Chapter 18

Dana's turn:

I was very wary. Gramma had just turned me over to a nice lady at the school board office. I was here for an assessment. Actually, they already have some idea that I might be just a little bit ahead of the game. It's part of a program run by a university to identify 'talent'. I giggle. I took their test. It was the ACT. Possible composite score was 34. I was in the seventh grade. Got a twenty-eight. That was astounding enough to get me conversations with counselors. I suppose that when that happened, had I had a normal home life, I would've been off on an academic sleigh-ride, but my mom was doing good to get me to school most days.

Gramma understood the significance. So do the people at the school here. So does Ed. Now, though, meeting all my new friends in Alabama, I know where the logical path might lead.

So I'm in a room set up for testing. We have a proctor; there are five of us in this group, me and four kids who're home-schooled. A couple of those are clean-cut, everything you'd see if you watched a video on the benefits of home schooling. The other two, well ... From demeanor and speech, I'm betting somebody less ambitious than Mom used home-schooling as an excuse not to get up in the morning. Why they're here for the testing is a mystery to me.

The proctor reads off the rules and starts a timer, releasing us to go through the first of several booklets.

Math. Come on. I'm tearing along, on pace, I tell myself, knowing the time limit and the number of problems, assuming that they save the difficult ones for last. Except I don't think they got that difficult. I just finished. The clock says I have time left. I go back to the front of the booklet and start back through.

"No," I tell myself, "You got this, Dana." I smile. Ed and Gramma are going to be proud.

The proctor, however... "You quit working. Are you having problems?"

"No ma'am," I said softly. "I just finished."

"Are you sure you didn't skip pages?"

"No, ma'am," I said. "Here's my answer sheet. Same number of problems as the booklet."

"You could go back and double-check your work."

"Thank you. I double-checked some. I'm good with this."

She watched me closely with the other modules of the exam. When it was all over, Gramma was waiting for me, chatting with some of her acquaintances from her years as a teacher. It's funny. A lot of these people were her students.

"Mrs. Selder just emailed me. She's doing Dana's answer sheets first," Mrs. Johnson told Gramma.

"Dana, what did you do?" Gramma asked.

"Just took the tests, Gramma," I said. "I thought they'd be harder."

"More difficult," Gramma corrected, ever the teacher. "Delma," she said, addressing her friend, "Dana had a twenty-eight ACT last year."

"Oh, my ... that's very high. Just a second." Mizz Delma punched at her keyboard. "90th percentile. What do you do in class, Dana?"

"I actually pay attention, at least some, especially in social studies and science. I think I got English through heredity," I quipped, smiling at Gramma. "Math, though ... It HAS to be that way."

"Has to be?" Mizz Delma asked.

"Yes, ma'am. No amount of opinion is going to change the multiplication tables or the order of operations. It just has to be that way." I went on about my study hall activities.

We were talking about my observations of my fellow students when Mrs. Selder knocked lightly.

"Come in, Andrea," Mizz Delma said. "What did you find?"

"I didn't find a high school student, that's for sure." The smile on her face told me something. It also eased Gramma's apprehension.

"She did well?" Gramma asked.

"Superlative," Mizz Andrea replied. "I have never seen scores like these. The two Hampton children did very well, but Dana ... superlative. Delma, we are going to have to act on this."

I smiled. "We may already be acting on this," I said.

"How so?" Mizz Delma asked.

I flicked my eyes at Gramma. I certainly don't want to offend her nor go off on a path she does not find profitable. She smiled. I can go ahead. "I've been in contact with a group of similar students in Alabama. I met with them this past weekend."

"Similar? In what way?"

"Academically precocious," I said, glancing again at Gramma. "I have a friend there that graduated high school at fourteen, got FOUR bachelor's degrees two years later, and is right now the youngest doctoral candidate in the history of Auburn University. I have another friend there who is in the same boat except she had the misfortune to be born a year earlier, so she's a year older. Such things are possible."

"I've heard about them," Gramma said. "Now I have seen them on the Internet. And I am beginning to believe that my Dana is of those abilities."

"That's a lot to live up to. Cindy..." I said.

"Who is Cindy?"

"Cynthia Smith-Richards, MSEE, three bachelors': physics, math and engineering. Doctoral candidate." I didn't add 'wife'. "She's also a pretty good pilot and maker of cookies."

"And you've met her?"

I giggled. "Yes, ma'am. We started chatting – Facetime on the computer or the iPhone or whatever. She and Nikki Granger flew down and got me, took me back there for the weekend. I met Doctor Patel, a recruiter with Auburn University. They want me back next week for interviews."

"Oh, my goodness, Lee," Mizz Andrea said. "And you worried about her abilities?"

"You both know that there is a procedure and a time for everything." She looked to me. "Right, Dana?"

"Yes, Gramma."

"Now I think that my granddaughter needs a lunch of her choice. Would you like to join us?" Gramma asked.

"If she doesn't choose McDonald's, I would love that," Mizz Andrea said.

Gramma laughed. "She's not a fan of McDonald's. Where to, Dana?"

I named a little place that Ed had taken me to. Turns out they knew it as well. We had a pleasant lunch. They went back to work. Gramma and I went home.

"You're rather satisfied, aren't you?" she asked me.

"Yes, ma'am. I can get going instead of spending another four years struggling to live within the system."

"What do you think Edward will say?"

I smiled. Get that warm feeling when Gramma says the name of the guy I love. "Ed thinks I'm out of place in middle school. We didn't know what we could do about it. Now we have something to talk about."

"You could go to college here, Dana. I know they have programs for the gifted. You'll get scholarships."

"I know, Gramma. However, that bunch in Alabama, it's as if it's brighter. Like one ember hardly cuts the darkness, but a pile of them becomes a fire."

"Dana, Dana, Dana ... beautiful aphorism."

"Thank you, Gramma. Heredity, you know."

She smiled. "My wonderful granddaughter."

"My Gramma who lifts me to the stars."

"Speaking of stars, I would like to have dinner with some of my bridge club friends this evening. Will you mind?"

"No, ma'am."

"You're not boring Edward, are you?"

"Ed finds me endlessly fascinating, as I do him. No, not bored."

"You are serious. Your friend's adopted grandfather asked me many questions. From my observations, I gave him truthful answers. Dana, do you really wish to be married to Ed?"

"Gramma," I answered, "Ed and I should be married. Historically, we would have signed the family Bible and would be waiting for an itinerant preacher to solemnize our wedding."

She smiled. "You read too much."

"No, ma'am. I read as much as I can, and wish I could do more. And yes, I do read historical books and I found that particular fact a bit enchanting."

"What did it say about young women marrying?"

"When a girl was old enough for her monthlies, she was eligible."

"And she was likely not as mentally adept as are you, my dear."

"I'm glad you think so, Gramma. Ed thinks so as well."

We got home. I helped Gramma with her house work, all the while thinking about what Ed and I might do for dinner. The remainder of the celebration should be easy to figure out.

I decide that if I try to cook without asking him for input, then if he doesn't like it he'll be compelled to either tell me, which would produce devastation for me to overcome, or he'd fib to me and start his evening with that hurdle.

On the other hand, if I play my cards right, he'll drag me to that Chinese place with the sushi bar and let me reprise my speech about sushi not being Chinese and HIS speech about modified recipes that don't really parallel real Chinese food anyway. And we'll both laugh at each other. Ed gets my jokes. A lot of people don't. Sometimes I'll kick a pun out onto the conversational field and then watch his face just to see that twinkle in his eye. If we're alone, that's likely to get me rolled over for a kiss and cuddle.

Made it through the weekend. I'm gonna take my last real pill the day we fly back to Alabama. That means my period starts, I guess. This is my first cycle of these stupid things, but the up side is that when it's over, condoms are history between Dana and Ed. That's a good thing. On Monday, the day of the flight, we have two condoms left.

The flight back. Yes, I'm excited. Auburn's ONE reason. Cindy's adopted grandpa, JUDGE Charles Peebles, is the other. Tuesday evening Ed and I are to visit with him. I know he's talked to Gramma and he's talked to Cindy and Dan 1.0. He's talked to me and Ed, separately, over the phone. I think that meeting with him is what it will take for him to make his decision to do for us what he did for Dan and Cindy.

I could come home from Alabama as a married woman.

At eleven on Monday we were at the airport when Cindy landed. I think that's when reality sort of settled in on Gramma. I mean it's one thing to see Cindy on the computer screen and to hear somebody tell you that she's a licensed pilot, among other things, but when you're standing there and you see that airplane roll up with nobody in it but that little redhead, that, friends, is reality.

Ed and I had to help her into the plane. That Cessna's pretty high off the ground. It's easy for me, but I'm not in my seventies. I think Gramma got a little aggravated at me when I tried to explain the intercom headsets to her.

"I am not a technological illiterate, Dana," she said. "This is not new technology. I can work it, thank you."

Another thing. She didn't seem as nervous as Ed did, the first time he flew in this thing. For this flight, he's in the front right seat. Okay, that part makes me a little bit jealous. 'In due time, ' I tell myself. Apparently flying is a skill endemic to the girls in the community I'm investigating.