Nervous System (The System Series Book 1) Read online

  NERVOUS SYSTEM

  Andrea Ring

  I haven’t cured cancer or invented some new high-tech gadget. I haven’t started a business, or led a revolution. I mean, I’m only six. I know a lot of stuff, sure. I’d probably do okay on an IQ test. But genius needs to be demonstrated, not tested.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  FAQs

  Book Excerpt

  Systematic

  Dedication

  About the Author

  Copyright Page

  Chapter One

  Sometimes I get distracted.

  I’m sniffing the eraser on the end of my pencil. It has a sweet, gummy scent, untainted by graphite, factory fresh. The pencil itself is only about three inches long, used for eight school days now, and sharpened to a near-perfect point each morning when I enter the classroom and hone it with the electric sharpener on Mrs. Gardener’s desk. I am the only student she allows to use the sharpener without asking her first.

  The smell reminds me of the first time Mom taught me to hold a pencil and write my name. I sniffed the eraser then, too, but that time I also chewed it. I don’t recommend doing that. Erasers have no taste.

  Abbey scents my moments of distraction like a mosquito scenting sweet flesh. She goes in for the sting before I can swat her, grabbing the red crayon on my desk and throwing it at my head. She’s only a foot away from me, but I duck smoothly, and the crayon sails into the dry erase board on the wall behind me, landing in the metal tray beneath it with a ping. Abbey giggles while I scowl at her.

  “Abigail!” Mrs. Gardener says sharply. “We do not throw things in class. Move your clothespin to blue, please. You‘ll have to miss recess.”

  Thank God the little heathen is missing recess. Maybe I’ll try to get in a game of handball. As long as she isn’t there to torture me, the other kids will probably let me play.

  “Here you go, Thomas.” Mrs. Gardener stands over me, holding out my red crayon. I take it from her with a small smile.

  “You know, when people tease us, it’s only because they like us a lot and don’t know how to tell us.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. G,” I whisper, “but sometimes a bully is just a bully.”

  I hear her sigh.

  I place my pencil neatly inside my pencil box, snap it shut, and place the box in my desk. I bend back over my worksheet and continue to color all the pictures of things that begin with the letter “R” in red.

  Chapter Two

  It’s my turn to bring a book to school to share. I have to read it out loud.

  Unable—or maybe unwilling—to make a choice, I run my hands back over the books on my shelf. Foundation, Friday, Neuromancer, Misery, Odd Thomas, Dune, all of Tolkien’s works. I know that none of them are appropriate. I need Dr. Seuss, but the closest thing I have is J.K. Rowling.

  Where the hell (language!) are all the children’s books? I know I didn’t come out of the womb reading Heinlein and Herbert.

  I follow the sound of music into the kitchen. Mom kneels before the open fridge, swiping out one of the drawers with a sponge. Depeche Mode’s “Just Can’t Get Enough” plays softly enough from her iPod dock on the counter that I can hear Mom’s pitchy hums clearly. I stand behind her and belt out the lyrics.

  Mom startles and clutches her chest.

  I laugh. “Where are all my children’s books?”

  “All your books are on your bookshelf,” she says, going back to her wiping.

  Depeche Mode tells me I’m a rainbow. “No, I mean books for kids. Young readers.”

  She finally stops wiping and blinks at me. “Why do you want those?”

  “I have to bring a book to share with the class. I need something for them.”

  “Oh.” Mom smiles, shuts the drawer, and stands. She closes the fridge and turns the radio off. “I can take you to the library.”

  “That’s fine,” I say, “but where are all my old kids’ books? I know I remember reading them, but I can’t recall where they went.”

  Mom’s brow furrows. She pitches the sponge into the sink and puts a hand on my shoulder. “I have boxes of them in the garage. I thought you were done with them.”

  I blow out a breath, relieved that my memory is correct and, once upon a time, I read picture books and rhyming stanzas. “Can we get them out?” I ask.

  Mom nods and we enter the garage.

  I never noticed all the boxes before. Plastic bins in muted colors of blues, greens, and beige, each labeled with black marker, line all three sides of the garage, continuing up into the rafters where someone laid plywood for extra storage.

  I read the labels of the bins at my eye level. Most of them contain things from my past.

  “Thomas Year 1”

  “Thomas Year 2”

  “Thomas Year 2, #2”

  “Matchbox Cars”

  “Blocks”

  “Thomas Year 5, #6”

  “Grandma Ruth’s China”

  “Why do you keep all this stuff?” I ask her.

  She laughs. “For you. So you can have it one day. And so that your kids can have it.”

  “Wow,” I say. “Is there a system?”

  She laughs again. “Not really, but I’ve been pretty good about labeling. And I know where most of the stuff is.”

  Mom walks to the back wall of the garage where the bins are stacked four high and pulls on a bin from the top row. It’s too heavy for her to handle, and it crashes to the ground with a thump.

  “Sucker’s heavy,” she gasps. “Let’s open it here.”

  Mom lifts off the lid, and we both bend over the bin.

  “Magic Tree House,” she says. “Would one of those work?”

  Forty or fifty Magic Tree House books are stuffed into the bin. I begin to unload them.

  “No. No chapter books. I need a picture book or early reader.” I stack the dog-eared books in teetering piles beside the bin.

  “Why do you need a picture book if you can read something more advanced? Honestly, Thomas, you don’t have to hide.”

  “I’m not hiding,” I mumble. “I’m fitting in.”

  This is a familiar argument, and one Mom knows she can’t win. Wisely, she gives up and digs into the bin.

  “Here. This was one of your favorites.” She hands me Noah’s Ark, a picture book by Jan Brett. I take it and flip through the pages.

  “I did love this one,” I say. “The illustrations are breathtaking. But nope. Won’t work.” I pitch it to the floor.

&nb
sp; “Why not?” Mom asks.

  “Separation of church and state. No sense bringing a religious book to school. The last thing I need is to be labeled that Bible-thumping nut.”

  “You’re being ridiculous,” Mom says, and I suspect she’s right. But too bad. I refuse to give my teacher and classmates any more ammunition against me.

  I dive back into the bin and pull out the five or six books that are left. On top is Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst.

  “This is perfect,” I say, holding the book up for Mom to see.

  She smiles. “Let’s put the rest back, then.”

  “Wait,” I say, and Mom raises an eyebrow at me. “Can we put these back on my bookshelf in my room?”

  “Why? We don’t have much shelf space as it is.”

  “You can always give away your Susan Elizabeth Phillips collection to make more room.”

  Mom narrows her eyes at me. “Not on your life, buster.”

  I laugh. “Can I keep them out, please?”

  Mom softens and throws an arm around my tiny shoulders. “Of course. But why?”

  “I just want to feel normal,” I say.

  She looks away, sniffles, and grabs a handful of books. “Let’s go, then.”

  

  I finish my reading of the book and close the cover.

  The class erupts into cheers and wild applause.

  Actually, no, they don’t. They sit there in silence, glaring at me, until Marco Vincetti yells out from the back, “I don’t get it. What’s Australia?”

  Mrs. Gardener gently pushes me from the stool in front of the class and guides me back to my desk.

  “Australia is a country on the other side of the world. The boy in the book, Alexander, threatens to run away there when he’s having a tough day.” She moves to the world map tacked on the wall and points. “Here is Australia. And here we are, in California, in the United States. Quite far apart. Thank you, Thomas, for sharing your book. That was some amazing reading.”

  “Thank you,” I say.

  “Any other questions, class?” she asks.

  “Why don’t they want black shoes?” Abbey asks without raising her hand. “Nobody wants white shoes with blue stripes. Those are stupid.”

  “Abigail, we don’t call other people’s choices stupid. They are just different,” Mrs. Gardener says.

  I know I should keep quiet, but I can’t. I turn in my seat to look at Abbey. “Actually, white tennis shoes with blue stripes were very popular when this book was written. They didn’t even make black ones back then.”

  “Sure they did,” Abbey says, but I can hear a bit of doubt in her voice.

  “Nope. They also wore socks with colored stripes. The boys would pull their socks up, almost to their knees, so people could see the stripes on them.”

  “No!” Abbey says with a sneer. “Only girls wear knee socks.”

  “Not then.”

  “That must have been like a hundred years ago,” she says.

  “About forty years ago,” I say.

  Seeing an opportunity, Mrs. Gardener jumps in. “How much is forty?” she asks. “Who can count to forty by fives?”

  I tune out. I slide my sketchpad out of my desk and into my lap. I sketch a little girl with ratty braids, lip comically curled, saying, “No!”

  It’s a damn good picture.

  

  As soon as I get in the car, it hits me.

  “I need vitamin C, Mom,” I say by way of greeting, and she pulls away from the school curb and into traffic.

  “You want a pill or some orange juice?” she asks.

  “I’ll just take a couple pills. Maybe 500 milligrams. I had a stressful day.”

  “Oh,” Mom says. “Did the book not go over well?”

  I sigh. “It was fine. I just worked myself up quite a bit about it.”

  Mom pulls into our driveway and we head for the house. We enter the kitchen, and Mom pours me a glass of milk and takes out a bottle of vitamin C from our pill cabinet.

  “Is this all you need?” she asks, tapping two large horse pills into her palm.

  I sip my milk and swallow. “For now. I’m a little low on iron, too. Have any liver for dinner?”

  Mom hands me the pills, screws the cap back on the bottle, and grimaces. “No way, José.”

  “Fine. Beef, then.”

  “Done,” she says. She leans back on the counter and smiles at me. “Do you remember the first time you swallowed a pill?”

  I raise an eyebrow at her over my milk glass.

  “Of course you do. Anyway, the pill wouldn’t go down, and you gagged, spewing milk out your mouth and nose all over the bathroom floor.” She laughs and hugs me. “You just stood there, two little drips of milk sliding from your nostrils, and do you remember what you said?”

  I don’t say anything.

  “‘Well, at least we know my gag reflex works.’” She says “weflex” instead of reflex, because at the time, I couldn’t pronounce my Rs very well.

  “One for the memory book,” I say.

  “Oh, you,” Mom says, tapping me on the nose with her finger. “Even when you were one year old, you were so worried. You thought you’d be sick forever if you couldn’t get that pill down your throat.”

  I move away from Mom and sit at the kitchen table, twirling my milk glass around and around in my hand.

  “Do you think it’s unnatural?” I ask. Twirl, twirl, twirl.

  Mom is scrubbing the sink. “What’s unnatural?”

  “Me. Knowing what I know.”

  “How can it be unnatural?” she asks. “You came by it naturally.”

  “I suppose, but most people can’t do it.”

  “Most people can’t play piano like Mozart, either, but I wouldn’t call those that can unnatural. It’s another ability. Another blessing.”

  I nod and sip some more milk. It’s another ability, for sure. But a blessing? The jury’s still out on that one.

  Chapter Three

  Mom and I sit in the principal’s office with Mrs. Gardener. My teacher has spread copies of my various test results over the table in front of us. Mom barely gives them a glance.

  “I thought this was a goal-setting conference,” Mom says.

  Principal Wasserman and Mrs. Gardener exchange a look. My principal speaks.

  “It is, Mrs. Van Zandt. As you know, Thomas is exceptional. When we run across…we don’t usually run across students like Thomas, at least not without some warning.”

  Mom smiles serenely. If the principal is trying to scold her, it has no effect. My eyes dart between them.

  “I assume you’ve had him tested?”

  “For what?” Mom says.

  “According to Mrs. Gardener, Thomas is a genius. He should be tested for his IQ. And for autism.”

  Mom guffaws. “Autism? Seriously?”

  Principal Wasserman sits straighter in her chair. “No need to take offense,” she says. “These things often go hand in hand.”

  “Offense?” Mom says. “I’m not offended. I’m stunned at your—”

  “Mom.” I place a hand on her arm to stop her. She shuts her mouth and looks down at me. “She’s correct. There are similarities. Many people with high IQs can be placed on the autism spectrum.”

  The corner of Mom’s mouth quirks up. And Principal Wasserman’s mouth drops open—I’ve never spoken in her presence before. I assume all her information on me comes from Mrs. Gardener. I’m used to getting the open mouth from adults who meet me for the first time.

  “Actually,” I say, settling back in my chair and swinging my legs, “there’s an interesting article in Scientific American pointing out the similarities between so-called geniuses and psychopaths. You know, like the Unabomber and other serial killers. They have very little emotion and are more objective than the average person. Geniuses are this way. It allows them to notice details that others overlook, to come up with out-of-the-box solutions.
But I hesitate to categorize myself like that. I mean, there’s no evidence I’m a genius. I haven’t cured cancer or invented some new high-tech gadget. I haven’t started a business, or led a revolution. I mean, I’m only six. I know a lot of stuff, sure. I’d probably do okay on an IQ test. But genius needs to be demonstrated, not tested. And autism? Research is sketchy, but it’s characterized by problems with social interaction and communication skills. Arguably, I have such problems, but since I’ve never been in school before or been around children my age, I think I’d like to wait to be tested. If it’s okay with you.”

  “You’d like to, uh, wait?” my principal manages to say.

  Mom squints her eyes at me, my signal to pipe down. “Obviously, I’ve known that Thomas is advanced for a long time. I didn’t put him in preschool or kindergarten because I felt I could help him more at home, catering specifically to his needs. But he’s right—I cannot teach social interaction unless he has a society to interact with. He needs to be here.”

  “And an IQ test? So we know what we’re dealing with?”

  Mom shakes her head. “I really don’t see the need. We know he’s bright. Let’s assume he’d do well. What does that change?”

  Principal Wasserman sighs. “The classroom will not meet his needs. He’d be better off at a private school or with tutors. If we had solid test scores, he would be eligible for university programs, scholarships, even studies.”

  Mom’s eyes narrow. “No tests. And private anything isn’t in the cards for us. My husband is deployed, and I’m basically a single parent for the time being. I need your help.”

  My teacher and principal exchange another look, and Mrs. Gardener shrugs.

  Mom continues, “So is this meeting really about railroading me into taking my son out of school?”

  “No, of course not,” Mrs. Gardener says. But we know she’s not the authority in the room. All of us look at Principal Wasserman.

  I decide to play my trump card. “My father is a member of the SEAL teams, in the United States Navy. He’s a captain. And he’s on the front lines. We worry about him a lot.”

  Principal Wasserman takes in a sharp breath and her face softens. “That’s amazing, Thomas. You must be proud of him.”

  I nod.