She lifted an eyebrow in imitation of my own characteristic gesture.
"Children of my age do not read," she instructed pedantically. "I can't
learn to read until I am in the first grade. It is very hard to do and
I am much too little."
She had found the answer to her affliction--conformity! She had already
learned to conceal her intelligence. So many of us break our hearts
before we learn that.
But you don't have to conceal it from me, Star! Not from me!
Oh, well, I could go along with the gag, if that was what she wanted.
"Did you like nursery school?" I asked the standard question.
"Oh, yes," she exclaimed enthusiastically. "It was fun."
"And what did you learn today, little girl?"
She played it straight back to me. "Not much. I tried to cut out paper
dolls, but the scissors kept slipping." Was there an elfin deviltry
back of her sober expression?
"Now, look," I cautioned, "don't overdo it. That's as bad as being
too quick. The idea is that everybody has to be just about standard
average. That's the only thing we will tolerate. It is expected that a
little girl of four should know how to cut out paper dolls properly."
"Oh?" she questioned, and looked thoughtful. "I guess that's the hard
part, isn't it, Daddy--to know how much you ought to know?"
"Yes, that's the hard part," I agreed fervently.
"But it's all right," she reassured me. "One of the Stupids showed me
how to cut them out, so now that little girl likes me. She just took
charge of me then and told the other kids they should like me, too. So
of course they did because she's leader. I think I did right, after
all."
"Oh, no!" I breathed to myself. She knew how to manipulate other people
already. Then my thought whirled around another concept. It was the
first time she had verbally classified normal people as "Stupids," but
it had slipped out so easily that I knew she'd been thinking to herself
for a long time. Then my whirling thoughts hit a third implication.
"Yes, maybe it was the right thing," I conceded. "Where the little girl
was concerned, that is. But don't forget you were being observed by a
grownup teacher in the room. And she's smarter."
"You mean she's older, Daddy," Star corrected me.
"Smarter, too, maybe. You can't tell."
"I can," she sighed. "She's just older."