Ungifted Read online

  I’d been looking for something like this my whole life. And I was infinitely grateful to Donovan for opening that door for me. I almost forgave him for bringing in his sister and spoiling the only chance I might ever have to flunk.

  The word had just come in from the state department of education that studying Katie Patterson’s pregnancy officially counted as real-life experience in Human Growth and Development. You should have seen the celebration when Oz made the announcement in the robotics lab. Everyone mobbed Donovan, slapping him on the back and cheering. All except Abigail. She actually wept at the news that she wouldn’t have to go to summer school. It was a little confusing. She took classes all summer anyway, so wasn’t that summer school too? What was the difference between the summer school she went to on purpose and the summer school she’d do anything to avoid?

  Speaking of confusing, there was Donovan himself. He clearly didn’t belong at the Academy. I knew that after his first twenty minutes in the lab. What was he doing here? I had no idea—and that alone was considerably awesome. There were very few things that I had no idea about. The fact that one of them had landed a few seats away from me in homeroom was wonderful in itself.

  Donovan was like a human YouTube video—unpredictable. We could have worked on Tin Man for years, incorporating every refinement allowed by technology. But none of us could have envisioned that the greatest improvement of all would be simply in the way you drove it. Yet when Donovan took over the joystick, the answer was right there for all of us to see.

  It also made excellent YouTube footage. Google Tin Man Metallica Squarepants Exposes Teacher’s Underwear and the clip should come up. It already had more than a thousand page views, making it my greatest hit so far. Picture this: Ms. Bevelaqua was covering for Oz in the lab, and one fork of the robot’s lift mechanism got under her skirt. By the time she noticed it, her hem was up around her ears, and everybody was staring at her underpants, which were bright yellow with a pattern of Cartesian geometry.

  Ms. Bevelaqua didn’t accept Donovan’s apology. You’d think a math teacher who wore Cartesian geometry underwear would have a better sense of humor. But she was really mad. Her face looked like she was being tasered—or at least how those people look in YouTube videos.

  We were just getting calmed down after that brouhaha when Chloe pounded into the lab, gasping from an all-out sprint. “You won’t believe it!” she panted. “They still haven’t fixed the Hardcastle gym, so they’re moving the Valentine Dance here!”

  Donovan looked uncomfortable. “What do we care about another school’s party?”

  “Don’t you get it?” Chloe crowed. “It’s on our turf, so we’re all invited! I’ve been in the gifted program since I was eight, and you know how many dances we’ve had? Try zero!”

  “Except for ‘The Dance of the Electrons,’” I reminded her. “My sixth-grade science project.”

  Abigail did not share Chloe’s enthusiasm. “I can’t think of a single thing that interests me less than a school dance.”

  Chloe stared at her. “But you’re going, right?”

  “Not even at gunpoint.”

  Chloe was devastated. “But you have to! We may never get the chance to go to another one!”

  Abigail was adamant. “That suits me just fine.”

  “You’re a scientist,” Ms. Bevelaqua challenged her. “How can you arrive at a conclusion without any data to back it up?”

  Chloe jumped on the bandwagon. “Look at this as an experiment. A social experiment. Right, Donovan?”

  Donovan shrugged. “Don’t ask me. I never go to dances.”

  “Well, you’re going to this one,” announced Oz, striding into the room. “I’m making it a class assignment.”

  Abigail was horrified. “Oz—you can’t make us go to an after-school event!”

  “No,” the teacher agreed, “but I can assign everybody to write an essay about it. And if you haven’t been there, you’ll have to take a zero.”

  “I’ll take a zero,” I volunteered readily.

  “You couldn’t get a zero if you handed in a blank page,” Abigail said in a resentful tone.

  She was tight-lipped, but I had a feeling she’d be there. I’d kill for a bad grade; she’d kill to avoid one.

  Oz panned the room, making eye contact with each student. “This is a good idea, people. We’re all so focused on our specialties that we tend to miss out on ordinary experiences. Having fun is part of an education too, you know.”

  “I don’t have time to go to a dance,” I complained. “In the three hours it would take me to get there, be there, and get home, I could watch between seventy and one hundred YouTube videos—depending on the duration of each, of course.”

  “There’s more to life than YouTube, Noah,” chided Chloe.

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” I retorted. “YouTube is life, only better. The entirety of human experience is on that little screen. Last night, I watched a modern-day clash of gladiators in bathing suits battling in and out of a roped square, jumping off tables and hitting each other with chairs!”

  “It’s called professional wrestling, Noah,” Donovan announced. “And it’s all fake.”

  “I saw blood!” I respected Donovan, but he didn’t know everything. “If my mother hadn’t pulled the plug on my computer, I could have watched a steel-cage match!”

  Oz put an end to the discussion. “It’s settled. We’ll all be there. And there’s extra credit in it for anybody who can relax enough to have a good time.”

  “Will you be going?” I asked Donovan as we headed back to our seats.

  “I never went to Hardcastle dances when I was a Hardcastle student,” he told me. “Why should I start now?”

  Oz overheard us. “Extra credit, Donovan,” he said enticingly, dangling the prospect like a fisherman dangles bait.

  “So you’ll be there?” I persisted.

  “What do you care?” Donovan snapped, suddenly angry. “You shouldn’t even be going. You don’t need extra credit. You’ve got more points than you know what to do with.”

  “I wish I could give you some of mine,” I told him honestly. “But I don’t think it works that way.”

  He stared at me for a moment, and then sighed. “See you at the dance.”

  UNPASTEURIZED

  DONOVAN CURTIS

  IQ: 112

  “Donnie!”

  I was getting ready for school when the bloodcurdling scream brought me running out of the bathroom.

  “Donnie, get in here this minute!”

  I leaped over Beatrice, who was sprawled across my doorway, and ran into Katie’s room, preparing to dial 911. But she was alive and well, sitting at her laptop computer, reading her overnight emails from Afghanistan.

  From: First Lieutenant H. Bradley Patterson, United States Marine Corps

  Katie—Captain Hunsinger says he saw your stomach on YouTube.

  What gives?

  Brad

  I reddened. “It was probably Noah. YouTube is his whole life.”

  “I’m entitled to a life too, you know!” she stormed at me. “That didn’t change because you blackmailed me into signing on with your freaky brain trust! I found that video! It’s basically a two-minute close-up of my fat belly while ‘We Are the Champions’ plays in the background!”

  “It’s a compliment. He’s got nothing better to do with his two hundred IQ.”

  “Cut it out, Donnie. You’re not talking to your misfits here—”

  “They’re not misfits,” I insisted. “They’re just—different. Supersmart. But dumb in a way, too. Like babies.”

  It was the wrong word. It reminded her. “My husband is eleven thousand miles away in a dangerous war zone. He shouldn’t be hearing about his wife’s pregnancy from YouTube. And his captain shouldn’t be hearing about it at all.”

  “I’ll get Noah to take the video down,” I promised. “He didn’t mean anything. You don’t understand about him.”

  She look
ed curious. “What happened to you, Donnie? You’re giving your best friends the cold shoulder, but defending these crazies?”

  “I’m not—” I protested.

  But she had a point. I had been avoiding the Daniels, who were being totally unreasonable about “sharing our Valentine Dance with a dweeb army.” Sanderson’s words, not mine.

  “Poor you,” I’d told him at the time. “If you’re so offended by smart people, don’t go.”

  “Deirdre’s going to be there,” he’d shot back. “And Heather. She’s into you, man.”

  At that point Nussbaum had punched him in the gut. “Heather’s into me!”

  “Nobody’s going to be into anyone when the Academy dorks suck all the coolness out of the air,” Sanderson had complained.

  That conversation really bugged me. I mean, nobody knew better than me that the gifted kids weren’t exactly über-happening. But this was a school dance, not some A-list Hollywood red-carpet event. Like there weren’t any uncool people at Hardcastle!

  I faced Katie. “They’re not crazy—most of them. Don’t knock them. These days, they’re your biggest fans.”

  She cast a sour look at Beatrice. “They’re not exactly facing stiff competition in that department.”

  “Show some respect for the almost dead.”

  “That’s not funny,” she snarled through gritted teeth. “Did it ever occur to you that my marriage could be on the line over that dog? No, because it’s all the same to you so long as your weird classmates get to paw the Incredible Expanding Stomach!”

  I sighed. “If they’re smart enough to predict supernovas on the opposite side of the galaxy, credit them with the brains to appreciate how you came to their rescue.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “There’s something fishy about this whole gifted thing. It doesn’t add up. I’m not saying you’re stupid, but you’re hardly the type to sniff around for extra work.”

  “I didn’t sniff around. The Academy found me, remember?”

  “I do remember,” she conceded. “That’s the fishy part. Anyway, we should get going. My appointment with Dr. Manolo is at nine-thirty.”

  I was attending Katie’s next obstetric checkup—not as her brother, but as a member of Human Growth and Development 101. Mr. Osborne had gotten permission for a field trip, so our whole class was going. I hoped Dr. Manolo had invested in a spacious office.

  Driving with Katie was an adventure these days. Her stomach was so huge that she had to set the seat all the way back. Her arms were barely long enough to reach the wheel, and she hunched forward, looking like Jeff Gordon wedged behind a giant beach ball.

  We were just waddling in from the parking lot when the minibus arrived. You could tell they didn’t get a lot of school buses at the clinic. In obstetrics, the only kids involved were the ones being born. And not too many pregnant women arrived with an entourage of brainiacs.

  The doctor was running late, so we had to wait forty minutes, which wasn’t exactly pleasant. Noah speed-read through two years’ worth of Mother-to-Be Magazine, peppering Katie with questions like “Have you eaten any unpasteurized cheeses lately?”

  “No,” she grumbled. “Have you?”

  “What’s your opinion of giving the baby solid food before four months?”

  “You’re bringing back my morning sickness,” she warned.

  “Really? According to the June 2011 issue, that happens in the first trimester.”

  She glared at him. “It came back when they saw my stomach on YouTube—in Afghanistan.”

  Oz quickly stepped between them. “Let’s give Katie a little space, Noah. This is her doctor’s appointment, after all. We’re just privileged to be here.”

  When we finally got called, the nurse said, “I’m sorry. Only immediate family in the examining room.”

  “They are family,” Katie informed her with a sigh. “You know how you can’t pick your relatives?”

  The woman was adamant. “I’m afraid it’s a privacy issue.”

  “I have no privacy,” Katie replied wearily. “My stomach is on YouTube.”

  Oz was ready to back everybody off, but Dr. Manolo was kind of psyched to have an audience. He used to work at a teaching hospital, he explained. He missed having students around.

  We kept our distance for the exam, of course, but we watched the sonogram, and we were all invited to put on the stethoscope and listen to the baby’s heartbeat.

  “Sounds kind of freaky,” commented Latrell. “You know, listening to another person who’s trapped in there.”

  Katie made a face. “I can’t tell you how thrilled I am that my family planning is contributing to your horror-movie fantasy.”

  “It’s a miracle,” Chloe breathed.

  Even Abigail’s serious expression softened when she had the stethoscope on.

  Oz assumed a far-off, dreamy expression. “I remember these appointments from when my wife and I were expecting our own kids. There’s nothing quite like it.”

  The doctor kept Katie a few minutes extra. When she stepped out into the waiting room, the students of Human Growth and Development 101 leaped to their feet and gave her a rousing standing ovation. Their enthusiasm was so infectious that everybody in the reception room joined in—all the other expectant moms and dads and family members.

  Katie was so taken aback that she actually did a little curtsy, blushing deep mauve. “I didn’t do anything,” she insisted. But the smile on her face was 100 percent genuine.

  Katie headed home alone, and I got on the minibus with everybody else for the ride to the Academy.

  “How was the field trip?” asked the driver. “Fun?”

  Chloe nodded enthusiastically. “We were at a pelvic exam!”

  “And we listened to a fetus,” added Noah.

  The driver seemed bewildered.

  “We’re gifted,” I explained.

  UNSUCCESSFUL

  DR. SCHULTZ

  IQ: 127

  Well, my “no screwups” rule was pretty much out the window. My life had become one big screwup after another.

  Three weeks had now passed, and not a single repair had been made to the Hardcastle gym. Frankly, no one was doing anything about anything. The insurance company was digging in its corporate heels, and we had no option but to dig in ours. The instrument of destruction, Atlas’s detached “globe,” was collecting dust in the basement of the administration building, next to old filing cabinets and a lawn tractor that was missing one wheel. What was left of the statue looked incomplete and idiotic. Most maddening of all, I could not for the life of me find the piece of paper on which I’d written the name of the horrible boy responsible for all this.

  I’d scoured every millimeter of my office. I’d even gone personally and ransacked Cynthia’s desk, in case she’d carried it off by accident. I’d hired a cleaning company to go over the entire administration building with a fine-tooth comb. Nothing. He was out there somewhere, laughing at me, getting off scot-free.

  My wife said I was becoming obsessed with this phantom boy. Maybe so. Lately, I’d been finding excuses to visit Hardcastle Middle School in the hope that I would recognize his cocky sneering face somewhere. But I never saw him. It was as if the culprit didn’t go to school there anymore. If only I had the name …

  Irrationally, I began shuffling papers on my desk. It had been right here!

  Cynthia tottered in on her high heels. “Dr. Schultz, I have the first progress report on the new Human Growth and Development project at the Academy. The special expert is named Katie Patterson, and she’s the sister of one of the students, a boy named Don—”

  “Just put it on my desk,” I interrupted, still peering into drawers. Wasn’t that the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result?

  I had to get a grip on my nerves. I had duties to perform, and bringing this boy to justice was only one of them. Case in point: The relocated Hardcastle Middle School Valentine Dance was tonight. This wo
uld be the first time it had ever taken place off campus, and the first time that outside students were being included. We were infinitely proud of our high achievers at the Academy for Scholastic Distinction, but many of them weren’t the most socially adept young people. I wanted to be on hand to make sure everything ran smoothly.

  And I mustn’t forget to make contact with this Mrs. Patterson so I could express the gratitude of the entire school district. What a wonderful family they must be—the husband serving our country in the military, and she, selflessly helping that one class in its time of need. If only more people were like that.

  UNROCKIN’

  CHLOE GARFINKLE

  IQ: 159

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  for milking a cow.>>

  No, that was more than a hypothesis. It was cold, hard fact, backed up by the pathetic reality of the contents of my closet. Also feeding chickens, pulling weeds, driving a combine harvester, and other farm chores. What I didn’t have was anything to wear to the Valentine Dance.

  It wasn’t exactly a shocker. Sad to say, I’d never been to anything like this before. Almost fourteen years old, and the only real party I’d attended was the kind where your parents are there and you have to waltz with your cousin, the bowlegged one with the giant Adam’s apple.

  Don’t get me wrong. I was psyched. I was beyond psyched. To me, this was far more than another school’s shindig we’d been invited to crash. This was a chance for us to prove an important hypothesis in front of the staff and students of the biggest middle school in town:

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  True, some of us were social outcasts—Noah Youkilis came to mind. But regular schools had those too. We were no different from the rest of humanity. And we were going to show that we were every bit as capable of having a good time.