Chapter 9

My big problem was that Jace was so far ahead of the other kids that his mere presence in the class was a disturbing factor. Jace was facing the problem with all of the aplomb of a young kid: he ignored the other kids off the face of the Earth. Jace made no real friends at school because they feared him. He never did anything to them, but the fact that he was so far ahead of them, both mentally and emotionally, that they just could not relax in his presence.

After about three weeks in kindergarten, Jace was moved to the first grade. At last, Jace had something that he could learn because he knew as little about math as did any of the other kids. Jace simply had not had an occasion to learn much about numbers. Jace applied himself and learned all there was to learn from first grade math in the first month that he was there. Jace was working on multiplication and division by the time school was shut down for the summer.

Now that he had been exposed to math, Jace was determined to learn as much as he could on the subject. By the time he started in second grade, Jace was ready for algebra. With all of her other duties, his teacher just could not keep up with Jace. The school principal called me and Jace's teacher into a conference. The result of the conference was that I was to take over home schooling of Jace.

This elementary school was just not equipped to cope with someone who learned as quickly as Jace. His second grade teacher confessed that she could not remember enough algebra to keep up with what Jace now knew, much less the geometry and trig that Jace was now ready for. Well, his father was going to have to handle that because I only learned enough of those two branches of mathematics to satisfy the teacher. At least, Bud knew more on those subjects than Jace did.

Meanwhile, I was coping with Ann. She was learning from Jace as quickly as they could transfer knowledge by mental contact. At this point, elementary school was totally wasted on her, and she was not even old enough to enter kindergarten! I contacted the school and explained the problem. Ann went in for an evaluation, and she proved to be as well educated as Jace. Okay, now both children were officially to be home schooled.

Now, Bud and I worried about how our two children were going to learn the social skills that were as important as the stuff formally taught in school. We finally came to the conclusion that the kids were going to spend every afternoon after normal school hours in the most popular park in town. That, at least, would let them have some contact with kids their age, and many of the kids would not know the level of intelligence of either child. Hopefully, this was going to work.

Both children were learning at what most people would consider an impossible rate. By the time he was 10, Jace had reached college level. Ann was there at 8 simply because she was absorbing mentally from Jace. There was no question that both children were geniuses, and Bud and I were simply in awe of what they could do. We had no idea of their potential: all we knew was that they had to be the smartest people in the world. All they needed was the experience of living.

We were afraid to send them to a normal college because of the insurmountable age differences between our two children and the people they would have to contend with. We decided to dodge the issue by giving each one the latest in computer technology and turning them loose on the internet. We certainly were not concerned about the amount of sex to be found on the internet because they had been living with it for their whole life. We were a little concerned about the violence to be found on TV, but they would have to cope with that in a few years, anyway. Therefore, we gave them free rein to do whatever they wanted with TV and their computers.

One thing that amused me was that Ann took it upon herself to correct the errors that she could find in the Wikipedia articles. She could research two or three articles a day and submit the corrections. Her changes were almost always accepted. Furthermore, she began to write her own articles for Wikipedia. Almost all of her research was done on the internet, but she did make regular trips to the library for additional references. She even went into the University library in Burlington when she had a really obscure point that she wanted to clear up. I enjoyed taking her there because of the consternation she caused to the librarians over some of the source books she asked for. Imagine a 10-year-old girl asking for a specific book on quantum mechanics or the Kama Sutra!

On the other hand, Jace suddenly developed an all-consuming interest in the martial arts. He was especially attracted to Kung Fu and stick fighting. He was not interested in the rituals and formalities that go with Kung Fu, he just wanted to know how to attack and to defend himself. He had some trouble finding someone to teach him what he wanted to know, and he was too young to be taken seriously. As usual, Hank had the solution: he found a private tutor for Kung Fu.

Mr. Wu agreed to teach what Jace wanted to know and to skip the rest. As soon as she heard what Jace was doing, Ann wanted to join the classes. Mr. Wu was a little bit dubious of Ann's true interest, but for the money he was being paid, he could afford to give her a chance. Both children learned so fast that Mr. Wu worked himself out of a job in six months. He had to admit that the children had been the best students that he had ever encountered and predicted that both of them could become World Champions in Kung Fu as soon as they were old enough to compete, provided only that they continued to practice with each other.

The stick fighting problem was pretty much the same. None of the regular dojos would take Jace seriously, so Hank was pressed into service to find a tutor. It took a little longer this time, but he finally came up with a recommendation. Mr. Johnson initially reacted as Mr. Wu had, but he changed his mind once he had his first session with the two kids. This time, it only took four months before both children were of championship quality with their sticks. The Kung Fu experience was a tremendous help.

By the end of the year, both Jace and Ann could take on anyone who was not a champion and win in either discipline. The problem was the much larger size of the adult champions that they would be facing. Fortunately, both of them realized their limitations as to size and strength, so both went on a campaign to build up their strength. They had not yet figured out what to do about their size.

Both kids had gotten a GED certificate and were now taking college courses on the internet. I was a little surprised that Jace was concentrating on criminal psychology and Ann was concentrating on business management. Finally, my curiosity would not leave me alone, and I asked Jace the reason for his deep interest in criminal psychology. His answer floored me: he was preparing himself to be a modern day Sherlock Holmes!

Ann chimed in with the statement that she would be Jace's Dr. Watson. They both had been profoundly affected about some things they had read on the internet and in the library about human trafficking. People think of the Arabian part of the Near East as being the place where slaves are still being bought, sold, and used. But there is a significant market in North America in children, especially, as sex slaves. It was their intent to do whatever they could to break up the trade in children.

I was flabbergasted when Jace finished talking. This was MY children preparing themselves to be what amounted to superheros. He was currently 12, almost 13, and Ann was only 9. I couldn't argue with them that this was a job that needed to be done, but was it a job for MY CHILDREN? They made me intensely proud of them, but I wondered if they realized how much danger they would be facing. I doubted it, but they seemed to be ready to give it a try. I was well aware of how futile it would be to try to talk them out of this goal, but I also wondered if the plan was sufficiently heartfelt to carry them through until they were old enough to carry out the plan.

I didn't know, and none of the other adults in the house could answer the question, but we all agreed to help the kids realize their dream as long as it carried them. Bud did point out that they would need to be able to use guns if they were serious. Yes, the kids answered, but they figured that they needed to wait before they asked for that training.

Actually, what they wanted were not conventional guns, but air guns. The art of making an automatic pistol which used compressed air as the propellant was well advanced. What they had in mind was a pistol with selective fully automatic or semiautomatic fire in something on the order of .45 to .50 caliber. Jace had studied the problem and had come to the conclusion that such a weapon would have tremendous stopping power at short range, but would not have enough range to endanger innocent bystanders.