38
38
T IME PASSES GLOOPILY. THE Earth orbits the Sun which in turn orbits the centre of the Milky Way. A variety of trees blossom. A variety of trees die. Doctors prescribe medicine. Pharmacists dispense medicine. Cars break down in the middle of the road. Some people lose their keys, other people lose their looks, still others lose their nerve. Babies are born bewildered. Old folks die while thinking of other things.
You have now surpassed the globe’s average height for a woman. Not massively. Just by a little. But still. This means you can do things you couldn’t once do. For instance, you can wear clothing from the grown-up section of the department store if you are so inclined. For instance, you can reach the top shelf of the kitchen cupboard. For instance, you can eat slightly larger portions without gaining weight. Other than that, things are pretty much the same.
You catch the bus to school. You catch the bus back from school. You message Bobby every day, often exchanging facts about words. Once in a while, you go to Bobby’s house to pass the time. Every weekend, you ferry a pile of books to and from the library. Some of these books are for you. Some of these books are for your mum. None are for your dad. Your dad doesn’t read books. Instead, he comes home from work every evening and pops the telly on – acting like everything is fine and nothing has ever gone wrong.
And then the people arrive, wielding their clipboards and toothy smiles.
Full disclosure: I don’t know why they come at this particular time. Ordinarily speaking, I am razor sharp, at least in terms of recall. But my memory is foggy on this one. Maybe it’s our parents who called the people to assess me.
I mean you.
But whatever.
Just before the people arrive, you are lying on your bedroom carpet, teaching yourself the international phonetic alphabet. There are apparently two symbols for ‘th’ in the international phonetic alphabet – e and θ. You are finding this hard because the difference between e and θ is currently escaping you. In order to understand the difference, you repeat the words ‘then’ and ‘thin’ over and over. You do this because ‘thin’ is meant to feature e and because ‘then’ is meant to feature θ. But in the opinion of your two fine ears, there is no difference between these two sounds. This goes against what the textbooks say. The textbooks say e is voiced and θ is voiceless. This means one uses your vocal cords and the other does not. The vocal cords are located behind your glottis, which is where your Adam’s apple is. When they are in action, you can feel them vibrate.
‘Thin, then,’ you say to yourself, your index and middle finger resting on your throat. ‘Thin, then, thin, then, thin, then.’
No luck. When it comes to the difference between e and θ, you understand nothing. And when you hear a knock on the door, you are almost glad to emerge from your phonetic reverie. You wait for a moment, wondering if anyone will answer it before you do. Then the door-knocks cease and the doorbells sound. You frown, haul your body up before making your way from your room to the landing to the stairs.
Your mum and dad get there first. Your dad opens the door. Your mum hovers beside him. From where you are standing, you can see what’s happening in the hallway and on the doorstep.
On the doorstep, there are two people. Both are dressed in smart-casual clothing. Both are sporting lanyards. Both are wearing smiles and middle partings. One of them is a man. The other one is a woman. Both the man and the woman are brandishing clipboards. On the clipboards, documents exist. Somehow, even at a distance, these documents manage to look threatening.
‘Hi there,’ the woman says, her voice cool, corporate, professional.
Your dad makes to shut the door again. ‘Oh, no thank you,’ he says.
The woman frowns. ‘Pardon?’
‘We’re not interested, sorry. Thank you anyway.’
‘Oh, we’re not selling anything.’
Your dad looks at the woman, then at the man, then at your mum, then at the woman again. ‘Look, I’m really sorry. I don’t think we’re interested, whatever it is.’
The woman points inside. It is clear from this gesture that she expects to be let in. ‘I believe we have an appointment arranged. You didn’t get our letter?’
Your dad cocks his head to one side. ‘Huh?’
Your mum joins in. ‘What letter?’ your mum says.
‘I’ll take that as a no,’ the woman says. ‘We had the initial assessment booked in for today.’ She taps her clipboard. From where you are, you can read the title of the document clipped to the clipboard – such is the magnitude of the font chosen. The title says ‘INITIAL ASSESSMENT’ in all caps.
‘What initial assessment?’ your dad says.
‘Oh.’ Your mum jabs your dad in the ribs. Some sort of penny has clearly dropped; she remembers what the people are going on about. ‘The assessment!’ she says. ‘The initial assessment.’
‘Oh god,’ your dad says, clearly remembering something too. ‘Today? You arranged it for today?’
The woman continues to smile politely. ‘For the girl,’ the woman says. ‘Where is she?’
The man does some scanning, then clocks you. ‘Ah, there she is,’ he says, nodding your way. The woman follows the direction of his gaze, as do your parents. Suddenly, even though you haven’t moved, you are centre stage.
The woman gestures expansively. ‘Ah, there you are,’ she says, as if you are much younger than your fifteen years. ‘You were hiding!’
You frown, say nothing.
The man and the woman continue to look at you. Their smiles seem delighted to see you. Their eyes, less so. You don’t know why they are here. Maybe they are here to tell you off. Maybe they are here to take you away. Maybe that’s it – they’re here to take you away.
Your dad turns to speak to you. ‘Angel,’ he says. ‘Do you want to go to the living room?’
Your mum chips in. ‘Yes, sweet pea. Maybe go to the living room and we’ll join you there in a bit.’
‘What is this about?’ you ask. ‘What assessment?’
Your mum and your dad exchange a look. ‘Don’t worry, darling. They’re just here to check if you’re OK. If you’re…’
‘Normal,’ your dad says.
You raise your eyebrows. ‘Normal,’ you say. ‘Right.’
After some deliberation, you do as you’re told – shuffle downstairs and shut yourself in the living room – avoiding their gazes along the way. Their request didn’t really make much sense – you can hear what’s going on from here just as well as you could from at the top of the stairs. But you are older and wiser now. You know that the finer matters of human politeness don’t have to make much sense – they just have to be agreed upon and adhered to. Like grammar.
In any case, your parents don’t join you in a bit. Instead, the people enter the living room some minutes later. They come wielding pale mugs of tea in one hand and their clipboards in the other. From the moment they enter to the moment they sit themselves down, they are making inane chit-chat. It’s like they can’t bear the sound of silence. It’s like they want to fill the air for the sake of it.
‘Here we are, thanks for waiting,’ the man says. ‘Oh, I hope you don’t mind if we sit ourselves down here,’ the woman says. ‘Oh, isn’t this a cute little living room,’ the man says. ‘Do you spend much time here? If I lived in this house, I think I would spend all my time here,’ the woman says.
You regard them silently, not dignifying these questions with any form of answer. Of course you spend time here. This is your house. Where else are you going to while away the last of your childhood days?
The woman looks at the man.
‘Shall we start with—’ the woman says.
‘You better, and I’ll just—’ the man says.
‘Great idea,’ the woman says.
The woman and the man fall silent. The woman clears her throat but says nothing. The man purses his lips, crosses his legs, looks at you, and also says nothing.
‘Do you know why we’re here?’ the woman asks, eventually.
You shake your head because no, you do not.
‘We’re here for the initial assessment,’ she says.
You blink at her. This much you already know.
‘We want to see if you are…’ The woman checks her notes. You wonder if she is going to say ‘normal’. ‘OK,’ she says.
You take a deep breath. Nod very slowly. You are trying to remain impassive. Breezy and cool, you try to seem breezy and cool. Nevertheless, you suspect your face betrays how you feel. i
‘Cool,’ you say, trying to seem breezy and cool while adrenaline shoots around your body.
There is an uncomfortable pause that passes between you. Then the woman speaks some more.
‘So, this is just the initial assessment,’ she says. ‘We just want to have a quick chat, basically. Is that OK?’
‘Sure!’ you say, with a tad too much enthusiasm.
‘We’re going to ask you a few questions about your very early life. Your birth, actually. That’s the first thing.’
‘Your birth,’ you say, before correcting yourself. ‘ My birth. You want to ask me about my birth.’
‘Yes, your birth. Not my birth.’
‘Yes.’
‘So, were you born normally?’ the woman asks.
You pause. You suppose she wants to know this because, if you were a human, you would have been born via your mum – most likely in the maternity ward of a hospital. On the other hand, if you were an alien, you probably would have been born weirdly. Maybe by falling down to Planet Earth from a flying saucer or some other UFO. Maybe via an egg.
‘What do you mean?’ you ask.
‘Erm, I mean, were you born without incident?’
‘Um.’
‘For example, were you born by the vaginal canal or via a caesarean section?’
You shake your head. ‘I don’t remember,’ you say, wondering if it’s normal to remember your own birth. Maybe humans remember everything, you think. Maybe they have memories crystal clear from day one, whereas you only have clear memories from day 1,100.
The woman rests her biro on the document, which is in turn resting on the clipboard. From where you’re sitting, you can see there’s a checkbox for ‘vaginal’ and a checkbox for ‘caesarean’. There is no checkbox for ‘other’. The woman apparently wants to tick something. Evidently, she does not know what.
The man chips in. ‘I think maybe we can ask Mum about this?’ he says. ‘Or even Dad?’
The way he speaks, it’s as though your mum and your dad are his own mum and dad, which is simply not the case. That said, you appreciate the sentiment of what he is saying. Yes, surely they can ask your mum or even your dad. Your mum and dad are the people who would know these things – not you.
‘All right.’ The woman moves on to the next checkbox. ‘And were you breastfed or were you bottle-fed?’
You furrow your brow. ‘Erm…’
‘Don’t tell me you don’t know that one either?’ The woman sits back, as if she can’t believe it.
‘What do you mean?’ you say again.
‘What do you mean “What do you mean”?’ she asks.
You shrug. ‘I don’t understand the question. Are you asking me if I remember my mum’s boobies?’
The woman widens her eyes. ‘Wow, that’s really not what I asked. I did not ask that at all.’
Your cheeks flush. In the corner, the man’s face remains impassive. However, you can see him write down a couple of words on his notepad. You fear one of these words is the word ‘boobies’.
‘OK, we’ll ask them that too.’
There is a pause during which the woman leafs through the initial assessment documentation. Finally, she asks something else.
‘Do you know if you learnt to speak early or if you learnt to speak late?’
Despite knowing how to speak, you stay silent.
‘Don’t you remember?’
You shake your head. You think your mum told you about your first words, once, said they weren’t words but instead sentences. Or maybe you dreamt this. You don’t know.
‘OK.’ The woman seems to be trying to collect herself. She moves down the clipboard.
‘And do you know if you learnt to walk on time?’
The man interrupts before you have a chance to throw another ‘I don’t know’ at her. ‘I really think we’re meant to be asking the parents these ones, not her,’ he says. ‘It says so at the top there, look.’ He points to some words printed at the top of the woman’s document.
‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ the woman said. ‘I didn’t see that at all. Gosh.’ The woman squints at the sheet. You wonder if she has forgotten to wear her sight-correcting glasses.
The man leans to whisper something you can’t hear to the woman.
‘OK,’ the woman says, in response.
After this, the man turns to face you.
‘So I’m going to ask you some things now,’ he says.
You nod.
‘I’m going to ask you what primary school was like.’
You nod again.
‘So, do you remember what primary school was like?’
‘What primary school was like?’
‘Yes.’
‘Yeah, I remember what primary school was like.’
The man smiles. ‘And can you tell us what it was like? Did you enjoy it?’
‘Um,’ you say, ‘I went to a couple.’
‘OK, so what were they like? Did you make friends? Did you like the lessons?’
You think about it. You don’t know what they were like. You were sort of just there. That said, you know you’ve said ‘I don’t know’ about a hundred times today. With this in mind, you think you should opt for a variation.
‘I’m not sure,’ you say.
The man nods. He seems to accept this as a valid answer.
‘And why did you go to a couple of schools? Why didn’t you just go to one?’
You pause for thought, wondering how to phrase it. ‘I cut up some Bibles,’ you say. ‘This other kid told me to.’
The man raises his eyebrows considerably. ‘You cut up – you cut up some Bibles? Why did you do that?’
‘Just at the first school,’ you say, realising now this was probably an odd thing to do. ‘Someone told me to do it, though,’ you repeat.
The man does a half-smile, makes a couple of noises whose meaning you’re unsure of. ‘So, you went to two primary schools?’ he eventually says, holding up his index and middle finger to illustrate the concept of two.
‘Yes.’
‘Why did you go to two? Why not just one?’
‘I, um…’ You trail off, shake your head, then – just for good measure – do a shrug that says ‘I don’t know’. You don’t want to talk about your primary schooling any more. You know it wasn’t normal. You know you didn’t do it right. Talking about it doesn’t help, though. To be honest, you’d much prefer to curl up on the sofa in the foetal position instead.
‘Would you mind explaining?’
You hesitate, then the words come out all jumbled. ‘I was on the climbing frame,’ you say, ‘and then it came down and everything was everywhere. The roof. Ceiling not room.’
‘Climbing frame? What do you mean?’
‘Yeah,’ you say, even though ‘yeah’ only answers one of the man’s questions.
‘Did something bad happen on a climbing frame?’
You pause. ‘I don’t know,’ you say, so softly you can barely hear the words yourself.
You shake your head again, then make some of your noises in a half-hearted fashion. The noises aren’t enough, though, so you rock gently for a bit, tip yourself to one side, before giving up and fully curling yourself into the foetal position. You squeeze yourself together tight. If someone tried to prise you open, they wouldn’t succeed. A foetus you would remain.
The man and the woman don’t ask you any more questions. Instead, they mumble to each other for a bit, gather their things, get up and go. They do so quietly – as if they mustn’t wake the baby on the way out.
In the corridor, you hear them say a few words to your parents in hushed tones. Then you hear the click of the front door and the starting of a car engine. Then you hear the car leave. Then you hear your mum and your dad do chit-chat. Then you hear your mum and your dad carry on with their days, giving their foetus-child a wide berth.
Your dad is in the garden, where he surely plans to spend the rest of the day hoeing the earth. Your mum, on the other hand, is doing some of her reading. This time, she is reading about gifted children – most likely wondering if you are a gifted child.
Back in the office, the woman and the man type up the results of the initial assessment. I don’t know for sure, but I suspect they write that you are a creature as of yet unknown. Further study is warranted, but only if time and resources allow. For the time being, they think it may be wise to stay alert and proceed with the utmost caution. After typing up the report, they file it. After filing it, no one ever looks at it again. It exists in a folder, in an office, and also on a computer. But there it remains, forever and ever, amen.
Further reading:
Gifted Children: Is Your Child Gifted?
Footnote
i Alarmed and stressed.