Noah had a very simple life planned out for himself. Mostly it involved getting rich through his intelligence (computer programs, writing books, business: it didn't matter which he chose, talented in each) and then coasting through early retirement until he dies and can be cryogenically frozen.

Simple. Elegant, one might say, in its 'American Dream' quality (particularly odd, as he lived in Canada). No intolerably sweet relationships or a soul-searching 'what is my purpose' trip to be seen, as the teenager was no fan of romance. No matter what anyone might tell him, the cynic will always believe (as much as he's ever believed in anything) money could, and has, bought happiness.

But then, he'd never been what most people would call happy, other than in the childish before-he-could-speak way. Content, bored, angry: Three words summed up nearly the whole of the 'emotional' aspect of his life. The youngest of nine siblings, by the time he came along his parents had been through all the stages.

New parents, stressed parents of several small children, even the "I'll do better with this one" kind of parenting had worn away. By now they just wanted to stop being parents. He'd found their calendar, counting down until the day he graduated. It disgusted him, a little more than he already was. They were acting like prisoners counting down to their release date. And Noah was their ball and chain, so to speak. As the youngest, born four years after Rebekah, second-to-last, that's all he was.

Their first one had been smart too, Nathanial, and now he was a twenty eight year old OB/GYN with a good catholic fiancé. Their fifth, Theresa, was twenty-four and on her last year of collage to become an electrician. All their children, in fact, had been fairly bright, though it was still a matter of whether or not they applied themselves. With Noah, they didn't notice, but he could read something once and remember it forever, look at algebra or computer code and read it like English. Book smarts came so easily to him; it made him so fucking angry that his parents wouldn't let him skip grades. They didn't understand that. As much as they wanted him out of the house, their staunch belief that integral steps of education should not be 'skipped' held strong.

They'd had their smart mouths before him, the back-talkers, the rebels. Christine (second, twenty-seven with her twin Gabriel, third) dressed all in black from age twelve to twenty-one, at which point she began wearing some other colors. Samuel, twenty-three (sixth) and a budding/blooming artist, had often gotten into shouting matches, with screaming, slamming doors, and deathly silence. Noah had a smart mouth, used the driest of humor, and a bored tone with many layers of sarcasm. He twisted truth almost gently when he needed to, then presented as it was, no pretty trimmings, so it did not occur to anyone he might be lying. While Tina used a seething anger to put so much power in her words (which were fairly eloquent by themselves, as she had been a bookworm, the bookworm of their familybefore turning to the dark side) that while the phrasing snuck it in, her emotion did the damage. Samuel shouted lies so outrageous that it had to be screamed back how wrong he was, obscenities littered his sentences and he fought for every scrap of ground. Five more minutes before curfew, I don't care if you don't like my friends, I want a lock on my door, I'm not drunk!

In comparison, their youngest paled and faded.

When teachers told them how intelligent Noah was, they nodded and smiled. If they mentioned his bad attitude or borderline-antisocial behavior, they changed their actions appropriately, frowning and promising to speak with him about it. But since there were still four or five other kids in the house while he was going through grade school (and by middle school the teachers stop worrying), it never got done.

Because Myra, lucky number seven, had a secret boyfriend at fourteen (now twenty-two and five months pregnant, she was saving up for a house with her new husband) and she was forbidden from seeing him. Or Rebekah, twenty one and the eighth, had won first place in some track-and-field event. Sometimes it was even just a routine fight with Samuel (never just Sam or I'll grind that big mouth of yours into the cement, squirt) that got his parents off track.

When the principal himself talked to them about the possibility of their son skipping kindergarten, they hemmed and hawed and drew out their sentences over-long. The father (the near-silent kind, an Indian from the States) added extra comments to his wife's (as small French-Canadian woman who still spoke the language sometimes and had the accent to prove it) small speech. The principal, knowing them for years now mostly because of their fourth child, Ruth, and her schoolyard fights, waited patiently, knowing that the rather religious half of the couple would reach her point eventually. She finally admitted that Noah was still shy, so they weren't comfortable moving him ahead, because he might be bullied or fall behind. Noah was young for his grade anyways, and the only reason he was in school this year was because he had begged and thrown temper tantrums in turn, arguing with them all summer.

Noah was not shy.

He'd begged his older siblings to teach him things ever since he learned how to talk. He bugged them about what they were learning in school, though Samuel was the only one to even halfway understand why. Sometimes the eleven-year-old would do nothing for hours but sit with his only little brother and explain about multiplication (though he knew some of the times tables, he didn't understand how they worked until Gabriel, who didn't mind if he called him Gabe, showed him a rectangle with a side two long, another five long, and ten all told). Ruth was the one to roll her eyes and show him how to use a basic calculator, and how 58008 looked like the word BOOBS if you flipped it upside down. She then didn't feel like telling him what it meant. Theresa showed him her biology homework, teaching him about cells and bone structures, half of which he forgot, but the other half he still remembered when he took biology, years later.

Noah wore his parents down because Gabriel had already taught him all the letters, he could count to a thousand (for hours, he did nothing but follow his mother around and count, because she didn't believe he could and he was that determined to go to school), and 'read' (for some words it was a matter of having read a book so many times that every word was hard-wired into his brain, but the ones like 'and' 'the' or 'trap' he could honestly read) every picture book in the house very loudly at night, making sure his parents in the bedroom next door could hear him.

His siblings didn't complain because they had made one of their last all-nine-of-them pacts when they promised to get him into kindergarten that year. They helped him badger, telling him that Dad, stiff-upper-lip as he was, had a big soft spot when it came to tears, even crocodile. Sometimes they'd show him off to their friends, tell him to recite timetables, or name all the bones in his arm. Their friends (aware of the pact) would then comment on how easy kindergarten would be for him to their parents.

Needless to say, they caved.

The first day of kindergarten, Noah came home elated. He hadn't learned anything new that day, his teacher had just been asking questions about how much they knew, going around in alphabetical order while the others played and drew. Never before had he cursed his last name, but now he wished he could actually skewer it.

She'd been amazed when the excited Noah started counting and didn't stop until she cut him off at sixty-one. He knew, when she asked him, that thirty-one came after thirty, so it defiantly wasn't memorization. He understood fairly well how the counting system worked. He wrote all his abc's in his favorite color, green, crayons; uppercase, lowercase, and a few words you see with early readers/writers. The dark-skinned brunette talked clearly, with rather adult-sounding sentences, and started on naming all the bones he could remember. Some of them were wrong (tibula instead of tibia, to rhyme with fibula, was one she could pick out); but he was in kindergarten, young for it too.

The minute all her new students (and the parents picking them up, though it was a small crowd of siblings who swung around to celebrate their long-awaited goal with Noah) had left, she nearly ran to the principal's office, to tell him about a little four-year-old who very well might be a genius. When she finally had the presence of mind to mention his name, Noah Wilson, the principal stopped her right there.

"The Wilson's have another son?" He rubbed at his temples. "Another smart one?" Remembering very well the kind of hell-raising the others had done, he sighed. Was there a way to put this without sounding biased? "Sarah, there is one thing you must understand if you're going to teach a Wilson. There's apparently nine of them now, and they're generally attention-seeking. It comes with being a part of large family, though there's nothing really wrong with that. Charlie's a hard worker, and it's amazing Rose gives them as much attention as she does, but there's only so much they can do-"

"Sir," Since she was interupting the man who controlled much of her work environment, might as well politly interupt. "I'm not sure what this has to do with Noah."

"Ah," The middle-aged man grimaced. He'd only managed to babble on in his attempt to be tactful. "I'm beginning to talk like them. To get to the point, any kid in a big family--such as Noah—demands more attention than others. That he is exceptionally bright adds to the matter exponentionally."

"I'm not sure if I should be teaching him. A kid that smart doesn't belong in kindergarten; it'll drive him insane to work at the pace his peers have to work at." Sarah thought back to the bright-eyed little boy who knew more then any other little kid she'd ever talked to (and it was her occupation to talk to little kids).

The over-worked, under-paid educator groaned, but he promised to talk to him about it.

This, as we know, got the issue nowhere.

x~o~x

Sorry, jumped the gun, had to edit. Took away most of the genius stuff, tried to make it a little more believable. Hope I suceeded. Tell me if I'm wrong, like Canada doesn't call it kindergarten or something. You have no clue how welcome reviews are.