Paul Brennan moved into the Holden house with Jimmy.
Jimmy had the run of the house--almost. Uncle Paul closed off the upper
sitting room, which the late parents had converted into their laboratory.
_That_ was locked. But the rest of the house was free, and Jimmy was once
more among the things he had never hoped to see again.
Brennan's next step was to hire a middle-aged couple to take care of
house and boy. Their name was Mitchell; they were childless and regretted
it; they lavished on Jimmy the special love and care that comes only from
childless child-lovers.
Though Jimmy was wary to the point of paranoia, he discovered that he
wanted for nothing. He was kept clean and his home kept tidy. He was fed
well--not only in terms of nourishment, but in terms of what he liked.
Then ... Jimmy began to notice changes.
_Huckleberry Finn_ turned up missing. In its place on the shelf was a
collection of Little Golden Books.
His advanced Mecanno set was "broken"--so Mrs. Mitchell told him. Uncle
Paul had accidentally crushed it. "But you'll like this better," she
beamed, handing him a fresh new box from the toy store. It contained
bright-colored modular blocks.
Jimmy's parents had given him canvasboard and oil paints; now they were
gone. Jimmy would have admitted he was no artist; but he didn't enjoy
retrogressing to his uncle's selection--finger paints.
His supply of drawing paper was not tampered with. But it was not
replaced. When it was gone, Jimmy was presented with a blackboard and
boxes of colored chalk.
By Christmas every possession was gone--replaced--the new toys tailored
to Jimmy's physical age. There was a Christmas tree, and under it a pile
of gay bright boxes. Jimmy had hardly the heart to open them, for he knew
what they would contain.
He was right.
Jimmy had everything that would keep a five-year-old boy
contented ... and not one iota more. He objected; his objections got him
nowhere. Mrs. Mitchell was reproachful: Ingratitude, Jimmy! Mr. Mitchell
was scornful: Maybe James would like to vote and smoke a pipe?
And Paul Brennan was very clear. There was a way out of this, yes. Jimmy
could have whatever he liked. There was just this one step that must be
taken first; the machine must be put back together again.
When it came time for Jimmy to start school he was absolutely delighted;
nothing, nothing could be worse than this.
At first it was a novel experience.
He sat at a desk along with forty-seven other children of his size,
neatly stacked in six aisles with eight desks to the tier. He did his
best to copy their manners and to reproduce their halting speech and
imperfect grammar. For the first couple of weeks he was not noticed.
The teacher, with forty-eight young new minds to study, gave him his
2.08% of her total time and attention. Jimmy Holden was not a deportment
problem; his answers to the few questions she directed at him were
correct. Therefore he needed less attention and got less; she spent her
time on the loud, the unruly and those who lagged behind in education.
Because his total acquaintance with children of his own age had been
among the slum kids that hung around Jake Caslow's Place, Jimmy found his
new companions an interesting bunch.
He watched them, and he listened to them. He copied them and in two weeks
Jimmy found them pitifully lacking and hopelessly misinformed. They could
not remember at noon what they had been told at ten o'clock. They had
difficulty in reading the simple pages of the First Reader.
But he swallowed his pride and stumbled on and on, mimicking his friends
and remaining generally unnoticed.
If written examinations were the rule in the First Grade, Jimmy would
have been discovered on the first one. But with less than that 2% of the
teacher's time directed at him, Jimmy's run of correct answers did not
attract notice. His boredom and his lack of attention during daydreams
made him seem quite normal.
He began to keep score on his classmates on the fly-leaf of one of his
books. Jimmy was a far harsher judge than the teacher. He marked them
either wrong or right; he gave no credit for trying, or for their
stumbling efforts to express their muddled ideas and incomplete grasp. He
found their games fun at first, but quickly grew bored. When he tried to
introduce a note of strategy they ignored him because they did not
understand. They made rules as they went along and changed them as they
saw fit. Then, instead of complying with their own rules, they pouted-up
and sulked when they couldn't do as they wanted.
But in the end it was Jimmy's lack of experience in acting that tripped
him.
Having kept score on his playmates' answers, Jimmy knew that some fairly
high percentage of answers must inevitably be wrong. So he embarked upon
a program of supplying a certain proportion of errors. He discovered that
supplying a wrong answer that was consistent with the age of his
contemporaries took too much of his intellect to keep his actions
straight. He forgot to employ halting speech and childlike grammar. His
errors were delivered in faultless grammar and excellent self-expression;
his correct answers came out in the English of his companions;
mispronounced, ill-composed, and badly delivered.
The contrast was enough to attract even 2.08% of a teacher.
During the third week of school, Jimmy was day-dreaming during class.
Abruptly his teacher snapped, "James Holden, how much is seven times
nine?"
"Sixty-three," replied Jimmy, completely automatic.
"James," she said softly, "do you know the rest of your numbers?"
Jimmy looked around like a trapped animal. His teacher waited him out
until Jimmy, finding no escape, said, "Yes'm."
"Well," she said with a bright smile. "It's nice to know that you do. Can
you do the multiplication table?"
"Yes'm."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes'm."
"Let's hear you."
Jimmy looked around. "No, Jimmy," said his teacher. "I want you to say
it. Go ahead." And then as Jimmy hesitated still, she addressed the
class. "This is important," she said. "Someday you will have to learn it,
too. You will use it all through life and the earlier you learn it the
better off you all will be. _Knowledge_," she quoted proudly, "_is
power_! Now, Jimmy!"
Jimmy began with two-times-two and worked his way through the long table
to the twelves. When he finished, his teacher appointed one of the
better-behaved children to watch the class. "Jimmy," she said, "I'm going
to see if we can't put you up in the next grade. You don't belong here.
Come along."
They went to the principal's office. "Mr. Whitworth," said Jimmy's
teacher, "I have a young genius in my class."
"A young genius, Miss Tilden?"
"Yes, indeed. He already knows the multiplication table."
"You do, James? Where did you learn it?"
"My father taught me."
Principal and teacher looked at each another. They said nothing but they
were both recalling stories and rumors about the brilliance of his
parents. The accident and death had not escaped notice.
"What else did they teach you, James?" asked Mr. Whitworth. "To read and
write, of course?"
"Yes sir."
"History?"
Jimmy squirmed inwardly. He did not know how much to admit. "Some," he
said noncommittally.
"When did Columbus discover America?"
"In Fourteen Ninety-Two."
"Fine," said Mr. Whitworth with a broad smile. He looked at Miss Tilden.
"You're right. Young James should be advanced." He looked down at Jimmy
Holden. "James," he said, "we're going to place you in the Second Grade
for a tryout. Unless we're wrong, you'll stay and go up with them."
Jimmy's entry into Second Grade brought a different attitude. He had
entered school quietly just for the sake of getting away from Paul
Brennan. Now he was beginning to form a plan. If he could go from First
to Second in a matter of three weeks, then, by carefully disclosing his
store of knowledge bit-by-bit at the proper moment, he might be able to
go through school in a short time. Moreover, he had tasted the first
fruits of recognition. He craved more.
Somewhere was born the quaint notion that getting through school would
automatically make him an adult, with all attendant privileges.
So Jimmy Holden dropped all pretense. His answers were as right as he
could make them. He dropped the covering mimickry of childish speech
and took personal pride in using grammar as good as that of his teacher.
This got him nothing. The Second Grade teacher was of the "progressive"
school; she firmly believed that everybody, having been created equal,
had to stay that way. She pointedly avoided giving Jimmy any opportunity
to show his capability.
He bided his time with little grace.
He found his opportunity during the visit of a school superintendent.
During this session Jimmy hooted when one of his fellows said that
Columbus proved the world was round.
Angrily she demanded that Jimmy tell her who did prove it, and Jimmy
Holden replied that he didn't know whether it was Pythagoras or one of
his followers, but he did know that it was one of the few things that
Aristotle ever got right. This touched her on a sore spot. She admired
Aristotle and couldn't bear to hear the great man accused of error.
She started baiting Jimmy with loaded questions and stopped when
Jimmy stated that Napoleon Bonaparte was responsible for the invention
of canned food, the adoption of the metric system, and the development
of the semaphore telegraph. This stopped all proceedings until Jimmy
himself found the references in the Britannica. That little feat of
research-reference impressed the visiting superintendent. Jimmy Holden
was jumped into Third Grade.
Convinced that he was on the right trolley, Jimmy proceeded to plunge in
with both feet. Third Grade Teacher helped. Within a week he was being
called upon to aid the laggards. He stood out like a lighthouse; he was
the one who could supply the right answers when the class was stumped.
His teacher soon began to take a delight in belaboring the class for a
minute before turning to Jimmy for the answer. Heaven forgive him, Jimmy
enjoyed it. He began to hold back slyly, like a comedian building up the
tension before a punch-line.
His classmates began to call him "old know-it-all." Jimmy did not realize
that it was their resentment speaking. He accepted it as deference to his
superior knowledge. The fact that he was not a part of their playtime
life did not bother him one iota. He knew very well that his size alone
would cut him out of the rough and heavy games of his classmates; he did
not know that he was cut out of their games because they disliked him.
As time wore on, some of the rougher ones changed his nickname from
"know-it-all" to "teacher's pet"; one of them used rougher language
still. To this Jimmy replied in terms he'd learned from Jake Caslow's
gutters. All that saved him from a beating was his size; even the ones
who disliked him would not stand for the bully's beating up a smaller
child.
But in other ways they picked on him. Jimmy reasoned out his own
relationship between intelligence and violence. He had yet to learn the
psychology of vandalism--but he was experiencing it.
Finding no enjoyment out of play periods, Jimmy took to staying in. The
permissive school encouraged it; if Jimmy Holden preferred to tinker with
a typewriter instead of playing noisy games, his teacher saw no wrong in
it--for his Third Grade teacher was something of an intellectual herself.
In April, one week after his sixth birthday, Jimmy Holden was jumped
again.
Jimmy entered Fourth Grade to find that his fame had gone before him; he
was received with sullen glances and turned backs.
But he did not care. For his birthday, he received a typewriter from Paul
Brennan. Brennan never found out that the note suggesting it from Jimmy's
Third Grade teacher had been written after Jimmy's prompting.
So while other children played, Jimmy wrote.
He was not immediately successful. His first several stories were
returned; but eventually he drew a winner and a check. Armed with
superior knowledge, Jimmy mailed it to a bank that was strong in
advertising "mail-order" banking. With his first check he opened a
pay-by-the-item, no-minimum-balance checking account.
Gradually his batting average went up, but there were enough returned
rejections to make Paul Brennan view Jimmy's literary effort with quiet
amusement. Still, slowly and in secret, Jimmy built up his bank balance
by twenties, fifties, an occasional hundred.
For above everything, by now Jimmy knew that he could not go on through
school as he'd planned.
If his entry into Fourth Grade had been against scowls and resentment
from his classmates, Fifth and Sixth would be more so. Eventually the day
would come when he would be held back. He was already mingling with
children far beyond his size. The same permissive school that graduated
dolts so that their stupid personalities wouldn't be warped would keep
him back by virtue of the same idiotic reasoning.
He laid his plans well. He covered his absence from school one morning
and thereby gained six free hours to start going about his own business
before his absence could be noticed.
This was his third escape. He prayed that it would be permanent.