Chapter 3

On the way home, she started a conversation, “Priest, do you feel smarter than everybody else?”

“It’s difficult to explain mom, I think I have always felt that way, only now when I decide to read a book or something like that, my focus grows exponentially, and I have become a very good test taker, as my IQ score seems to show. What do you think I should do, I’m only thirteen?”

“I’m not sure what should be done. That snobby principal seems to believe you could be stunted if we kept you at the level of school your age dictates. You’ll be staying at home for the rest of this week, while your father and I, and you too, can figure out what to do?”

“Can we stop by the library, please ... I’d like to get some books to read. I’ve read just about everything we have in the house already? I have my library card with me.”

“Sure, honey – that’s a good idea. Don’t stop learning, whatever else you do. I remember reading four or five books every year in school.”

Our town had a nice branch library. My empty school bag could hold about six or seven of the books I wanted.

She parked and went in with me to the counter, where I showed my card and was allowed in.

Mom lingered at the counter while I went to the stacks and stacks of books they had and fifteen minutes later, I had a stack of nine books.

The library worker took a look and said, “My, what a diverse set of books. Do you have a school project?”

“NO ma’am, I’ve always wanted to read these books, for fun?”

They included,

1984, by George Orwell
Crime and Punishment, by Dostoyevsky
A Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov

My mother looked at me, and said, “You do know the plot of this, already?”

“Yeah, Mom ... an old man falls in love with a twelve-year-old girl. It could help me understand the machinations of the women in my family; you know the ones my age.”

The Library Lady and my mother shared a look, but neither of them told me I couldn’t take home the book.

The last books were,

A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway
The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck
The Art of Happiness, by the Dalai Lama, and
Civilization and its Discontents, by Sigmund Freud.

“That should keep you busy for quite a while, shouldn’t it?” the employee said while stamping my card and the books.

I decided against telling her it would take me a single day to read them all. I got a free tote bag to help take everything to the car.

“Priest,” she said back in the car driving home, “I know you want a newer computer, how about we get you the newest model we can find. Your father makes enough money for me to splurge on myself, why don’t we splurge on you, instead.”

“You’re the best mom, ever!” I said.

We went to the same store I had got my stuff from and they had a few Apple IIc Plus computers, which used the newer 3.5” floppy drive.

The employee who had waited on us was looking at my mother with a leer I didn’t especially appreciate. The kid I knew from the store came up and talked to me, covertly handing me a disk, quietly saying, “It’s the newest version of the operating system. You deserve it.”

He helped us get the new computer, in its box, to our car. Mom thanked him, and we went home. Nobody was home yet, and I took my new computer to my room, unboxed it, and it was that same color on the outside, but it was brand new.

The list of software already on it was impressive, Appleworks, Apple Writer, Graphic Edge, Orca, and Print Shop. Thankfully, it still connected to my Stylewriter II printer.

Remember, this was before the Internet and the World Wide Web. I didn’t even have a modem yet.

I heard a scream; it was my sister. And she came into my room saying, “Thank you, thank you, thank you -- for your computer. I thought you were kidding me? Now, I can turn in homework on it, yippee!”

She stopped and said, “Is that your new computer, Big brother?”

She rarely used that expression on me.

“If you weren’t my brother, I would give you a kiss,” she went on to say.

“If you weren’t my sister, I would let you kiss me,” I said, in a moment of weakness.

“Are you asking me to kiss you, that’s kind of weird, even for you? I thought Shirley twirled your dinger?”

That made me laugh, which made her laugh ... then she left the room, saying, “Thanks again, Big Brother.”

She was almost as much of a tease as Shirley was. And that’s saying a lot.

I hooked everything up, getting a knock on my door, “Come in.”

It was my best friend from sixth grade, Dave Golz, walking in and closing the door.

“Your sister let me in. Man ... she’s getting pretty, isn’t she?”

“Be careful, the next sentence could put you in the hospital, David.”

“Whoa, sorry dude. I was just saying...”

“Don’t say it. She deserves a lot better than the likes of you.”

“Oh, keeping it in the family, huh?”

He didn’t see the punch coming.

He got up saying; “I came by because I didn’t see you at school last Friday or today. What’s going on, anyway?”

I got him up to speed, and he said, “You, a genius ... that’s a laugh, isn’t it?”

“Do you want me to beat the crap out of you?”

“Well, I guess I’ll see you when I see you. Don’t be a stranger, we’ve been best friends for a long time.”

“Then, act like it and support me, cool it with the putdowns and talking smack about my sister, OK?”

“Sorry, maybe you’ve become too smart to have a buddy like me. I won’t bother you anymore.”

He left my room.

TWO YEARS LATER (LATE 1991)
I’m now a few months from turning sixteen, and Betty, Shirley, and Carly all had gotten more womanly features, seeing them all at our annual reunion party of all of our branches, twigs, and leaves of the Thornberry family tree. There are many!