“We have prodigies here,” Greer said. “In fact, I’d rate well over fifty per cent of the Brod’s student body as prodigies. But they are limited. Luke is different, because Luke is global. It isn’t one thing; it’s everything. I don’t think he’ll ever play professional baseball or basketball—”
“If he takes after my side of the family, he’ll be too short for pro basketball.” Herb was smiling. “Unless he’s the next Spud Webb, that is.”
“Hush,” Eileen said.
“But he plays with enthusiasm,” Greer continued. “He enjoys it, doesn’t consider it wasted time. He’s no klutz on the athletic field. He gets along fine with his mates. He’s not introverted or emotionally dysfunctional in any way. Luke is your basic moderately cool American kid wearing rock band tees and his cap around backward. He might not be that cool in an ordinary school—the daily trudge might drive him crazy—but I think even there he’d be okay; he’d just pursue his studies on his own.” He added hastily: “Not that you’d want to road-test that.”
“No, we’re happy with him here,” Eileen said. “Very. And we know he’s a good kid. We love him like crazy.”
“And he loves you. I’ve had several conversations with Luke, and he makes that crystal clear. To find a child this brilliant is extremely rare. To find one who’s also well-adjusted and well-grounded—who sees the outward world as well as the one inside his own head—is even rarer.”
“If nothing’s wrong, why are we here?” Herb asked. “Not that I mind hearing you sing my kid’s praises, don’t get that idea. And by the way, I can still beat his ass at HORSE, although he’s got a decent hook shot.”
Greer leaned back in his chair. The smile disappeared. “You’re here because we’re reaching the end of what we can do for Luke, and he knows it. He’s expressed an interest in doing rather unique college work. He would like to major in engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, and in English at Emerson, across the river in Boston.”
“What?” Eileen asked. “At the same time?”
“Yes.”
“What about the SATs?” It was all Eileen could think of to say.
“He’ll take them next month, in May. At North Community High. And he’ll knock the roof off those tests.”
I’ll have to pack him a lunch, she thought. She had heard the cafeteria food at North Comm was awful.
After a moment of stunned silence, Herb said, “Mr. Greer, our boy is twelve. In fact, he just turned twelve last month. He may have the inside dope on Serbia, but he won’t even be able to raise a mustache for another three years. You… this…”
“I understand how you feel, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation if my colleagues in guidance and the rest of the faculty didn’t believe he was academically, socially, and emotionally capable of doing the work. And yes, at both campuses.”
Eileen said, “I’m not sending a twelve-year-old halfway across the country to live among college kids old enough to drink and go to the clubs. If he had relatives he could stay with, that might be different, but…”
Greer was nodding along with her. “I understand, couldn’t agree more, and Luke knows he’s not ready to be on his own, even in a supervised environment. He’s very clear-headed about that. Yet he’s becoming frustrated and unhappy with his current situation, because he’s hungry to learn. Famished, in fact. I don’t know what fabulous gadgetry is in his head—none of us do, probably old Flint came closest when he talked about Jesus teaching the elders—but when I try to visualize it, I think of a huge, gleaming machine that’s running at only two per cent of its capacity. Five per cent at the very most. But because this is a human machine, he feels… hungry.”
“Frustrated and unhappy?” Herb said. “Huh. We don’t see that side of him.”
I do, Eileen thought. Not all the time, but sometimes. Yes. That’s when the plates rattle or the doors shut by themselves.
She thought of Greer’s huge, gleaming machine, something big enough to fill three or even four buildings the size of warehouses, and working at doing what, exactly? No more than making paper cups or stamping out aluminum fast food trays. They owed him more, but did they owe him this?
“What about the University of Minnesota?” she asked. “Or Concordia, in St. Paul? If he went to one of those places, he could live at home.”
Greer sighed. “You might as well consider taking him out of the Brod and putting him in an ordinary high school. We’re talking about a boy for whom the IQ scale is useless. He knows where he wants to go. He knows what he needs.”
“I don’t know what we can do about it,” Eileen said. “He might be able to get scholarships to those places, but we work here. And we’re far from rich.”
“Well now, let’s talk about that,” Greer said.
2
When Herb and Eileen returned to the school that afternoon, Luke was jiving around in front of the pick-up lane with four other kids, two boys and two girls. They were laughing and talking animatedly. To Eileen they looked like kids anywhere, the girls in skirts and leggings, their bosoms just beginning to bloom, Luke and his friend Rolf in baggy cords—this year’s fashion statement for young men—and t-tops. Rolf’s read BEER IS FOR BEGINNERS. He had his cello in its quilted case and appeared to be pole-dancing around it as he held forth on something that might have been the spring dance or the Pythagorean theorem.
Luke saw his parents, paused long enough to dap Rolf, then grabbed his backpack and dove into the backseat of Eileen’s 4Runner. “Both Ps,” he said. “Excellent. To what do I owe this extraordinary honor?”
“Do you really want to go to school in Boston?” Herb asked.
Luke was not discomposed; he laughed and punched both fists in the air. “Yes! Can I?”
Like asking if he can spend Friday night at Rolf’s house, Eileen marveled. She thought of how Greer had expressed what their son had. He’d called it global, and that was the perfect word. Luke was a genius who had somehow not been distorted by his own outsized intellect; he had absolutely no compunctions about mounting his skateboard and riding his one-in-a-billion brain down a steep sidewalk, hellbent for election.
“Let’s get some early supper and talk about it,” she said.
“Rocket Pizza!” Luke exclaimed. “How about it? Assuming you took your Prilosec, Dad. Did you?”
“Oh, believe me, after today’s meeting, I’m totally current on that.”
3
They got a large pepperoni and Luke demolished half all by himself, along with three glasses of Coke from the jumbo pitcher, leaving his parents to marvel at the kid’s digestive tract and bladder as well as his mind. Luke explained that he had talked to Mr. Greer first because “I didn’t want to freak you guys out. It was your basic exploratory conversation.”
“Putting it out to see if the cat would take it,” Herb said.
“Right. Running it up the flagpole to see who’d salute it. Sticking it on the five-fifteen to see if it gets off at Edina. Throwing it against the wall to see how much—”
“Enough. He explained how we might be able to come with you.”
“You have to,” Luke said earnestly. “I’m too young to be without my exalted and revered mater and pater. Also…” He looked at them from across the ruins of the pizza. “I couldn’t work. I’d miss you guys too much.”
Eileen instructed her eyes not to fill, but of course they did. Herb handed her a napkin. She said, “Mr. Greer… um… laid out a scenario, I guess you might say… where we could possibly… well…”