The Odyssey of Leopold Fitz
Fitz sat restlessly in his hard, wooden school chair, impatiently counting down the seconds until science class would be over so he could ditch school and go home. The 16 year old did love science, but his science class was covering material that Fitz had known since the tender age of ten. Fitz's teachers appreciated his intelligence and were willing to look the other way when he did other work in class, but his classmates were not always as open minded. This, unfortunately, was the case on this snowy February morning.
"Hey, dweeb!" shouted Martin, the self-elected leader of the football and rugby loving group of dweebs loving group of jocks, known to Fitz's village as "The Gang". Unlike Leopold Fitz, the small, simple village of Mallaig was neither bright nor creative.
"We was lookin' for you, geek," Martin's crony, Duncan, said.
"Yeah," Martin said. "You think you talk trash about The Gang and we don't hear about it? We're everywhere, Leopold. We hear everything." Uh oh. Now Leo was really in for it. Somehow, they had found out about the "Theory of De-evolution". A few weeks ago, Fitz had created a cartoon comparing "The Gang" to apes and chimps and had posted it on walls throughout the town. When Martin got wind of this, he interrogated all the people he had tormented throughout the years, including Fitz. However, Fitz held up well under interrogation, so Martin had no reason to believe that Fitz was the culprit. If that was the case, someone must have spilled. It had to have been… That thought was not finished, as Leo soon found himself plunging into the icy lake he had been walking past just moments before. "That'll teach you to mess with Martin Fletcher!" he heard the bully scream with glee. Leo spit out a mouthful of lake water and began the arduous journey back to shore, not a new experience for the 16 year old. As he swam, he began thinking about the reason for his torture - his intelligence.
Fitz had been considered 'bright' from a very young age. His mother realized that he was different when she noticed him reading from one of her books when he was only 2 years old. Fortunately, Mrs. Fitz was the mayor of Mallaig (the first female mayor in Scotland) so she could afford to hire a tutor and buy him special books that he could learn from. Out of all the subjects he excelled in, young Leo showed a special love for science. The thought that humans could create such marvels as electric light and motorized vehicles seemed amazing to him, and he began reading all he could about the latest technological feats. Sadly, the private tutors and special books all stopped when his father, James, died when Leo was only nine years old. After this tragedy, Mayor Anna Fitz resigned her office out of grief. Anna received a modest pension, but not nearly enough to support Fitz's interests. From this time forward, Fitz had to pursue his scientific interests by borrowing books from the library of the nearest university, nearly half an hour away. He also took scrap metal parts from the junkyard and saved enough to buy some tools from the hardware store. With these materials, he was able to build some machines and contraptions that improved his family's life significantly. And that had been his life so far: a young inventor who had been limited by the opportunities available to him, a certifiable genius who wanted desperately to get out of his small village if only he had somewhere to go.
Leo reached shore and quickly banished these stupid thoughts about leaving from his mind. "Wake up, you silly Fitz," he said to himself. "You don't have enough money to go anywhere, and even if you did, how could you leave Mama? Face it, Fitz, you'll be stuck in this stupid town for the rest of your miserable life." Well, Leo thought, I might as well pay a visit to Albert Johnson, the fool who got me tossed into a lake this afternoon.
DING-DONG! DING-DONG! Albert waddled to the door and began blubbering as soon as he saw Leo's face. "Leo! I'm so sorry! I… I didn't m-mean to rat you out, I promise I didn't! B-but Martin, he threatened to do bad things to me if I didn't tell! I was scared, Leo." Fitz, who was bordering on furious before, calmed down when he saw the impact Martin had on his friend.
"It's all right, Albert. All they did was throw me in the lake," Fitz comforted Albert. Albert looked visibly relieved at this, and Fitz decided to change the subject. "So, how are the college applications going?" Fitz asked wistfully, as he was only a junior and Martin was a senior.
"Oh, pretty well," Albert replied. "Of course I would love to go to Oxford, but I probably won't get in, all because of that B+ in Calculus last year." As Martin kept talking, Fitz's genius brain kept working at one problem: How would he ever get out of Mallaig?