Chapter 6: The First Couple of Months

Saturday, November 29, 2003 to Saturday, January 31, 2004

I had planned otherwise, but I started showing my apparently increased intelligence at school much more than I'd intended. It started with the teachers seeing that I was bored. They assumed my not paying attention was because I was misbehaving and they used the time-honored tactic of challenging me to answer a question about whatever they were currently talking about. I didn't have any reason to give deliberately incorrect answers, and I was surprisingly unwilling to act dumb on purpose, so I answered their challenges correctly.

I was also correctly answering their normal questions when called upon in class, doing better homework, and there were several tests near the end of the term which I got very high scores in because it's hard not to do really well in tests when there are two of you.

When I'd first gone to school after merging and discovered that school was easier, I'd thought that I'd got smarter. Then I'd thought my academic improvement was just because there were two of me, each no smarter than before. My opinion continued to fluctuate. My current thinking is that I'm probably a bit smarter, maybe 5%, or even 10% in the good subjects, but the large improvement my teachers and classmates have noticed is mostly from my having two minds, enabling us both to work on a problem or to work on twice as many problems in the same time. Being better at school was a somewhat quantifiable, as I could estimate the reduction of my study time and my grade improvements were obvious, but it was hard to decide how much of the improvement was from an increased IQ, if any.

My grades continued to improve as I discovered new ways to take advantage of having two minds. For example, my two minds could quiz each other while we were studying, looking for something that neither of us remembered or understood well. It was very hard to hide a gap in my knowledge from myself when he was trying to catch me out. The discovered gaps gave us very good indications on what we needed to study some more or ask the teacher about.

My grades also benefited to a minor degree from the effect that the more I mastered of a subject, the easier it was for me to master the rest of that subject. But the main reason my grades improved was because I stopped holding myself back. I'd done such a poor job of hiding most of my improvement, that hiding the rest of it was pointless. I was happy to stop being cautious, as I didn't like pretending to be dumb and I particularly disliked giving deliberately incorrect answers in tests. So it didn't take long for my teachers and classmates to notice that I was doing VERY well.

My Math teacher, Mr. Barrett, held me back after class one day, "Mark, I've noticed that you are understanding the course material very easily, and that the class doesn't seem to be a challenge to you anymore. Is that right?"

"Yes sir. The material seems much easier than it used to be."

"It's not because you learned this material somewhere else?" This was Mr. Barrett's first year at our school so he might've thought I'd done extra work last year, or transferred in from another school that'd already taught the current material, or something.

"No sir. I understand it better now. I'd noticed my improvement too, and checked it by reading ahead in our textbook. I understood most of it fairly easily, for the next five chapters or so. I'm also doing better in most of my other subjects too, although Math is the one that I seem to have improved in the most."

"Okay, I've seen this happen a few times before."

My attention LEAPED up at that. I had VERY DEFINITELY decided not to tell anyone what had happened to me, but it'd be great to find out that I wasn't unique.

Mr. Barrett explained, "Sometimes the IQ of young teenagers can suddenly increase with adolescence." He smiled when he added, "Although most teenagers seem to get stupider then. Brains go through a reorganization in much the same way as your bodies do. In your case it seems to have happened to good effect."

My attention level returned to normal. His explanation was wrong - leaving out important little details like dying and having two minds - but it was still good to know because I'd be able to use it in the future. It was a pity he hadn't known of my real situation and mentioned it as a known phenomenon, as it would be great to have other people I could talk with about it.

Mr. Barrett continued, "If you're finding the material so easy next term, I'll also give you material from next year's syllabus that you can work through at your own pace, including during class time if you wish. You can't ask me questions about the new material during class as that'd be unfair to the other students, but you can talk with me outside of class and I'll give you my email address too. Okay?"

"Yes sir, thanks very much."

"No problem. It's good to see a student enjoy math."

[Mr. Barrett didn't teach the next year's material as that was high school which had separate teachers, but when the new term started and I was still so good at math, he got the notes from a 9th grade Math teacher.]

Toward the end of the term, something similar happened in some of my other classes too (not English, obviously). I think the teachers must've had a little conference about me for most of them to copy Mr. Barrett so quickly. I was given the option of doing some extra material, maybe for extra credit. I was happy to agree, both to relieve the boredom, and to push myself to find out how much more capable I was.

By the time school finished for the calendar year, my teachers and classmates had noticed that I was much smarter. I had the bruises to prove it.

^

Writing how we tried to catch each other out with gaps in our knowledge reminds me of a little incident that's worth mentioning. My minds sometimes competed with each other for the fun of it, but we had a problem rewarding the winner. The usual types of reward wouldn't work: "Loser does the winner's chores" wasn't much of an incentive. We tried letting the winner run the body for a time, but that was usually pointless as we both wanted to do the same things and we usually forgot that only one of us was supposed to be in charge.

By now we totally trusted each other with our body, and both of us moved it as automatically as you move yours. I will mention that there was one major weirdness about our situation: our body would often be doing something that I (either of my two minds) hadn't made it do. Obviously my other mind was directing the body then. We'd long since stopped being surprised by that. Sometimes the other mind would request <Can I use of our body when you've finished with it?>, but more often it'd either mentally tell the other mind what it wanted done next, or it'd just wait until the other mind had finished and would then take over for a while. We'd never made an issue out of it because it didn't even need to be said that we should be polite and trust each other.

One day we were about to start a little competition about something and #2 said, <If I win I want to go and watch the TV program on the Hubble Telescope.>

#1 replied with, <Fair enough, if I win I want to go and talk with Carol.>

<You'd rather talk with Carol than see the Hubble?>

<Sure, Carol's nice and very pretty.>

<But she's our sister!>

<She's YOUR sister. Okay, I know she's sort of mine too, but somehow it feels different. Even though I can't identify a single difference between this Carol and my old one, in my mind I know they're different and that makes her more attractive to me.>

<Okay, but don't you do anything freaky.>

<I won't; she's still sister-ish. Regardless of my feeling different, she sure as shit isn't going to react well if our body did anything it shouldn't! If you want to think about how freaky things could get, imagine what would've happened if one of us was gay.>

<Oh wow. That would've really confused things wouldn't it?>

<It certainly would've. Luckily I think you've got excellent taste in girls.>

<That's not such an obvious joke because we do differ between Carol and Hubble. We aren't quite the same. It's good we mostly are, but the small differences make things interesting.>

We were more mentally similar than any other two people could be, but we weren't quite identical. We knew some different facts, probably because we'd forgotten different things, had some different preferences and some different mental skills. None of these differences were major, but they added an interesting aspect to our relationship that we were glad of. We thought it was better than if we'd been totally identical, not that anyone had ever offered us a choice.

The Christmas break from school isn't something I look forward to. It's cold, wet and we often get stuck indoors, which frequently leads to trouble with my little sisters. Carol's an indoor type of girl, so she's around a lot, which causes trouble. When Donna's stuck inside she quickly gets frustrated at not being able to run around outside, and that frustration causes her to be a pain in the ass. So both my sisters are a pain over the Christmas break.

Being the only boy and the eldest child, I always get grief from Mom: "You should know better, Mark. You're the eldest." Or, "You shouldn't pick on your sisters. You're much bigger than they are, so it's unfair and ungentlemanly." Etc., etc. I've been hearing it for years, and it'd gotten old when I was still young.

There's the Christmas thing itself of course, so there's some pleasantness for a day or so, but it quickly wears off. I think it's a silly superstition anyway. No one in our family believes some guy rose from the dead 2,000 years ago, and in the unbelievable event that he did, it's got nothing to do with us. Apparently - the Christians insist - he died for my sins. I have trouble seeing ANY logic in that piece of ridiculousness. In the event that his getting himself killed 2,000 years ago somehow has any effect on my sins now, he should've asked me first because I would've told him that they weren't worth the bother.

As it turned out, this Christmas was better than normal because I didn't fight with my sisters as much as I had the previous Christmases. My much greater awareness of the cost of being mean to people made me uninterested in participating in those 'games'. I was nice to them when we had to interact, otherwise I mostly enjoyed being alone with my other self. I did a lot of reading in my room, discussing the books with myself, who enjoyed talking about them just as much as I did.

By the time school restarted, my forearm scars had healed and faded so much they were inconspicuous, so I was back in PE.

I was doing better in all my school subjects, even in English, not that it mattered. Some were improving only a little: English improving by what felt like about 20% although putting a percentage value on the improvement in such a wishy-washy subject isn't easy, while I seemed more than twice as good as before at Math, although I wasn't sure how "more than twice" could be possible. I understood all the math material quickly and easily, had no trouble with any of the homework, never got an answer wrong, etc. Math was great for being good at because in math everything has a right answer, and when you knew it, you knew that you had it pegged. I was quickly working my way through next year's syllabus too. I enjoy mathematics, so I often worked on it in the evenings after finishing the rest of my homework. Homework barely took any time these days because I usually did it in the next class, and if there was any left at the end of the day, I did it at double speed at home. Mr. Barrett helped me with next year's material from time to time too, especially when the textbook's explanation was poor.

I was getting 100% in many of my quizzes in many subjects. Quiz techniques: each mind separately works out the answer, we compare our results, and write it down only if we agree. Or we leapfrog through the questions, taking turns to write down the answers like we did in Minesweeper (I kept finding ways to improve my life based on lessons I'd learned from Minesweeper. Who'd have thought that Minesweeper was a life-enhancing game?). Getting 100% on quizzes was actually quite easy, provided the subject was one that had right answers, as opposed to whatever the teacher's opinion was on the day. Guessing the English teacher's opinion wasn't easy, as anyone who chooses to teach English obviously thinks weirdly.

Toward the end of January, I decided that I wanted to accelerate my school education. I was so much smarter (effectively if not in fact), and my school results were so good that staying in my grade was holding myself back. It was VERY boring, and I wasn't having any trouble with the extra work some of my teachers were giving me. Advancing out of middle school into high school would also have the considerable advantage of getting me out of the reach of most of the bullies who were making my life even more of a misery since I became someone that needed to be punished for becoming a smart-ass.

So I talked to several of my teachers about it, and they encouraged me to seek "advancement" [[which is what this dimension calls skipping a grade. I'm now aware that other dimensions use different phrases]]. They could see that I was easily capable of handling the material, but said that there were two problems: First, my history was that of an average student, so it would be hard to convince the school administrators that I was smart enough now. Second, I was told that this school was reluctant to allow students to skip grades in high school because they thought all the final years were too important to skip any. I was 8th grade, the last middle-school grade, so if I didn't advance now I'd probably never be allowed to. I had to act quickly.

I raised the issue with my family at the dinner table. "Mom, Dad, I've got something serious that I want to talk about."

Mom inquired, "Oh?"

"I've been doing really well at school recently. And I mean REALLY well. Mr. Barrett, my Math teacher, told me that sometimes a teenager can suddenly get smarter when his brain changes as part of adolescence. It seems mine did that a couple of months ago. Mr. Barrett has been giving me next year's material, including all their assignments, and I'm killing it. I've done two or three months of their work already, as well as doing this year's work too of course. I'm better in all my subjects, especially the science subjects but even in English. It's a bit early to be sure yet, but I think I'll finish the year as the school's top student in my grade."

That last statement grabbed Mom's and Dad's attention. In all my previous years at school, I'd done okay, but only "okay"; on average averaging a little above average (you can tell that I'm good at math), so my claim seemed ridiculous. Mom and Dad had received some warning as a few times in the last month they'd asked me what grade I got on an assignment they'd previously seen me working on, but they had no idea of the big picture: that all my grades, for everything, had leaped up. Small leaps in a couple of cases, but still upward.

With skepticism on Mom's face, "I'm glad you think you're doing well, but don't you think you are being too hopeful?"

To my considerable surprise, Carol answered, "He's not. I've got some of the same teachers and they've made comments to me, and some of my friends have brothers or sisters in his class and they've talked too. He is doing extremely well these days. From what I've heard, if he keeps it up he does have a shot at being top student for his grade."

Mom, still looking skeptical, "But I haven't seen you working any harder than normal, Mark?"

"That's the point, I don't have to work harder; I'm doing better because I'm smarter."

"Okay. I hope you're right. It'd be great. Let's see what happens."

"I brought the subject up for a reason. I want to have a meeting with the school about my advancing a grade. If I wait too long it'll be too hard to change, so I want to do it now. I've talked to my teachers and they'll support me, so now I need your help to talk with the administration. Okay?"

"You've caught us unprepared. If we have to support you at school, we need to know more about how you're doing."

"I'll get some of my teachers and the guidance counselor to call here to tell you about it over the next few evenings. How does that sound?"

"That sounds like a good idea. You do that."

"You know I've got Mr. Barrett's home number. If I call him after dinner you can talk with him this evening. His class is the one I'm doing best in and he's the one who has given me the most help since I started doing really well at school."

They agreed, and we went back to our dinner.

When the dishes were done, I called Mr. Barrett. I explained that I was going to ask the teachers to bring my parents up to speed so they could support my request to be advanced a grade, and I was starting with him because I had his number. I was doing so much advanced work and he'd encouraged my success by offering his home phone number, with the painstaking crap that went with the need to avoid ridiculous accusations.

He was happy to talk with my mom.

I'd already had several one-on-one conversations with Mr. Barrett about my math ability, how well I was doing, etc., so I didn't need to listen to Mom's half of the conversation and it would've felt awkward to hang around the kitchen (where the phone was), so I went to the girls' bedroom, knocked, and entered after, "Come."

"Carol, I just wanted to thank you for backing me up with Mom at dinner."

"No problem." she said. "Happy to help."

"How come, you didn't used to like helping me?"

"You've changed. You're nicer now," accompanied by a smile. "I'm glad to see you succeeding at school."

"Well thanks again. You surprised me and I appreciate it."

Then I killed some time watching TV in the living room.

After several minutes Mom came into the living room and told me, "Mr. Barrett is certainly in favor of your being advanced. He says that if you continue as you have been, you'll probably be the best Math student he's ever seen. That's impressive."

"Yeah, but remember that Math is my best subject. I'm not as good at the others."

"By the sounds of it, even if you were no good at any of the others you'd still have a great career ahead of you in mathematics. You're doing well. I hope you keep it up."

"I intend to. I was lucky this happened to me," (I'd calculated "this" had happened with a 1-in-10,000,000,000,000,000 chance, so calling it "lucky" was the understatement of the year!) "and I intend to make the best of it."

The next day at school I gave my teachers my phone number and asked them to call and talk with my mom. Over the next couple of evenings most of them and the counselor did. It was somewhat repetitious for Mom, as they all said much the same thing, although the counselor was noncommittal.

A few days later we had a meeting between the school Principal (he thought he deserved a capital "P", like God), the middle-school guidance counselor, Mom and me. Mr. Barrett, being a nice guy, also sat in. Our school is a combined middle- and high-school. Each has their own Deputy Principal, but we were meeting with the Top Dog. I never bothered to ask why, but maybe it was because Mom had rung him first, or because I'd be jumping from one school to the other.

We discussed my situation.

The Principal was cautious, not wanting to let me jump ahead, "for Mark's own good". My improvement had been too recent, and he wasn't convinced enough. He preferred to wait a few more months to make sure.