we searched for Jalen down there.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are!” Manny’s foghorn voice echoed through the concrete tunnels.
I figured we’d get banned from the campus for disturbing the peace. But there wasn’t a soul around.
“Jalen’s really good at hide-and-seek,” Luna observed with admiration.
Manny nodded. “No wonder we made it to the championship.”
Raina cast me a look that would have melted lead.
When Jalen had been gone over an hour, Raina and I got into a whispered argument about getting our kids some lunch. We were already half an hour late to the cafeteria, which wasn’t going to look good on our performance assessment. But compared with what we might have to tell Mr. Arthropod, that was going to be no big whoop. Even I had to admit that the Jalen situation was approaching DEFCON 1.
“We’ll drop the kids off in the lunchroom and go to the camp office to report what’s been going on,” Raina decided firmly.
It sounded like the right thing to do. As much as facing the music was against my basic principles, I really was freaking out about this kid. Plus I had to admit that Raina knew her stuff when it came to being a counselor. She had seen that Jalen was something to worry about even before we actually had to worry about him.
“All right, guys,” I announced. “Let’s get some lunch.”
“And risk the championship?” Manny howled. “Never!”
“We can’t let the Big Cheese win!” Claire added. “Those jerks are so full of themselves already.”
“It’s okay,” I assured them. “Eating time doesn’t count against your overall score.”
They regarded me trustingly as if that rule had come straight from the official hide-and-seek Board of Governors.
At that point, we were at the edge of the woods on the southeastern corner of the campus. So by the time we made it back to the bustling cafeteria, it had been nearly two hours since five kids had entered the changing rooms at the pool and only four had come out.
As we stepped inside, I couldn’t keep my eyes from straying down the corridor to the camp office. In just a few minutes, that would be the scene of our big confession to Mr. Arthropod. Even I—a veteran of big confessions—was dreading this one. You didn’t just lose an eight-year-old. But compared to Raina, I was cool, calm, and collected. She’d probably never been in trouble in her entire life. She looked like she was about to lay an egg right there in the lunchroom.
My unpleasant thought was interrupted by Manny’s voice, booming directly into my ear: “Forty, forty, I see you!”
Our campers raced into the cafeteria and swarmed a center table, pointing and cheering. The other kids looked at them like they were nuts.
Raina grabbed my wrist and squeezed hard enough to splinter bone. There, in the midst of the other groups, sat Jalen, munching on a peanut butter sandwich with the crusts cut off.
My instant reaction was to be so mad at this kid that I almost forgot to be relieved that we had him back. Anyway, Raina did the relieved part. She enveloped him in a bear hug that practically smothered him.
I couldn’t get myself to the same forgiving place. “Funny meeting you here, Jalen!” I announced through clenched teeth. “What have you been up to these past”—I checked my phone—“two solid hours?”
“Oh,” he replied airily. “You know.”
“We kind of don’t,” Raina pressed. “Why don’t you give us the details?”
“I was over at the pool,” he explained. “And now I’m here.”
I was starting to admire the little guy. I considered myself a world-class excuse-maker, but not even I would have had the nerve to say that.
“Did we win?” Manny demanded.
“Win what?” Raina asked, mystified.
“The hide-and-seek championship!” Claire supplied in exasperation. She cast a scorching look that took in the other groups around the cafeteria. “In your face, losers!”
“What’s our prize?” Victor asked.
In answer, Jalen reached into the bulging pockets of his shorts and produced two fistfuls of dried garbanzo beans.
Raina and I stared at each other. What the heck—?
“Score!” exclaimed Manny.
Jalen carefully divided his loot among his fellow Baloney-ites, who seemed as thrilled as if they were receiving precious gems.
“Go get your trays,” I said wearily. “Lunch is almost over.”
The four of them ran to the food line. I figured this would be our chance to question Jalen, but he got up and scampered off with them.
“We can’t let him get away with this,” Raina said determinedly. “As his counselors, it’s our job to make sure he knows he can’t just disappear on us.”
“I’m only a counselor-in-training,” I reminded her. “You were pretty clear about that during the eighteen times the subject came up.”
“It’s your responsibility too,” she insisted. “We have to find out where he went today.”
“Well, wherever it was, there were definitely garbanzo beans.”
“Be serious!” she insisted. “It’s the only way to make sure it never happens again.”
I sighed. “You can ask him. But I don’t think he’s going to spill. I know the type. I am the type.”
I had to give Raina full credit for trying. During the afternoon, she cornered Jalen several times and tried to squeeze out of him where he’d gone during his two-hour absence.
His answer: Nowhere special, no place much, here and there, around, and I forget.
He was working the angles! He knew we couldn’t beat the secret out of him. He even seemed to understand that we wouldn’t report him to Mr. Arthropod because of the golden rule of “Leave me alone.” And he had the extra added protection of being the college president’s grandson—a bonus I never had.
But Raina was right about one thing. We had to keep an eye on Jalen. He reminded me more of myself every minute.
And that was a kid who could never be trusted.
7
Hypercrushing
Noah Youkilis
I was concerned about my genetically modified elderberries. It didn’t take a 206 IQ to see that the leaves were turning yellow, which was a sign of leaf spot. This could have been trauma from when I transplanted them from the pots.
I pulled my head back into the room and turned to Donovan. “Do you have any manure?”
“Give me a second to check my suitcase,” he replied. “Nope. Silly me, I forgot to pack the manure. What do you need manure for?”
“It’s not for me,” I explained.
“I hope not.”
“My elderberries need it,” I went on. “It’s more nutrient-rich than the soil outside Butternut Hall.”
“Tell your elderberries they’re going to have to make do,” he informed me. “JoJo didn’t say anything about no manure, but I bet there’s a rule against stinking up the whole dorm. And if there isn’t, there should be.”
He was right, of course. I was always amazed at the way Donovan’s mind worked. It wasn’t high-level, like mine. But he had a simple ability to cut right to the heart of the matter. I envied it because, for all my brilliance, I couldn’t match it.
“I wanted the elderberries to be perfect so I could share them with Arlene,” I said glumly. “Cooked, I mean. If you eat them raw, they induce severe vomiting.”
