Chapter 4

Three weeks later on December 15'th, I got a hand-written letter from Melanie. I stared at the envelope for a while. It was definitely her handwriting. But she had listed my father's name at our old house in Sterling as the return address. It suddenly occurred to me that if the post office had trouble with the postage or the primary address, the letter would still be forwarded to my dad here in Pennsylvania and not back to Melanie. Wondering why she was bothering to do this, I opened the letter. Here's what it said:

Dearest Eric,

I think I have less freedom now than Patty! I am super grounded. I'm off track, in fact I have no after-school activities all. I don't even have permission to leave the house! Mom threatened to sue the school if they allowed me internet access and the school admin caved in. I'm effectively under supervision 24 hours a day.

Mom and dad have been spreading insane rumors about you brainwashing me to be your future slave, and some of the other parents have shown them their phone records. My parents know that we have been talking to each other. I'm penning this letter in Study Hall. At least here I'm safe. I think.

Why am I capitulating to all this? I have all my college applications out and none of them requested financial assistance. With dad the managing director of the Wells Fargo branch and mom a full partner at O'Hare and Snyder, my parents earn way too much money for me to quality for aid. Both my parents are threatening to cut me off financially if they catch me communicating with you again. They say it's their final warming.

Eric, I've never had a job. Lots of great summer programs and volunteer work but I've never earned anything. My parents are super-controlling my access to money and I don't have the resources to fight this battle, at least not now.

I feel like I'm trapped in a fairy story gone berserk, some crazy combination of Cinderella and Romeo & Juliet. Eric darling, wait for me, please? Stop! I can't ask you a question and ask you not to respond at the same time! I say instead that I love you and I know you love me, and that I trust you will wait for me. Please, please don't write back, even through the internet or a third party. My parents are so furious with me, it's just too dangerous.

I'll try to call you if I can find a completely safe way to do it. It might be few months, maybe not until April. I'll hoard up a bunch of quarters for a pay phone or something.

Oh Eric, I can only imagine how crazy this must sound, but I'm not joking. You wouldn't believe how often I'm searched and how intensely I'm spied upon. Mom comes in and picks me up at the school office every day. I'm going to sneak this letter into the mailbox outside during my lunch period.

Under the microscope in Illinois, offering you my love and faithfulness, Melanie

I stared at Melanie's letter forever, reading it again and again. I finally decided I needed a reality check. I went and showed the letter to my dad. He just kept shaking his head as he read it.

"Dad, why do they hate me so much? I've always tried to be polite with Melanie's parents. I really have."

Dad nodded and then grunted. "Hell, Shakespeare! Not a bad analogy. Maybe she's right."

"What?"

"Romeo and Juliet. I read it with your mom in twelfth grade English, back in 1966... You want to know what this might be about? My granddad and Melanie's great grandfather had a legal dispute once, about a bank loan. Gus won, and Melanie's great granddad took it personal... real personal..."

I grimaced and whined, "But that was ages ago! Why spend your life fighting your grandfather's war?"

My dad sighed. "Yeah, that is the question, isn't it? Probably because they're not smart enough to find better things to do. It's as simple as that... Eric, if you want some advice, let Melanie call the shots on this. She's the one in the war zone. Let her pick the battle plan."

I nodded glumly and went back to my bedroom. After a while I made another measurement of what I've decided to call my inner sense.

It's growing. In the three weeks since Thanksgiving, the sphere around my internal center-point expanded from 15 cm to 24 cm. I could now scan objects six inches from the top of my nose. And the detail! I could fill my imagination with a tiny crevasse on the ruler. It's hard to quantify this, but I'm estimating I can see four times as much detail compared to Thanksgiving...

I made some more experiments. I don't have to have the sense on if I don't want it. It's like opening an infinitely effective eyelid. Unless I want to scan, I feel completely normal.

I sat back and wondered. Where was this all heading? And then I had to smile a bit. What would be my story if dad noticed me sticking the ruler all around my head?

Christmas break arrived. My nights were filled with thoughts of Melanie, and as for the days, it was crunch time for applying to colleges. I selected Mech. E. as a major and had a big list of schools, Case Western, Perdue, Carnegie-Mellon, Boston University, U. of Penn... My SAT scores were 790 in math and 590 in verbal, not bad. My safety-valve school was Penn State, and I also had one pie-in-the-sky Hail-Mary pass in the air. I applied to M.I.T.

The second Monday in January, I toured the campuses of B.U. and M.I.T. The interviews at B.U. were fun and relaxing, and I think it's an excellent school. Then I crossed the Charles River into Cambridge and spent the afternoon at M.I.T.

There I was in a professor's office in Building 3, a nice view of the Great Court out the windows to my back. It was IAP on campus, the Independent Activities Period. The whole month of January is like that at M.I.T., no formal classes, just everybody playing with the sciences and nobody worrying about grades. What a great idea!

Professor Hanson was seated across from me at his desk. He was polite, attentive, and I think incredibly bright. At first we hit it off very well. I described how I had spent my previous summer, and he said it sounded marvelous and how he wished he had such an opportunity when he was growing up.

But as he went through my school transcripts he also started giving me thoughtful looks. I didn't find it too encouraging.

I decided to level with him. "I need honest feedback, Professor Hanson. Do I have a chance of getting in here?"

He nodded. "Yeah, okay. I'll give you my straight opinion as an engineer. You might make the waiting list. Eric, personally I think you might do fine here, but M.I.T. creams the country for the best students. There are just a lot of other applicants who have better qualifications."

I sighed. "My SAT scores?"

He shrugged. "That's minor. The 790 is excellent! The 590 in verbal... isn't bad..."

I nodded. "I could have boosted it, worked on my vocabulary. It was a conscious decision to do the summer work instead."

Hanson nodded and returned to my transcripts. "You were in Honors English your sophomore and junior years? Math and science too?"

"Yes. Well, that's Sterling, Illinois's version of Honors classes. Any kid that was serious about studying was put into Honors. It was still a bit slow."

"But you dropped out of AP courses in your senior year?"

"Oh, hell!" I thought. I went on to explain Exeter's ridiculous policy. Professor Hanson seemed sympathetic, but it wasn't really his problem. We talked a little more about M.I.T., and then he asked me, "Anything else you'd like to mention?"

It was crunch time! I knew if I walked out with a question like that hanging in the air, I could kiss M.I.T. goodbye. But add what? Without thinking, I told him a little about finding my Junior High padlock, and how I opened my other padlock to see if I could figure out how to open the first one.