Reversal

Chapter 51 Exceptional

"Alan? The most popular?" Raising her eyebrows in astonishment, Eva looked doubtfully at Christian.

"I'm not too sure, I just overheard him in passing, I don't spend my time on nonsense" Shrugging, Christian stepped forward "See you, I'm going to the library."

"..." Staring at the boy's back, Eva sighed and turned to her daughter "Really Alan is the most popular? He never told me that."

"The truth is yes, but everyone always talks about big brother" Hailie whispered, looking exaggeratedly every which way, afraid of being overheard "I'll let you in on a secret mom come closer"

"...?" With hesitation, Eva bends down to bring her ear closer to the girl.

"A while ago Christian hit a boy, a lot of people saw it and now everyone is afraid of him, essentially the children" Hailie whispered.

"Your brother fought again?" frowning, Eva asked.

"It's a long story mom, but in short there were girls and 1 boy bothering us on the way out of school, I protected my brother from the girls so they wouldn't bother my brother, but there was a very annoying boy... there came Christian and kicked him really awesome in the chest!" Hailie raised her voice a little, not forgetting to praise herself for her bravery that day.

"You protected your brother from the girls?" Raising her eyebrows, Eva stared into her daughter's eyes.

"Yes, mom!" nodded Hailie strongly.

"Hahaha~" Laughed Eva loudly, then patting her daughter's head "That's my girl!"

"Hehe~" Smiling happily, Hailie narrowed her eyes in delight.

"When we get back home I'll keep teaching you how to box, got it?"

"Yes, mom!"

...

Looking at each other, Principal Smith raises her eyebrows and asks "What brings you to my office, Eva?"

"I need your help" Collapsing into the chair, Eva sighs.

"What's wrong, you look tired" Settling back in the chair knowing it's not a school thing, the principal smiles.

"It's about Christian, I don't know what to do with him anymore..."

"Did something happen?"

"A lot of things happened" Eva whispers wearily.

"I hear you

"I... *sigh* I underestimated my child's intelligence"

"Oh... tell me more"

"Start by watching this" Pulling out her cell phone, Eva goes into gallery and selects a video.

"*Piano sound*"

After a few minutes, Principal Smith wipes away the tear that escaped her eye and speaks "It's a nice sonata...how long have you been playing the piano?"

"It was his first time with one..."

"..." Unable to process what she heard, the director leans on her desk and asks again "I'm sorry I didn't hear well, how long have you played piano?"

"That was his first day..." Eva murmured, looking fondly at the boy on her cell phone "I bought him a piano for Christmas, he plugged it in, played each key for a few seconds and... He played that melody out of nowhere."

"You're telling me he learned to play the piano in seconds? That's impossible, the middle melody was too fast for a novice, let alone playing a full sonata without practice... speaking of sonata, where did he learn it from, I've never heard it before"

"*Sigh* I tell you the reality, my kid had never played a piano before... I gave it to him because I always liked to listen to it, I also thought that when he's older and I get my drums back we could play together... and about the sonata, I don't know... I asked my boss who is an old lady and listens to all this kind of classical music, but she had never heard it before."

"..."

"But that's not all, look at this video" Switching the video, Eva turns the cell phone around and shows it to the director.

"I bought him one of those Rubik's cubes, a friend told me Christian might like it... I messed it up for him to do... he looked at it for 4 seconds and put it together in 7, after that he never used it again because he found it boring"

"..."

"Watch this other video..." Switching the video again, Eva turns the cell phone "I bought him a puzzle with thousands of pieces... he put it together in 20 minutes, after that he put it aside because he found it boring."

"..."

"*Sigh* That's not all either" Changing the video, Eva turns the cell phone "One day I passed outside Christian's room and found him speaking Japanese... so I bought him one of those CDs and a portable mini player so he could learn everything he wanted... I bought him 15 discs with 10 different languages... that was about 2 weeks ago, now he can speak 8 languages... when he learned another language he came to my room to tell me and talk to me in that language... I just congratulate him and he leaves happy... 3 days later he came again, he learned to speak Portuguese.... 2 days later he came back, he learned to speak Spanish... one day later he learned to speak Greek... another day later, he learned to speak Latin and the next day he learned Italian... after that, I didn't see him with the records, but today in the morning he was already with them, I wouldn't be surprised if in the afternoon he tells me that he learned another language"

In the video you could see and hear Christian speaking in 8 languages, happily looking at the camera.

"..."

"*Sigh* But that's not all..." With even more tiredness, Eva changes the videos to images and passes the cell phone to the director "Move the pictures... all those drawings were made by my boy... I bought him paints to make from those drawings that are in museums, but he said he wanted to learn how to paint first because according to him it was something very different, so I don't know how he will be at that"

Moving the photos around, the director sees drawings made with graphite pencil of different people, easily recognizing Eva and her children in the drawings, being even more amazed by the high quality of each one.

Looking up in a daze, the director asks "Th-that's it?"

"*Sigh* I wish it was everything" Grabbing her backpack, Eva opens it and pulls out a book with a magazine "My published son his own book... it even appeared in the papers"

Taking the book with trembling hands, the headmistress looks dazedly at the cover, instantly finding the publisher on it, confirming that the boy did indeed publish a book and it's not something printed by Eva.

Turning her gaze, she picks up the newspaper and reads the highlighted article, where they talk about a new up-and-coming writer and his fantastic novel idea.

"Don't tell anyone that this person is Christian, the publisher asked him to publish under a pseudonym to avoid certain problems"

Nodding dazedly, the headmistress murmured "So he really did write a book... when he didn't bring me advance of his book I didn't bother him, since the library manager confirmed to me that he always studies... his grades are all in 10's... even Emily raised her grades a lot"

"And he is not the only one, the other day he asked me to patent 40 more books for him... they will all be reviewed by the publisher to publish them... the most impressive thing of all is that they are paying him... with that book they gave him an advance of 2000 dollars... according to Christian in a few days more money will come in since they sold all the copies they printed"

"..."

"I... I don't know what to do anymore" Eva murmured bitterly "I try to help to develop Christian's intelligence, but everything he does as if nothing... I never found something that could give him a challenge or something similar"

"..."

Looking up, Eva spoke hopefully "Elder, I need your help... do you have any ideas? I want my child to further develop his potential, it's the best thing for him."

"..." Rubbing her temples, the director spoke "Give me a minute, it's a lot to process."

"..."

"Well, I think I understand everything" After a few seconds, the director spoke, leaning back in her chair "You're telling me that you found out that Christian is not a genius, but a super genius, right?"

"Yes, something like that."

"And you came to me to see if I had any ideas that would help Christian, right?"

"*Sigh* Yeah."

"..." Thinking for a moment, the headmistress sighs "I've never seen or heard of similar cases before... yes I had heard of child geniuses who can do amazing things, but everything Christian has done so far is something out of the norm for the title 'genius'"

"..."

"I honestly have no idea how to help you, other than advising you to always buy instruments or tools to help him think, the way I see it, everything you've done so far is fine.... you don't repress him in what he wants, you support him in his ideas, you even encourage him to learn new things" spoke the director, and then she smiled and looked Eva in the eyes "You have done a great job Eva, there are few mothers like you"

"Really?"

"Obviously" Smiled the director.

"*Sigh* Well..." Nodded Eva with relief "So you don't have anything that could help Christian?"

Pursing her lips, Mrs. Smith thought for a moment, then picked up her cell phone and dialed a number "Brother, I need you at my school"

"I'm on vacation woman, respect my time off" An angry voice was heard on the other end of the cell phone, causing Mrs. Smith to smile.

"It's an exceptional case Jordan, I have a special child at school"

"What's so special about that child?"

"It takes him 1 day to learn to speak a new language."

"Now that's special..." murmured the man on the other end of the cell phone "Are you sure about that?"

"Yes, but it's not just that Jordan, that kid learned to play the piano in a day, he's a rising writer at a publishing house, he put together his first Rubik's cube in seconds, he speaks 8 languages, he can even draw like a freaking artist"

"Wow, now that's an exceptional case... how old is the kid?"

"9"

"Well... that's ultra exceptional" Murmured the man "And that kid studies at your school?"

"Yes"

"Wow...who knew a kid like that would come out of your school"

"I don't forget how much you were eating your boogers Jordan."

"That was a long time ago!"

"You were 25 years old"

"Never mind, it's been 10 years of that, you shouldn't remember!"

"..." Looking at the mocking face of the headmistress, Eva smiled wistfully, remembering her sisters she hasn't seen in a while 'How are those two stupid ones? I think I miss them...'

Staring dazedly into nothingness, Eva looked down and looked at the smiling picture of her child, then smiled 'But I have my responsibility... we'll see each other sometime'

'So you'll come now? Well we'll wait for you... yes, the boy's mother is with me... well, see you later" Putting the cell phone aside, Mrs. Smith sighed "Let me explain the situation to you"

Nodding, Eva looked at the director with raised eyebrows.

"My brother works at Mensa, do you locate that name?"

"No"

"It's a worldwide organization, it's dedicated to finding young geniuses within the whole world, the only requirement is that your intelligence exceeds 98% of the population... you should understand how hard it is to get in"

"..." Raising her eyebrows, Eva asks doubtfully "Does such a thing really exist?"

"Yes, the truth is that the institution has been around for a long time, I don't know exactly when, but I think I heard it was around 1940 in England."

"..." Furrowing her eyebrows a little, Eva asks with concern "And do you think my child will be able to get in? I don't want him to be sad if he gets rejected..."

"You're not sure of your child's intelligence?" Raising her eyebrows, Mrs. Smith asks.

"Of course I am, I know my child is the best, but to be better than 98% of the population...that's a pretty tough thing to do"

"Don't worry, if Christian could do everything he can do with ease, these tests will be nothing to him"

"..." Frowning a little, Eva sighed as she pulled out her cell phone "If so I'll stay to see him, I'll call my boss to let her know I'll be a little late"