Chapter 13: The future.
" Hiro. Come on. You need to eat." Kathy insisted. But Hiro just keeps on stirring the vegetables on her plate. Not at all interested in taking a bite.
It's not like she hasn't tried or doesn't want to eat. It's just hard on her stomach to hold so much food at a time. She's not used to eating this much. It literally hurts just to eat. It's not her fault that someone forced her to stop eating.
But she forces down a few bites just to please Kathy before she pushes away her plate for Kathy to take it away. Kathy takes the plate, but she doesn't look too satisfied at the leftover amount. Nevertheless, she didn't object to it. Hiro hears the door open and shut and turns her head to see an unfamiliar man walk into the space. The man looked official with his suit and tie along with a pair of glasses. But his seriousness is questionable with his wild red hair.
" Thank you for coming at such a short notice." Kathy said to the man as he came into the space.
" Well it is my job." The man smiled at Kathy. Hiro raises any eyebrow. Just who does this man think he is?
Kathy turns her attention to Hiro and kindly introduces the man to her, " Hiro. I would like you to meet Dr. Rosen. He's from the department of education."
He holds out his hand for her to shake and Hiro, having no idea what to make of this man, cautiously takes it. She said skeptically, " Hello." She has no idea or care why he's here.
Kathy explains, " He's here to conduct some tests with you so we can figure out what steps we need to approach with you in terms of school."
" School?" Hiro raised an eyebrow as she sees the man opening his leather shoulder bag on the giant breakfast bar.
Kathy sighs, " Hiro. You know that you must attend school since you're under the age of eighteen. I know you said that were homeschooled, but I'm afraid I can't let you off the hook with this. We need to figure out your grade level today so we can have you registered for school. That's why Dr. Rosen is here today." Kathy explains gesturing at the man.
Hiro doesn't know what to make of this. She has never attended school. Sure she has had tutors. But she knows it's not the same. Plus there will be a lot more people. And she is not looking forward to more strangers.
Kathy puts a hand on her shoulder and says, " Don't worry about getting the questions right or wrong. Just try your best."
Hiro nods in response. She really doesn't care about the tests that she needs to take. She probably might be dumb anyway.
Dr. Rosen clears his throat and comes over to her, " Well Hiro. I have a set of tests. Each one of them is a different subject. This is to figure out your grade level. I will start you off with the English test. Then we'll follow up on Math, and then Science. Just take your time and if don't know some of the questions at all, just skip it. We're trying find out your grade level anyway."
He places in front her a booklet and a pencil that he pulled from his bag. Hiro stares at it a bit before she opens the booklet to take the test.
English was ok. It wasn't hard since she had learned from her 'training' to speak and write properly. Since she was a Princess, she had to be not like an idiot or for the very least not seem like it. Hiro knows for sure that there wasn't really too many incorrect answers on the English portion on the test.
Math and science however, was a different story in a good way. She knew every answer to the test like the back of her and it all just looked easy. Too easy. Even the advanced Calculus portion of the math and the Physics on the science. It just didn't seem to be at all challenging and came naturally to her.
It took her several hours to do the tests. By the time she was done, Dr. Rosen takes the tests and stows them in his bag.
" Well. I'll call you in a few days with the results. In the mean time, I would advise you to look into some of the local high schools in the area." He said.
" I already have talked to Rhonda at the Jonathan Lancaster High School. She said she can have us start the enrollment process." Kathy said.
" That's good. Don't get too far into the enrollment until I call you. We need to make sure she's even at high school level." He said.
" What year will I be in if I am within in a normal range?" Hiro asks out of curiosity.
" Well if the tests places you in your age group. Which most likely it will be. You would be put in Freshman year of high school. Again we don't know that officially until I grade your tests." Dr. Rosen explains.
Hiro nods in response.
" Don't worry I have no doubts that she is. Hiro might not talk much, but I'm pretty sure she's a smart kid. " Kathy said as though Hiro wasn't in the room. Which kinda makes the girl really annoyed about it.
Hiro sees Dr. Rosen nods good day before he takes off to grade her tests.
It has been only several hours since the tests were conducted. Kathy is in her office looking through some stuff when her phone rings and she picks it up, " Hello." She wasn't expecting on who was on the other end of the line.
" Kathy this is Dr. Rosen." The voice said.
" Oh! Dr. Rosen. This is earlier than usual for you to be calling me. Is something wrong?" She asked concernedly.
" Well I finished looking through Hiro's tests and I decided that I immediately need to inform you that sending her to high school won't be in her best of interests." He said.
" What? But she doesn't need special needs programs. I know it." Kathy said in dumbfound.
" Kathy. You're misunderstanding the point. Hiro shouldn't be in high school because she doesn't need high school."
" Doesn't need high school?" Kathy said.
" I checked the tests three times. It's amazing. This kid has an IQ of 175! It's like nothing I have ever seen in quite a long time. The last time I encountered this was when I was just an intern." He sounded amazed.
" 175?!" Kathy almost screamed.
" Her English skills are on par of a college freshman. But her math and science skills, oh god. There the level of a college junior majoring in advanced engineering and mechanics. Even then it's most likely not challenging enough. Kathy you got yourself a prodigy on your hands." He explains.
Kathy almost drops her phone in response. Every day she is learning something new about her guests and her son, but Hiro takes the cake.
She takes a deep breath and says, " My god. I knew something was special about her. But a prodigy. God she has a gift, and no one picks up on it. I wonder..."
" Wonder what?" Dr. Rosen asked.
" That if anyone in her past has even cared enough to even know about it? The woman that tried to take Hiro away from here was very abusive. I have no idea about her other family members since she doesn't tell me anything. It's terrible how someone can just abuse her as though she was nothing to them when in fact she can be someone very special. Today just proved it. There's so much to take in." She said to him exhaustedly.
" So what are you going to do about it?" Dr. Rosen asked.
" Me?" Kathy asked flabbergasted.
" Well obviously she doesn't need to go to high school. Which means this is no longer in my hands since I work in the grade school department. You're her caretaker. You figure out what you need to do about it. You got a special girl on your hands. I suggest you make sure she doesn't waste it." He said before ending the call.
Kathy puts down the phone and runs her hands on her face. But once the news settled on her mind, She smiles happily. Knowing that there her gut instinct was true.
" How did you even managed to get yourself into a car crash this bad and survived? I mean no one could have survived something like this. But you did." Fred asked Hiro about he car crash as she handed Wasabi a screwdriver. They've been spending a better part of the day fixing Wasabi's car.
His car was definitely damaged after Hiro had crashed it. The passenger side was majorly dented from when the truck had crashed into it. The roof was scratched up when it flipped over. But luckily not too much of the machinery is damaged, so it's fixable.
Even though she's has her injuries, Hiro still tries to help out by telling him what he needs to do from the chair she is sitting in. For a fourteen year old, she definitely knows her car mechanics.
" I guess I was just pretty lucky. Or small." She shrugged as she leaned back on the swivel chair that she's sitting in watching the others work.
" But how you managed to beat Yama and carjack us was nothing short of a genius. You really needed to know your mechanics in order to do that." GoGo said.
Hiro shrugs again as she bent over to pet Baymax on the head who has wrapped himself around her legs carefully. He makes a great leg warmer since the they are in a cold garage on a winter evening.
" I just did what I had to do. Probably was a fluke." She said.
" Actually it's more than that." They heard Kathy come into the garage with a smile painted on her face. " I got a call from Dr. Rosen earlier than usual. He says that you don't even need to go to high school."
" What?" Hiro said stunned. Not sure what to say.
" Hiro's a genius?!" Fred said.
" Figures." GoGo said.
" I knew she was smart from the moment she stole my car." Wasabi grins as ruffles Hiro's wild hair. Which earned him a glare from the girl. She doesn't like to be touched. " Too early?" He said to her.
" Yeah." Hiro said as she turns to Kathy. " So that means I'm done with school?" She asked.
" Actually I was hoping we can talk about the future." Kathy explained.
" With what? I don't know why we need to talk about it?" Hiro asked as she leaned back more on the swivel chair.
" Hiro." Kathy started carefully. " With your aptitude and placement, you can go far in your life. Don't you want that."
" I don't know." She answered honestly.
" You should consider going to college. There a lot of great schools in the area with excellent programs and majors. Dr. Rosen says you have great potential in the science and math fields."
" Hey you can consider going to SFIT. The specialize in that stuff." Fred nudges her shoulder but gets no reaction from the girl.
" So? Lot's of people are smart. Why should I go somewhere where people will teach me stuff that I probably already know anyway? There's no point." Hiro asked.
" There is a point. Hiro this is important. I know you had been through something beyond tough, but that is all the more the reason why you should take advantage of your gifts. I don't want you to throw away your potential and future." Kathy tries to get through to her.
" Yeah. What future?" Hiro shrugged. Which earned shock looks from everyone. This is not at all what they expected from her.
Not the best chapter. I know. But it brings in the light of Hiro's intelligence to everyone and Kathy's thoughts about it. But the next chapter is going to be intense. I promise you that.
I won't be updating for about a week due to a family vacation. I know. I'm terrible for spending time with my family. But I love them and I can't wait to see them.
Please Review and See you later.