The Gifted School

by Bruce Holsinger

  At around eight the arguing stopped. Shortly before eight-thirty the doorbell rang. No one ever came over this late on a school night.

  Z went to the top of the stairs and leaned out over the banister. Her father answered the door. The man standing there was Mr. Jelinek, the boss of all the schools in Crystal. He’d been to parties at their house before.

  Usually when people came to the door, Daddy invited them inside and offered them a whiskey drink with the big ice cubes. Not this time. Instead he went outside and started talking to Mr. Jelinek on the front porch. Their voices were soft at first, too quiet to hear. Emma Z crept down the stairs into the foyer and pressed her ear to the crack between the door and the frame.

  “—don’t have the authority to do this, Joe,” her father was saying in a low voice.

  “You’re right about that,” Mr. Jelinek responded. “I’m just the goddamn superintendent. I’m not Bitsy Leighton, I’m not with Dorne & Gardener. But I sure as hell will let them know about this.”

  “You’d yank her app based on a hunch?”

  “We’d have to, Kev, if it’s true.”

  “Which you don’t know.”

  “Easy enough to confirm. And until we do we can’t keep her in the pool.”

  “What, so you’re seriously going to call this guy?”

  “I have to.”

  Whack.

  Emma Z’s head went back. Her father’s hand, she thought, slapping the side of the house right by the door.

  “Joe, don’t,” her father said. “Please. This is my daughter we’re talking about here, my only kid. Look. We’ve known each other for a lot of years—”

  “We have. But really, Kev? You’re this desperate? First you try to gin up an ADHD exemption for your daughter so she can have more time on a second CogPro. Convenient timing, don’t you think?”

  Emma Z held her breath. They were talking about her.

  ADHD? But she got a one-forty-five!

  “Soaring all those years through the honor roll and class presidencies only to get a diagnosis just as she’s heading for middle school?” Mr. Jelinek said. “Then we get a letter from—let me see here—the associate dean of the Varner School of Leadership at Darlton, extolling Miss Zellar’s, quote, exemplary qualities as a young leader full of promise for a shaping role in our nation’s future, unquote. Okay, fine. One of these kids has a recommendation from a goddamn US senator in his file. But now I find out you paid this guy under the table to work with you on the whole portfolio? Plus you’ve given the Varner School, what, five mil over the last few years?”

  “Joe, listen, I’m telling you—”

  “You paid him a consulting fee, Kev. And that’s strictly forbidden here. We went over that at every orientation, it’s in all the literature. What the hell were you thinking?”

  “Joe. Be reasonable here.”

  “You’re asking me to be reasonable? You’re the one who turned this into such a goddamn shit show.”

  A shadow fell across the door.

  “Z, what are you doing?”

  She spun around. Her mother loomed over her.

  “Is Daddy in trouble?” she whispered.

  Her mom frowned at her and reached for her arm. “Let’s get you up to bed, sweetie pie.”

  Her mother didn’t seem angry as she climbed the stairs with Emma Z and watched her brush her teeth, then tucked her in. Instead she seemed—sad. She sat on the side of Z’s bed for a while and then lay down with her head on the pillow and told her one of her favorite stories, the one about a brave blue horse and a brave blue girl and how together they rescued a handsome blue boy who was trapped in a dungeon with blue walls. While her mother told the story she rubbed her fingers along the top and sides of Emma Z’s skull, scraping along the skin. She wasn’t as good at scraping as Tessa, but she was still pretty good, her fingers long and strong as they combed through Z’s hair.

  Sleepiness leaked into her brain, but before it got her completely Emma Z said, “Mommy, am I stupid?”

  Her mother stiffened next to her, and the hand in her hair went still.

  “You, Emma Zellar,” her mother whispered across the pillow, “are the smartest, most special girl in the world.”

  Emma Z smiled automatically and her mouth stayed that way until at last she fell asleep.

  FIFTY-FOUR

  XANDER

  Xander, up early at his mother’s computer, was just checkmating a thirty-year-old Class B from Singapore when the first email from GenSecure arrived. The ping sounded at 6:03 a.m., followed by another, all the way up to eight pings, one for each test.

  The first email he opened was a cover letter, explaining how the tests had been completed and how to interpret the results. There was an explanation of the basics of the process, an illustration of the principle behind base pairs so that stupid people would understand the probability levels. Guanine, adenine, thymine, cytosine, stranded together like a ladder, a code that you could spool out like

  AT

  TA

  GC

  TA

  CG

  AT

  AT

  GC

  GC

  but every bit as complex as chess. Actually even more complex, probabilities and variations in the millions and billions and trillions.

  Then there was a whole paragraph about how the results were legally inadmissible, which Xander already knew, because the legally admissible tests would have cost over three hundred dollars each and that would have been waaaay too much to put on his mother’s credit card.

  The messages had links that took you to the actual result. He stared at the fifth email in the GenSecure stack.

  Save that one for last, Xander told himself. He opened the first link and scanned the chart and glanced at the probability index. Yep. No surprise there.

  The next one. Same thing.

  Next one. Yep.

  Next one. Yep.

  Yep.

  Yep.

  Yep.

  Finally the important one. The big enchilada.

  And there it is.

  Xander got a calm feeling inside, like after a really good poop. Now he knew for sure. Hypothesis correct. It wasn’t a hypothesis anymore, actually. It wasn’t even data.

  It was a conclusion. A result.

  The chances that he was wrong? Almost zero.

  The chances that he was right?

  For inclusion, 99.999 percent. For exclusion, 100%.

  One hundred percent!

  It didn’t get any better than that. Not even in chess.

  * * *

  —

  He spent the early morning hours before breakfast up in his mother’s office getting all his materials together and mounting everything on a trifold. His question, his hypothesis, his algorithm, descriptions of his data and notations. Then he made color printouts of all the charts from the downloadable PDFs linked on the results pages. Next he took screenshots of the GenSecure logo, pasted them into a document, and wrote up a summary of the testing process, including an account of how he’d gathered samples.

  Xander had already chosen good photographs of all the grown-ups and kids in the five families, from baby Roy all the way up to Xander’s mother. Some of the pictures he had taken himself or screenshot from Tessa’s vlog. Others he had “borrowed” during playdates and dinners. Once everything was glued onto the trifolds, he drew lines between certain pictures, just as he’d planned out in his research notes. When the whole thing was done, he set the trifold up on his desk and stood there looking at it.

  If this project didn’t get Xander into Crystal Academy, nothing would.

  It was simple. It was perfect.

  And it was most definitely life changing.

  * * *

  —

  He waited at the top of t
he stairs with the trifold tucked under his arms. His mother, he thought, was still out on a run, and Tessa was in the shower. All quiet on the domestic front. He padded down the stairs and stopped on the bottom one.

  His mother sat on the couch, still sweaty and scrolling on her phone.

  “Hey there, Xander,” she said, looking up.

  “Hello.”

  “All done?”

  “I have completed the project.” He started walking toward his room.

  “Aren’t you going to let me see?”

  He kept walking.

  “Xander?”

  He stopped.

  “Come on, give your mom a peek. You’ve been working for weeks on this thing. I can’t wait to see what you’ve done.”

  Xander saw what was on his trifold, imagined his mom seeing it and learning what he’d discovered.

  He had a thought:

  A Feint is a trick whereby the enemy is induced to defend a vital point against a false attack; or compelled to defend such vital point against an attack which readily may be developed into a true attack, should proper defensive precautions be neglected.

  From Franklin K. Young, Chess Generalship, volume 2, part 1 (1913).

  He turned to his mother. “Is Tessa finished with hers?” he asked.

  She frowned at him. “What?”

  Xander’s feint: lift bus, throw big sister beneath.

  “What about Tessa’s portfolio? She’s been working on it very hard.”

  His mother gave him a weird grin. “Xander, you’re such a joker.”

  “I’m not joking,” he said. “Tessa did exceptionally well on the CogPro. She didn’t tell you?”

  “Xander, what—” His mother got a peculiar look on her face. Whether angry or happy or both at the same time Xander couldn’t tell, and in that moment didn’t particularly care.

  “And for her portfolio,” he said, “she submitted drawings and photographs of her clothing line and a letter of recommendation from Azra.”

  “Her clothing line?”

  “It’s a really good portfolio. You should check it out.”

  His mother got another look in her eyes. The look of putting two and two together, as the earthlings said. Down the hall the shower went off with a clank.

  “TESSA!” her mother yelled. She stomped past Xander and zoomed toward the bathroom, Xander’s portfolio forgotten as she rapped on the door with her angry knuckles. “Tessa, we need to talk right now.”

  “Um, I need to dry my hair?” Tessa’s muffled voice said from the bathroom.

  “Right now.”

  “I NEED TO DRY MY HAIR JESUS FUCKING CHRIST MOM!”

  As the fight predictably escalated Xander turned back toward the kitchen, snagged his lunch from the counter, popped it in his backpack, and left the house with his portfolio tucked under his arm. Jebanny’s mom was already waiting at the curb.

  Xander smiled as he climbed in the minivan. Feint accompli.

  Eat that, Bobby Fischer.

  FIFTY-FIVE

  CH’AYÑA

  Silea’s arm brace had come off that afternoon. She would be in a flexi-cast for at least another few weeks, but it was a small thing to celebrate, and Ch’ayña would cook. On the way to Dry River she detoured to the Latin store in Loving to get the spices and other items she needed. Back at home she seasoned two chickens with a rub of salt and tamarind worked into the skin. There would also be roasted potatoes with cheese and boiled eggs, bowls of cancha on the side, a sugary pudding for dessert.

  Tiago showed up at eight, dangling a pack of beer from a bent knuckle. Ch’ayña didn’t look at him when he came in, though she also didn’t offer him a glass of cold water this time. Instead she busied herself in the kitchen while Tiago murmured with Silea on the couch. The frying pan sizzled, drowning out their soft words. After the corn popped, she spooned the toasted kernels into two small bowls and set the cancha on the table.

  Tiago got up from the couch and approached the stove. She could hear a glug of beer when he walked up, offering her a bottle. She ignored him but he persisted, held the bottle there and pointed to the label.

  Reluctantly she turned to look. Cusqueña. That word. She stared at it, mouthed it. Peruvian beer, words and colors that blared from half the trucks on the Huánuco roads. She hadn’t seen a bottle of Cusqueña in thirteen years, not since leaving with her pregnant daughter for the States.

  “Tiago got it at that big liquor barn in Crystal,” Silea said with a sly smile. “They have everything there.”

  “I would like for you to having this,” said Tiago, haltingly—and in Quechua. Ch’ayña frowned at his grinning face but took the beer.

  * * *

  —

  After supper Atik cleared the dishes, then the four of them sat around the table again to look over Ch’ayña’s pictures. Tiago had had the twelve shots of Atik’s foldings printed on glossy paper to the size of a full page. The shapes and colors shone out from inside plastic covers keeping them clean. Tiago had also brought along a new binder for everything. The three adults watched as Atik arranged the pictures in the order he wanted and used his markers to write his name on a square paper that he taped to the front.

  When the binder was complete, Atik slid it across the table to Ch’ayña. “The folder has to be at the school by the end of the day tomorrow,” he said. “You and Mamay can take it in, Awicha, after you clean the houses?”

  Ch’ayña shrugged. Maybe she could toss it in a sewer on the way. “Fine,” she said gruffly.

  “I’ve got homework,” Atik said. He said his good-nights, then went to his room.

  Silea looked down at her phone calendar. “Tomorrow we’ve got that new mountain house in the morning, Mamay, then Hollands in the early afternoon.”

  “Lot of driving,” Ch’ayña grumbled.

  Silea raised her bad arm, still wrapped tight in a cloth bandage. “One more week, Mamay, then you can start sleeping in the truck again.”

  They all laughed.

  “Mountain house?” Tiago asked.

  “It’s along Opal Canyon a few miles,” Silea explained. “We’ve been there twice and nothing’s good enough for the lady of the palace.”

  Ch’ayña said, in Spanish for Tiago, “Last time I mopped the floor in the kitchen just before we left. It was wet but she let the dog in.”

  “It tracked mud and dirt all through the first floor,” Silea said.

  “Which she made me mop again,” Ch’ayña added.

  “Why not find a different house?” Tiago asked.

  Silea shook her head. “The pay is too good. The lady said, ‘I simply cannot abide paying a house cleaner less than thirty an hour. What kind of monster would that make me?’”

  Tiago laughed. “She said that?”

  “That and other things.”

  “Guilt always pays extra around here.” Ch’ayña stood and went to the sink.

  No one spoke for a little while, then Silea asked quietly, “Do you think it will get him in, this origami stuff? Maybe they’ll see it as a silly thing, to spend all that time folding paper. Frivolous.”

  Ch’ayña said nothing.

  “It’s not just folding, is it,” Tiago said. “Origami is knowing shapes and angles and even weight. I’ve seen structural engineers on sites who aren’t half as brainy as your son.”

  Ch’ayña lifted her head and stared at Tiago’s reflection in the small, darkened window over the sink.

  “He’ll build things, that boy,” Tiago said, and Ch’ayña felt a shiver in her old legs.

  FIFTY-SIX

  ROSE

  She sat at her kitchen counter with her head full of fog and her initial grant deadline looming and her ears ringing with the sporadic scream of the vacuum as Shayna visited each room in turn. The intricacies of the budget, sieved through a hodge
podge of university rules and federal regulations, had assaulted Rose from the moment she opened the first of the spreadsheets. There was, she sensed, a minor error somewhere in the cost-share column. She had almost put her finger on it, but then the vacuum went off and the sound of Shayna’s spray bottle distracted her. Normally she went to the lab on house cleaning days, but the schedule had been irregular since Silea broke her arm—for good reason, of course, as every job must take them a little longer now, but that did nothing to mitigate her minor irritation as she scanned through the numbers, looking for the snag.

  A new torrent of Quechua broke in from the front hall, Silea and her mother discussing something. Rose thought nothing of the exchange until she sensed the two women in the kitchen doorway. She looked up, mildly annoyed. “Yes, Silea?”

  “Ms. Holland.” Silea stepped into the kitchen. “Very sorry to interrupt you.”

  “No problem at all. What can I help you with?”

  “We are having a problem today. At another house.”

  “Oh?”

  “Up in Opal Canyon. I just got a call from Ms. Emory, the owner.”

  “Okay?”

  “And she says we forgot two rooms, and that we didn’t dust correctly in the others.”

  “It is a big house,” Shayna added, the first time Silea’s mother had spoken to her.

  “I see,” said Rose, puzzled. “But can’t you just take care of it next time?”

  “She is a new client,” Silea said. “She—wants us back now. This afternoon.”

  “Oh. God. Of course,” Rose said, suddenly getting it, and part of her was relieved that her house would soon be silent. “Well, of course you should go, Silea. You’re almost done here anyway. Go now. Ve—ahora. And don’t worry about any of this, okay?” She gestured toward the door, waved away the vacuum.

  “Thank you, Ms. Holland,” Silea said. “Thank you for understanding.” She turned and said something to her mother, trying to rush them out the door. But the mother stood there mutely, holding a Pledge can loosely in her left hand and staring at a spot on Rose’s neck.