Chapter 7

At lunch on Thursday, this time held at the University of Maryland, one of the faculty members dining with us asked a question about my experience in getting a doctorate so quickly, almost before I had finished high school, let alone taking a bachelor’s degree. “Wasn’t it difficult to convince the administrators?” he asked.

I laughed. “Yep, it was. I kinda backed into getting the degree. The uni president even had to check with the trustees since they have this ‘residency’ requirement—lots of schools do—where you have to be enrolled for so long and have earned so many credits to be eligible. So I got a waiver. But you know that the doctorate isn’t granted for simply checking off items on a bucket list. It’s awarded as an acknowledgment that you’ve demonstrated enough academic independence that you can create new knowledge. You know that. So if someone has demonstrated complete mastery of a subject, plus mastery of the areas which relate to that subject, and then uses that mastery to create new knowledge, by definition he should be eligible for a doctorate. Isn’t that right?”

There were general nods of agreement.

“That’s what I had to tell the president to convince him. I also used one of my favorite dissertation stories, one I had heard from my mum, who had a master’s in biology before she took her medical degree. She had told me about this Scot bloke in the 1880s, erm, name of Caldwell, I think, who had written the shortest dissertation ever. Four words and sent by telegram. It got him the equivalent of a doctor’s degree ... Royal Society or Cambridge. Something like that. Anyway, I can recite the whole dissertation. It’s ‘Monotremes oviparous, ovum meroblastic.’ It’s a hoot.”

“What’s that mean?” my host asked.

“I need to explain. So Caldwell went to Australia to study the platypus and other monotremes, being sent by his advisor. There were all kinds of arguments up to that point about whether platypuses were mammals, reptiles, or birds, but naturalists had finally settled on them being mammals. But it was insisted that they couldn’t lay eggs, ‘cause no mammal did that. Caldwell went to investigate. So his telegram meant that platypuses do indeed lay eggs which are similar to those of reptiles. ‘Meroblastic’ means that only part of the egg divides as it develops, like those of reptiles do. So that telegram got him a doctorate. It’s a good example of an independent discovery of new knowledge. Also it didn’t hurt that my own discovery really boosted the uni’s reputation and started to attract some student interest to come study there. Money does talk.”

They all laughed.

“Emma, you’re a fount of knowledge,” my host complimented. “Not only in physics. I also can see how convincing you can be. You have a unique way of explaining yourself so that the person goes away satisfied, and you’ve made him feel that you thought his point of view was important too.”

The beginning of today’s seminar went much more smoothly than yesterday’s, in that by now everyone knew that I was not quite 14 years old. And since this talk was about solid-state physics and not primarily about maths, the audience was a little different. But this was a well received session too.

I was tired when I returned to the embassy that night; it had been a long day. They had a scheduled a formal dinner at Johns Hopkins for me and the university bigwigs were in attendance. Yes, I did get some job offer questions. I told them that I was exploring my options. It’s a good way to say ‘no’ while not saying no.

I would be flying home on Saturday, so the Friday was open. I had thought of using the day to see a little of Washington. When Gerry had heard that I was staying over, she offered to give me a little tour, and since the kids were out of school now, they would come along. I had a wonderful time. I realized that there was a huge missing part in my life; even when I was living with Mum and Grandma, I had never experienced this kind of emotional closeness before. It helped that the siblings were all extremely bright kids, but it was their maturity, despite the girls’ impulsiveness and irrepressibility, that really called to me. Spending time with Andrew, just chatting about random things, was also amazing. So was his accent. Is that how I sound too? It seemed it was. I guess I miss London.

Much of my tour was just drive bys of some attractions and monuments, but we also went to the Smithsonian Natural History Museum, where we stopped for lunch. Parking was a non-issue as Gerry’s car had diplomatic plates. When we got back to the residence, we kids had some time to talk before dinner. Earlier Uncle George had left some papers for me to sign—not that they had “legal” validity; they just showed that I was the person making the emancipation request, and they had been set out for me to sign.

Then the girls dragged Andrew and me to the sitting room; this was the first time we kids were alone all together.

“Gramps told us that you had that awful naked pupil rot in your school,” Sam said. “I wanted to ask about it because it’s supposed to start here in the autumn. That’s when I start high school and Dad’ll be posted here for the next few years.”

Andrew spoke. He was sat next to me, holding my hand, whilst the girls were sat on the floor at our feet.

“Sam’s been bugging me to find out more about it, Emma,” Andrew said. “One of my mates in school has a cousin over in Reston and the Program had started in her school in the spring. But she’s been too embarrassed to talk to him about what she saw there and none of my mates know much about it either.”

I sighed. “Well, I can’t give you much help about what goes on in a school with the Program either, I’m afraid. I only know what I read in the booklet they gave out. Yes, they tried to start the Program in my school, and in fact I was picked to do it along with fifteen other blokes in the first group, but nothing came of it. We got it stopped—cold,” I giggled.

“Yeah, Gramps told us!”... “How did you do that?”... “What you did was brill!” they chorused.

So I told them the funniest parts. Only in retrospect were they funny. Not while it was happening, though. They laughed at the appropriate spots in my tale, too. This was almost more fun than those two seminars.

“I don’t know how I’d deal with being forced to be in the Program,” Sam said. “I wig out just at the thought of being forced to do that rot.”

“I do too, Sam,” I told her. “The idea that I’d be forced to be all starkers in school completely terrified me, not to mention all the other horrid tosh I had read about in that Program booklet. But when they were going to strip me, I managed to get out of it, like I told you. But I did learn that forcing you isn’t legal. After I was able to trick them and get away, I found out from my solicitor that if an adult touches a kid with the intent of injuring him, it’s a felony called battery ‘cause stripping someone by force is actually an injury. He said the punishment can be as much as 20 years in jail. If an adult even just tells another to strip you, that’s assault—it’s deliberately making you believe that you’ll be harmed somehow. You don’t have to be touched to be assaulted.

“So if you get in that situation when the Program starts in your school, you all can resist and they can’t forcibly strip anyone without risking a long prison sentence. But I did learn that to keep out of trouble, you mustn’t become the resistance leader. At least don’t do it the way I did and start up a group of rebels. You must never tell anyone that they shouldn’t participate. You must only tell them that they have the right not to participate when they’re told to do it. They have the right to resist, not that you told them that they should resist.” The memory of that time resurfaced and I shivered. “Yeah, that was a scary time. When they were gonna strip me, I was sheet-fill-me-boots scared ... the idea of being starkers by myself and only a few others ... that idea alone was just horrid.”

“That’s brilliant advice, Emma,” Andrew said as Sam nodded her agreement.

Then Sam heaved a sigh. “Okay. I think that when they start the Program, I’m definitely gonna tell everyone that they can resist if they want and they can’t be forced to do it. The idea of being forced makes me furious, not only for me, but for everyone else too. But I don’t feel the same as you do about the nudity itself.”

“Really? In what way?” I asked.

“Okay, I’ll try to explain. In our middle school health class this past spring, the school gave us an introduction to what will happen when we started high school with the Program being there. They told us about all the sex things that Program kids have to do. Some of the girls almost got sick hearing that rot. They were whinging, ‘We’ll have to suck on a boy’s willie? They pee from there!’ And ‘I have to let just anyone in the whole school put their fingers up my vag?’ Actually the whole idea of the Program sounded totally horrid to me, too, just like it did to the other girls. Doing any of that sex cack—that would be a nightmare. Not the nudity part by itself, except that being nude where almost everyone else is dressed would be so strange. Otherwise, being nude with other people isn’t a problem at all for our family because at the park, everyone ... oops...”

She flashed a panicked look at Andrew, who told her, “Hey, Sam. Go talk to Mum and ask.”

What? Sam? Nude with other people? Now I was confused.

“Andrew, what’s...” I started as Sam got up and ran out.

“Hey, it’s nothing. I reminded her that she needed to ask Mum something, is all. Look, I’ve been meaning to ask you what all the fuss is about the maths you use.”

Abi made an “oh, really?” face at Andrew.

“Well, Andrew,” I replied, “the maths are kinda advanced, but let’s see ... you’ve dealt with quadratic equations, binomials, and multiorder polynomials, I assume? That’s in 10th grade maths, I think.”

Abi interrupted, “Ooohh, binomials and polynomials—what about homo nomials? Lezzie nomials?” she chortled. “That’s sexier than maths!”

“Bugger off, you little imp!” I laughed at her.

“Ugh. Maths. You guys’ll be soooo boring. I’m gonna see where Sam is.” Abi ran off, shrieking with laughter as she skipped out.

I shrugged. I figured that if what Andrew told Sam was important, the girls will tell me; else they’ll burst. I turned to Andrew.

“How much maths have you taken so far?”

“Actually, Emma, I was in 12th grade maths last year,” Andrew commented. “I’m taking AP maths this autumn.”

“Nice. Do you know what calculus is, Andrew?”

“Sure. My teacher has extra sessions for advanced kids.”

“Okay, differential equations?”

“Yeah. I know a little about that.”

“That’s ace. How about partial differentials and multiple integrals?”

“I won’t do that before college.”

“Look at this, then.” I pulled out my mobile and brought up a copy of my last paper; then scrolled to one of the generalized Fourier series equations. “Can you see what this equation is describing?”

I told him the values of the variables.

“You work with this? Wow.” He looked at it for a minute. “It looks like it could be something that repeats, doing it over and over.”

“You saw that? I was trying to do something that wasn’t very nice, to show you that you wouldn’t understand the maths that I work with. I think you really do. Actually that equation describes a wave, and yes, it repeats over and over. If you saw that from what you learnt in high school maths, that’s really impressive, Andrew. I know it’s early still, but do you have any idea what you’d like to study?”

“I like maths. That’s why I asked you. We did some statistics in maths earlier this year and that was brill, and I like calculus too. I’d like some kind of job that uses maths a lot, I guess, and...”

Just then the sisters came roaring in, jabbering with excitement. And began speaking all at once.

“Mum told us...” Abi.

“This is brill...” Sam.

“ ... she said that...” Abi.

“ ... we won’t have...” Sam.

“ ... they won’t let...” Abi.

“ ... to do that...” Sam.

“Wait. Wait. Wait!” Andrew shouted. I had to giggle at the girls’ sheer enthusiasm.

“Now then. Slowly. What happened?”

Clearly he was used to this.

They looked at each other and Abi nodded to Sam. “It’s more for you, sis,” she said.

Sam took a deep breath. “I went to ask Mum about our resort trips. But she sat me down to tell me that I shouldn’t get all worried about the high school’s naked rubbish ‘cause Gramps called Mum just a few minutes ago and told her that the Foreign Office decided that they won’t allow British kids to be in that bloody Program and then Abi came in whilst Mum was telling me that and then we talked about the resort we go to and why being naked isn’t a problem for me so she said we could tell you but you won’t let anyone else know, will you.”

“I’m confused now,” I said, trying to make sense of what Sam said. Was she talking about two different subjects, or just one? Or more? “Help?” I pleaded.

Andrew chuckled. “When Sam gets excited, her words come out like a stream of consciousness. What I think she means is first, none of us will have to be in the Program. Second, public nudity doesn’t bother her—or any of us—because we go to a nudist resort and we’re actually nudists.”

Well, blow me away. What does that mean, to be “nudists,” exactly? I thought. Well, I thought I thought it. I must have thought it aloud.

Abi laughed and said, “What ‘nudists’ means is that we go to this brilliant resort where nobody wears any clothes and we all go swimming whilst nude and hot tubbing and playing sports like water volleyball and frisbee and badminton and hiking on the trails and stuff and have dances and contests and cookouts and live in a camper and play with lots of other kids and ... and...”

She ran out of breath before she ran out of words, apparently.

“Abi’s talking about a nudist resort we go to near Annapolis. It’s not far,” Andrew said. “And it’s blindin’ ace, being outside and also going swimming whilst starkers. So the being naked whilst in school rubbish wouldn’t be so bad for Sam and me, but if you’re the only one being naked and no one else is, and they can touch your dangling bits or put their fingers in girls’ fannies, then that’s nasty. It’s dead wrong too. Now, about going to our nudist resort, we don’t tell anyone about our lifestyle and people who go there like their privacy, so you’ll keep this quiet, won’t you.”

“Absolutely. I’m fascinated by this, Andrew. You need to tell me more. How do...”

Just then Gerry came in with Stuart.

“Evening, Emma,” Stuart said. “We just heard the kids revealing our great secret to you...”

“I’ll keep it quiet, no worries,” I said.

“Good. Well, something else’s come up. It’s wonderful news for you, Emma. Dad just rang us. They found your Uncle Scott and he’s alive, but very much worse for wear.”

“Ohmygod. What ... how...” I jumped up.

“Okay, sit, sit down. It’s a long story but I’ll summarize because the details aren’t important. He’s in a Seattle hospital now, moved there last week from Anchorage. He has an almost complete amnesia but the Aleuts who found him figured out something of what likely happened.” He consulted a pad. “You know he was flying to the Aleutians for some kind of field project.”

“Yeah. And there was an unexpected early winter storm in the area.”

“He was found drifting only in a survival suit by a fishing boat by some Aleuts out of St George Island.” He laughed. “Very appropriate name too. It’s in the Bering Sea. He was blown off course and crashed, I assume.”

“His plane had floats; maybe he was able to land in the water and then something happened.”

“Yes, probably, since he survived. Now he has a partially healed skull fracture and some brain swelling still and it needs surgery soon.”

“Oh god, will he live?”

“The hospital report was that he’s stable, but unless he gets some highly specialized surgery and a lot of rehab, he won’t recover. Even then his ability to walk might be affected.”

I was crying now and Andrew put an arm around me.

I sniffled. “What took it so long to get him help?”

“There was an early winter storm and the ice had formed very early too. The Aleuts out there are self-sufficient. Maybe their radios can’t reach the mainland and if there’s electrical interference even stronger radios can be iffy. They don’t take the boats far in the winter because of the ice. Your uncle was wearing a Royal Navy survival suit...”

“Yeah, I remember that suit. He told me that he had got it as surplus, said it was the best.”

“ ... so the islanders assumed he was from a British trawler. They were trying to reach any nearby trawler, thinking Scott was from one of them. Your uncle couldn’t say much, but had a Brit accent and said ‘Elizabeth’ a lot.”

“Oh. I’m gonna lose it. That was his pet name for me. My middle name.” I was really crying now.

“Well, the Aleuts thought he was referring to the Queen. Anyway, they finally had made contact with a trawler who relayed a distress call to a British ship in the region and they pulled him out in mid-May and got him to Nome. That’s where they first brought him in, and got him into a hospital there. No one knew who he was, so they assumed, from his accent, that he was a Brit, so they finally contacted the British consulate to see if any knew of any British citizens that were missing. The consul recalled that Dad had been there to deal with a question involving one of our citizens, you, Emma, so he checked and discovered your Uncle Scott was on a company exchange visa and had gone lost. So now he was found. They moved him to Anchorage but the hospitals there weren’t equipped to handle his case. They contacted his company and they had him transferred to Seattle where the hospitals are better equipped.”

I got up. “We need to get him some top care! I assume Seattle has good hospitals but ... but ... the U.S. president goes to the ... erm ... Walter Reed Hospital, right? They operate on all those IED injuries from the Iraq wars and Afghanistan, don’t they.”

“Yes, but...”

“I can pay for his treatment. He’ll be close to the embassy here too. I can’t do anything for him in Alaska. And...”