Weird Girl (2 page)

Cleo looked at her mother, who was clearly on the verge of
tears. She looked at her father, whose expression broke her heart just a little
more. And she thought about it—if she had to report to her parents every single
day, then that meant her parents would have to spend time with her every single
day. And, instead of them scribbling in their notebooks, they would be
listening to her read from her own notes. It was the most wonderful thing she
had ever heard. She nodded. Her parents looked at her, and then each other, and
then traded notebooks and began the usual eating and proofreading ritual. Cleo
smiled, and ate until her belly was close to exploding.

***

The next morning, there was a notebook on her nightstand.
The front and back covers were a mottled black and white, and the pages were
super white and smooth, with pale blue lines. There was a black pen beside the
book, along with a note that read “Observe and report this evening at 7pm
sharp. Dad.”

That evening at dinner, Cleo was bursting with excitement.
Vera brought out the lamb curry and rice, made certain the glasses were full,
and returned to the kitchen for her own meal. Darwin and Helen looked at Cleo
and gestured for her to begin the recitation. She opened the notebook and read,
“Juniper killed a squirrel.”

They looked at her.

She closed her notebook and beamed.

Darwin took a bite of lamb, washed it down with a sip of
coconut milk, and said, “And…?”

Cleo was confused. “And what?”

He reached for the notebook, opened it, and re-read. “There
is only one sentence here.”

She was still confused. “But, you told me to observe one new
thing each day.”

Helen interrupted, “Did you see Juniper kill the squirrel?”

“No, ma’am,” said Cleo.

“Then how do you know that Juniper killed it?” asked her
father.

Cleo frowned. “Because I saw him bite off its head.”

“Ahhh, but was the squirrel already dead when Juniper began
to consume it?” asked her mother.

“I don’t know,” said Cleo.

Darwin smiled condescendingly. “Well, then how do you know
that Juniper killed it? How do you know that the squirrel was killed by anything?
Perhaps it died of natural causes.”

Cleo rolled her eyes.

Her mother leaned closer. “Cleomella, do you understand what
it means to
observe
? You make a close study of actual objects and events,
and you write down all of the details. It’s the scientific method, dear, and
you’re skipping straight to the conclusions bit. You never make conclusions
without hard, observational evidence to back them up. Therefore, if you didn’t
see Juniper kill the squirrel, then you cannot conclude the actual cause of
death. Also, you cannot make merely a single observation. You need to do
better.” Darwin nodded in agreement, and both parents resumed eating. A few
seconds later, out came the notebooks and pens, and the standard ritual began.
Cleo was forgotten.

The next evening, it began again. She opened the notebook,
took a deep breath, and read, “Vera burned the bacon. I saw her cooking it, and
it turned black and started to smoke. The smoke made my eyes burn.” Once again,
her efforts were not enough to please her parents.

Every day, Cleo became a little more watchful. She wrote
down more. She explained more to her parents. She started writing down their
critiques, so that she could refer to them later. Little by little, she
discovered the art of observation. She started watching her parents, and
learned even more. Once, she hid in the second greenhouse, and watched her
mother watch an orchid for two and a half hours, making short notes in her
journal every few seconds. By the end of it, Helen had fourteen pages of notes,
and she hadn’t even done anything to the flower. Cleo snuck into her mother’s
study later that night and read the notebook. It opened up a whole new world of
observational possibilities: dimension, weight, color, texture, odor, sound
(although Cleo still wasn’t convinced that orchids made sounds). Her notes got
better, and her parents approved. Cleo noticed that the more notes she had, the
longer her parents listened, and sometimes, they even conversed with her, asked
questions, or made notes in their own journals. Cleo decided to try even harder.

She stopped doing her school assignments altogether.
Instead, she spent all day, every day, observing and making notes. She watched
ants in the driveway, Vera in the kitchen, delivery men at the back door, and
the workers in the greenhouse. She counted birds, and then the number of bird
species, and then the number of different songs, and, finally, the number of
chirps per song and the intervals between them. By this time, she had twelve
full notebooks on the shelf in her room. Her father ordered her two more cases.

Sometimes, they would ask her unrelated questions. Cleo
would be a quarter of the way through her observations on bread mold, and one
of her parents would ask something like, “But how many houseflies were in the
kitchen at the time?”

Clearly, Cleo needed to broaden her scope.

2

Of course, there was a bit of bias embedded in her parents’
constructive criticism. Helen felt that her daughter should spend more time in
the greenhouses. Darwin, however, wanted Cleo to spend more time watching
people. “The human species,” he said, “is the most dynamic organism on the
planet, with a fine balance of predictability and nearly infinite variation.”

In late August, just after Cleo’s ninth birthday, a plain
brown sedan pulled up in the driveway. It was the truancy officer from the
local elementary school.

Cleo hid in the coat closet with a flashlight between her
teeth. She had been practicing shorthand from a book that she found in the
second library upstairs, so it was easy to record the entire conversation
(although there were a few words used by her mother that hadn’t been covered by
Mr. Gregg in his manual, and which seemed to mortally offend their visitor).
She pushed the door open just a crack, so that she could record physical
details: what everyone was wearing, what the visitor looked like, and any hand
gestures that were used (again, her mother seemed to know a few that Cleo had
never seen before). At one point, the argument grew so heated that nobody
noticed when Cleo came out and pinched the visitor’s jacket between her
forefinger and thumb in order to determine its textile composition and color.
She lifted up his trouser leg to make notes about his socks and shoes. She
covertly sniffed his sleeve and scribbled in the notebook while muttering to
herself. By the time the man left, her mother was white-faced and silent, her
father was pacing the room, and Cleo had twenty-nine pages of shorthand. She
was quite pleased with herself.

At dinner that evening, however, her parents did not seem
excited about her observations. They were clearly preoccupied, and as Cleo was
listing the odorants she had detected when sniffing the visitor, Helen abruptly
interrupted. “Cleo, you have to go to school.”

Cleo stopped. “Right now? But we’re eating dinner, and
Vera’s doing the dishes!”

Darwin leaned forward. “No, Cleo. You have to go to public
school. With…
normal
kids.” He said this with distaste.

“Why?” she asked. “I’ve got Vera, and my observation books.
I don’t need to go anywhere.”

Her mother pinched the bridge of her nose and said, “We
know, dear. But, our great state apparently has laws about this sort of thing,
and they are forcing us to send you to school. I’ll be taking you to enroll
tomorrow morning.”

Cleo had plenty of questions, but her parents were not in
the mood. They told her to be quiet and eat her dinner—the first time they had
ever said this to her—and conversation was nonexistent for the duration of the
meal. They weren’t yelling, but Cleo knew they were very upset about the
visitor, especially when they forgot to proofread their notebooks at all while
they ate.

***

The next morning, Cleo was up early. She planned to make
observations at this new school, but she wanted to make some notes beforehand
so that she would have plenty to talk about with the other kids she would meet
that day. She decided to watch the head gardener change the oil in the
lawnmower, because she knew that would make for exciting conversation with her
new colleagues.

Vera called her to the kitchen for breakfast, and Cleo got
nervous. She had never spent time with other kids. Especially “normal” kids. In
fact, she had only ever met Achillea, really. Vera gave her a hug and said,
“Don’t worry, Cleo. You’re going to make plenty of friends, and learn lots of
important things.”

Cleo said, “But I learn lots of things from you, Vera. And I
don’t know if anyone will like me. And I’ve never been to a real school
before.”

Vera stroked her hair and replied, “That’s the great thing
about a clean slate. You can be anyone you want to be, and nobody can tell you
different.”

Helen called from the front door, and Cleo took a deep
breath. Vera handed her a bag, and Cleo was relieved to find not one, but two
notebooks inside. Vera smiled, and Cleo went to the car.

Her mother didn’t speak for the entire drive, and when they
pulled up in front of a large brick building, Cleo was pretty sure she heard
her mother use some of those new words from the other day. They went inside and
asked a little boy where the office was. He pointed to the end of the hallway,
and they walked that direction.

As they opened the door and walked through, Cleo was
assaulted with new sights and sounds. There were two desks, and the women
behind them were answering phones, shouting instructions to each other, writing
things down on little sticky pieces of paper, and barking orders at a half
dozen children with dazed expressions. Cleo pulled out a notebook and started
writing.

The woman on the left saw Cleo and her mother and motioned
them toward her. Cleo walked slowly and kept writing. She didn’t want to miss a
single detail. Her mother, on the other hand, was looking at the other desk. As
soon as Cleo reached the first woman, Helen stormed across to the other and
snatched a vase of flowers off of it. Cleo looked back at the first lady, whose
nametag said Mrs. Harrison. Mrs. Harrison told Cleo to sit, so she did.

As Helen began barking questions at the other woman about
the origin of her red and white swirl hydrangeas, Mrs. Harrison asked Cleo the
purpose of her visit.

“Because I’ve never been to school before,” Cleo said, and
kept writing her shorthand.

Mrs. Harrison smiled. “We get new students all the time,
sweetie. What was the name of your last school?”

Cleo stopped writing. “I told you. I’ve never been to school
before.”

“What—you mean
NEVER
?” Mrs. Harrison said, nearly
shouting. “How old are you?”

“Nine, ma’am,’ said Cleo. “I did school at home sometimes.”

“This is most irregular,” the woman replied. She seemed at a
loss for what to do. “Let me start your file.” She dug into a drawer to her right,
and pulled out a manila folder and several sheets of paper. “Okay, what is your
name, dear?”

Cleo looked at her mother, grilling the lady on the other
side of the room. The lady looked terrified. The other kids were staring. Helen
was gesturing wildly and demanding to know the exact pH of the soil where the
hydrangeas were grown. Cleo remembered what Vera had told her that morning,
about being anybody she wanted. And so she lied.

“My name is Lucy,” she said, remembering that her father
used to talk about somebody with that name a lot.

“And what is your last name, dear?” asked Mrs. Harrison as
she wrote on the form.

Again, Cleo looked at her mother. “Gardener. My name is Lucy
Gardener.”

Pen scratched paper as Mrs. Harrison continued to fill in
the form. “And what is your social security number, Lucy?”

Cleo was at a loss. She had never heard of such a thing. She
called out to her mother, “Mama, what is my social security number?”

Distractedly, briefly looking in her direction, Helen called
out, “519-49-2131,” and then started pulling petals off of the woman’s
hydrangeas and putting them into an envelope.

Mrs. Harrison asked Cleo other questions for the forms, like
her home address, and telephone number (Cleo made one up, because she had never
had a reason to call her own house before, so she didn’t know it). After a few
minutes, Mrs. Harrison looked up at her and frowned. “We are going to have to
test you,” she said. Cleo thought this sounded pretty painful, but she decided
to make notes about it anyway.

Helen finally left, promising to send Vera or one of the
gardeners to collect her daughter at the end of the school day. Cleo was taken
to a small, windowless room, and given a pencil and a series of tests. It
turned out to be fun, because she knew most of the answers. Mrs. Harrison
frowned and brought her more tests. This continued until lunchtime. Finally,
Mrs. Harrison brought another woman into the room, and introduced her as Mrs.
Heinz, the school principal.

“We have an unprecedented case here,” said Mrs. Harrison,
and she gave Cleo’s tests to Mrs. Heinz. The two woman left the room for
several minutes, and then came back to talk to Cleo.

“Lucy, are you sure you’ve never been to school before?”
Mrs. Heinz asked. Cleo shook her head.

“Well, you have passed these tests with flying colors. There
are some questions that you missed, but you did so well with harder questions
that we’ve had to make a serious decision. At your age, you should be on a
third grade level. However, your test scores indicate that you are well beyond
that. Therefore, despite your age, we’ve decided to place you in a higher
grade. This will be probationary, of course, until we determine if you are able
to handle this emotionally and academically. But, it would be a waste of your
talents to place you as we typically would.” She looked at Cleo, waiting for a
response. Cleo was furiously making notes. Taking the notebook from her, Mrs.
Heinz raised her eyebrows. “What is this?” she asked.

“Gregg shorthand,” said Cleo.

Mrs. Harrison and Mrs. Heinz exchanged a skeptical look.
“You know Gregg shorthand?” said Mrs. Harrison.

“Of course,” said Cleo, and then she turned to page one of
her notebook and recited every word that had been said to her that morning.
Mrs. Heinz and Mrs. Harrison left the room.

***

It was officially decided to put Cleo into a fifth grade
class for a three week period to determine her suitability to that level of
education. At the end of the second week, they ended up hiring a retired high
school teacher to tutor her privately. There was immediate recognition between
student and teacher, as one academic to another, and they got along swimmingly.

She did not, however, fit in.

It is always a rite of passage for the new kid in school to
be given a hard time. Made fun of. Shunned at lunch. And then, when a Good
Samaritan offers an empty chair and a tentative introduction, the new kid is
absorbed into the ecosystem, and life goes on.

This would have been the case at New Bridge Elementary School, if not for the fact that the new kid was weird. Weird in a way that nobody
expected. Not only was she unaffected by taunts, nicknames, or rejections, she
was constantly scribbling in her notebook like the fate of the Earth depended
on it. And she stared. A lot.

Basically, the new kid was a new kind of creepy, and
self-preservation won out over maintaining the dominance hierarchy. They all
left her alone. What was weirdest was that she didn’t seem to notice that she
was being ignored.

Eventually, students and teachers alike got used to
pretending she wasn’t there. She found that, although her school cafeteria life
began at the gimpy table in the corner, she was finally able to creep closer and
closer to the rest of the herd. One day, she noticed an empty seat at the
popular table. The kids seemed to be having an intense conversation, and she
was curious. So, she walked up to the table, sat down, and alternated
note-taking with bites of grilled cheese. It wasn’t until the bell rang that
anybody even noticed she was there. It was such a shocking discovery that
nobody knew what to do about it, so they all simply walked away, each one using
the brief walk to class to rationalize the creepiness, and convince themselves
that it hadn’t really happened. Cleo was thrilled with her new observations on
the social hierarchy.

She also began to realize that a very important step in the
scientific process was boldness. Risk. Being willing to infect yourself with an
unknown bacterium, because nothing is more valuable than firsthand observation.
Creeping into the cave with the sleeping bear. Putting on the face paint and
dancing with the tribe. Sitting down at the chief’s table, uninvited.

So, she took the opportunities that presented themselves.
Her tutor allowed her more freedom than the average student, and she quickly
learned all of the secret places the school’s 1950s architecture had to offer.
She spent an entire afternoon in the teacher’s lounge, eating chicken salad she
found in the refrigerator and listening to conversations that no student was
supposed to hear. She sat in the art room closet, inhaling the fumes of old
paint, glue, and turpentine, and listened to the art teacher and the P.E.
teacher alternately argue and kiss passionately. She brought binoculars and hid
in the bushes to observe fights on the playground. One day, the boys’ locker
room door was propped open just slightly with a little wedge of wood. So, Cleo
walked in. For years afterward, when the boys had become men with jobs and
families, they would share the same nightmare: laughter, cascading water, the
snapping of towels, and then the moment when the steam cleared, and there was
the creepy girl, biting her lip in concentration, pen moving faster than should
be possible, not only writing, but
sketching
in her little black and
white book.