Chapter 3: Meeting Ralph

Paige had gone to collect Ralph from his sitter and Lillian was looking forward to meeting him. When she turned, it was clear that she'd already told her son about Lillian because Ralph didn't ask who she was. Instead, he walked over to Lillian.

"Hey. I'm Ralph. Mum told me you are a genius too."

"Yeah I've a 260 IQ."

"Wow. Walter's the leader of the Cyclone. You probably already know that. He's got a 197 IQ. Maybe you'll be the leader as you have a high IQ."

"Doubt it. I'm only nine. You're nine too, aren't you?"

"Yeah, you'll be in my class once Walter's enrolled you and I didn't mean now I meant in the future."

"I wish I didn't have to go. You understand don't you? Going to elementary school when you've already learned what they are teaching you. I learned it all when I was 2. By then I could speak over 10 languages fluently, now I can speak over 50 fluently."

"Tell me about it. I am at university though too."

"Yeah I go to university too: Stanford, second year."

"Caltech, first year" he smiled "Hey want to play on Proton Arnold?"

"Sure sounds like fun!"

The high score, courtesy of Walter, was 150,786. Ralph tried hard to beat it but failed and when Lillian tried she got 150,779. 7 below Walter. They played until Paige's voice interrupted them. "Ralph! Time to go now!" She called. When Ralph left, she went over to Happy who was working on a project.

"Hey Lillian" Happy said without looking up.

"Hey Happy I have something for you." Lillian replied pulling out something out of her bag. She liked Happy ever since she found out that she grew up in the foster system. The thing that she had was something that Lillian had collected a while back and knew that as Happy was the engineer, she'd like it more.

Happy looked up, her eyes widening when she saw what Lillian had.

"Is that an antique socket wrench set #734?"

"Yep"

"Wow. Thanks Lillian it's beautiful!"

"You're welcome."

Lillian could not say anything else because Walter's voice stopped them.

"Yeah Lillian I think you should go to bed please."

"No."

"Excuse me?"

"I don't think I should go to bed."

"Don't check me."

"Fine fine. I'll get in the car."

"Oh yeah I haven't said yet. My apartment is upstairs. Your room will be the first on the left. Brush your teeth and change into your pajammers.

"But it is only 8."

"Bed."

So Lillian got up and did what she was told. She was tried from the journey and as soon as her head hit the pillow she fell asleep.

When she awoke, Lillian didn't know where she was. Sunlight poured into the windows like a watering can, casting a shadow against the white wall which Lillian's bed was next too. There were no curtains up but there where blinds which didn't really do its job very well of holding out the sun. Then Lillian remembered. She wasn't in the orphanage anymore; she was in her bedroom in her father's flat. Lillian's room was quite basic although large. It had an en- suite bathroom but other than that the room was quite plain. The wall were painted white with matching blinds. The carpet was pristine, clearly not many people had been in the room over the years, and was an ugly shade of green which made Lillian feel physically sick. For furniture, all there was, was a bed (of course) and a wardrobe. It certainly wasn't warm and welcoming but Walter had promised to let her decorated even though it would take months, to any design she wanted.

Much the dismay of Lillian, Walter enrolled her in school the morning and would be starting the next day. However, fortunately for her and Ralph, school was not in session as it was a teacher training day or inspet day, as Lillian called it so they could spend the day together. Walter was visiting Megan who Lillian correctly guessed was Walter's sick sister. The first thing that the pair wanted was to play video games. The first the pair actually did was quite different. Shopping. Paige had said that Lillian needed somethings for school. Clothes for one thing (which she -Lillian- expected) because Lillian didn't have many. In England most of her clothes were school uniform and when she moved, wasn't allowed to take more than a suitcase full of stuff which Lillian mainly filled with books rather than clothes. The school that she went to was in partnership with the Orphanage 'St Paul's school for Girls' which had a uniform. So this would be the first school that didn't have a uniform.

However other than that Lillian didn't think she needed anything else so, when Paige had paid for all the clothes, Lillian was surprised when she said they weren't done.

"What else are we actually getting?"

Paige smiled and handed. Lillian a piece of paper which was a list of things:

Backpack

Lunchbox

2 Pencil cases (clear and one more)

Pencil and pens

Coloured pencils

Felt tips

Glue sticks

Scissors

3 folders and popper wallets (Maths, Science and English)

3 notebooks

Erasers

Maths kit (ruler, protector compass and set squares)

Sharpener

Highlighters

Hand sanitiser

Wipes

Locker accessories

Water bottle

Lillian laughed when she had finished.

"Is all this really necessary?"

"Yes. Sly put the hand sanitiser on there."

"I never would have guessed"

They spend the whole morning, 3 hours 39 minutes, 48 seconds and 7 milliseconds.

"$997.87" Lillian announced

"Sorry?"

"That's how much we spent. $997.87. 94 objects. That's an average of $10.62 per object. That's a lot."

"Yeah I know it was expensive but that was because we did have to buy a lot of things for school. You didn't have any of the things on the list. Plus we needed to buy you lots of clothes."

When they had finished Lillian went back to Ralph's and played videogames until Walter picked her up. After dinner, Lillian packed her bag while her dad made her packed lunch. Then she went to bed after being told by Walter that she needed her sleep. Lillian however disagreed and instead crept down to Scorpion HQ and started coding on her computer. It was weird being there at night although she technically was always there at night. No-one was there: not surprising it was 22:47. So the garage was silent apart from the tapping of her fingers against the keyboard. Trees whispered and shared secrets outside which could be heard through the locked metal door. It was true what people said. At night you could hear anything and this warm winter night was no exception. To the untrained eye, Lillian looked like she was just typing nonsense but nothing is nonsense when you're a 9 - nearly 10- year old genius with a 260 IQ.

The silence helped Lillian think. Noises and movement detracted her. Taking a break from her coding she walked towards Toby's desk. He had plain pieces of paper and took some, a pencil, a rubber and a sharpener. She knew that Sylvester had the exact same things in the second draw of his desk but, even though Sky's desk was closer, Lillian knew that taking it from Toby's desk would be a better idea. Sly would notice. After taking the necessary stationary, Lillian sat back down on the settee and drew a picture of a brain before labelling it. Afterwards, Lillian went back to her room and fell asleep.