"It'll really tell you how smart I am?"
«Uh-huh."
He grabbed for the book and a pencil.
"Wait a minute — let me set the timer. Okay? Now once you start, you can't stop. You have to go all the way through to the end. Okay?"
"Okay."
«Ready?"
«Ready."
"One, two, three… go."
He attacked the first three puzzles with a vengeance. They were simple. Pick the next shape in a series: triangle, square, pentagon…? Which object doesn't belong: horse, cow, sheep, scissors? Feather is to Bird as Fur is to: dog, automobile, ice cream…?
Then the puzzles started getting harder and he started to frown. He brushed his hair out of his eyes and once he stopped to clean his glasses; but he stayed interested and involved and when the timer went off, he didn't want to stop. He insisted that he be allowed to finish the puzzle he was working on. What the hell. I let him.
"What does it say?" Dennis asked as I computed the percentile. He wanted to grab the test book out of my hand.
"Well… let me finish here. " I held it out of his reach as I checked the table of percentiles.
The test showed that he had above-average intelligence — not unexpected; hyperactive kids tend to be brighter than average — but well within the normal range for a nine-year-old. "It says that you are fifty-two inches high, that you weigh sixty-six pounds, and that your daddy loves you very much. It also says that you are very smart."
"How smart?"
"Well, if this test were given to one hundred children, you would be smarter than ninety-two of them."
"How good is that?"
"That's very good. You can't get much better. And it means we should go out for ice cream after dinner. What do you think?"
«Yeah!"
Oh, that was another thing. He didn't like chocolate. He preferred rainbow sherbet. I'd never seen that in a kid before.
A couple of weeks later, we played another game. I made sure to pick a quiet evening, one with no distractions. "This game is even harder," I explained. "It's a kind of card game," I explained. "See these cards? There are six different shapes here. A circle, a square, a star, three squiggly lines, a cross, and a figure-eight. All you have to do is guess which one I'm looking at. See if you can read my mind, okay?"
He frowned at me, and I had to explain it two or three more times. This was not a game he wanted to play. I said okay and started to put the deck away. If he didn't want to cooperate, the results would be inconclusive. "Can we go for ice cream after we do this?" he asked abruptly.
"Sure," I said.
"Okay, let's do it then."
"All night. We have to do it five times. Do you think you can do it that many times?"
He shrugged. I laid out a paper in front of him, showing him the shapes so he would be able remember them all. I told him he could close his eyes if it would help him concentrate. The test conditions were less than perfect, but if there were any precognitive or telepathic powers present, five trials should be enough to demonstrate them.
Half an hour later, I knew.
Martians aren't telepathic.
But they do like rainbow sherbet. A lot.
There were other tests. Not many. Not anything too weird. Just little ones that might indicate if there was something worth further investigation. There wasn't. As near as I could determine, there was nothing so unusual about Dennis that it would register as a statistical anomaly in a repeatable testable circumstance. He couldn't levitate. He couldn't move objects. He couldn't make things disappear. He didn't know how to grok. He could only hold his breath for thirty-three seconds. He couldn't think muscles. He couldn't see around comers.
But —
He could predict elevators. Take him into any building, anywhere. Take him to the elevator bank. Let him push the up button. Don't say a word. Without fail, the door he stands in front of will be the one where the first elevator arrives. Was he wishing them or predicting them? I don't know. It's useful only at science fiction conventions, which are legendary for recalcitrant elevators. It has little value anywhere else in the world.
He could make stop lights turn green — sometimes. Mostly, he waited until he saw the lights for the cross street turn yellow before he announced his wish. Maybe he could still make the Dodgers score four runs in two innings — but it wasn't consistent. We went back to Dodger Stadium in May, and either Dennis wasn't wishing or he really had used up all his wishes.
He could sing with perfect pitch, especially if the lyrics were about Popeye's gastrointestinal distress. He could play a video game for four hours straight without food or water. He could invent an amazing number of excuses for not staying in bed. He could also hug my neck so hard that once I felt a warning crack in my trachea. My throat hurt for a week afterward.
I began to think that maybe I had imagined the whole thing.
On school nights, I tucked him in at 9:30. We had a whole ritual. If there was time, we read a storybook together; whatever was appropriate. Afterward, prayers —
"I'm sorry God for… I didn't do anything to be sorry for."
"How about sassing your dad? Remember you had to take a timeout?"
"Oh, yeah. I'm sorry God for sassing my dad. Thank you God for… um, I can't think of anything."
"Going swimming."
"No. Thank you God for Calvin, my cat."
"Good. Anything else you want to say to God?"
"Does God hear the prayers of Martians?"
"Uh… of course he does. God hears everybody's prayers."
"Not Martians."
"Yes, even Martians."
"Uh-uh."
"Why do you say no?"
"Because God didn't make any Martians."
"If God didn't make the Martians, then who did?"
"The devil."
"Did the devil make you?"
"Uh-huh."
"How do you know?"
"Because… I'm a Martian."
"Mm," I said, remembering a little speech I'd made just about a year ago. Let it be all right for him to be a Martian for as long as he needs to be. "All right," I said. "But let me tell you a secret," I whispered. "The devil didn't make any Martians. That's just a lie the devil wants you to believe. God made the Martians."
«Really?"
"Cross my heart and hope to die. Stick a noodle in my eye."
"How do you know?" He was very insistent.
"Because I talk to God every night," I said. "Just like you, I say my prayers. And God made everything in the world."
"But Martians aren't from this world —"
"That's night. But God made Mars too. And everything on it. Just like she made this world, she made a whole bunch of others, and Mars was one of them. Honest."
"How come you say 'she' when you talk about God?"
"Because sometimes God is female and sometimes God is male. God is everything. And now it's time for you to stop asking questions and go to sleep. Hugs and kisses —?"