Disclaimer: The Simpsons characters, storylines and the town of Springfield are the property of Fox Studios. I hereby swear not to profit from this work of fiction unless at some point in the future I purchase The Simpsons from Fox. Until then this is just for fun.
Chapter 14
"Marge I don't think this is such a good idea," commented Homer "The last time we tried to follow one of the kids we ended up in Peru."
"I never said you had to come," replied Marge "Don't you have work?"
"Uh … well you see, it's a funny thing," stammered Homer "the thing about that is…"
"Yes" said Marge impatiently
"Well, I was trying to microwave a burrito so hot that God himself couldn't eat it," explained Homer "which ended up using up 40% of the town's power and caused the preservatives in the burrito to react with the emulsifiers forming a highly corrosive acid, w–."
"OK I get the picture" interrupted Marge
"Which burned through the floor into Mr Burns office." He completed
"Only you Homer," said Marge disbelievingly "only you could threaten your boss's life with a burrito. Now hurry up Lisa will almost be at school by now."
Marge and Homer took different cars and each staked out one side of the school. It was 10 am when Homer saw movement, just a rustle in the bushes next to the fence. Then he saw his daughter's unmistakable hair peeking out from the fence. He took out his binoculars, and saw Lisa remove a piece of fence climb out and then replace it carefully. She looked around and, seeing no-one crouch ran across the street into an alleyway. He took out his phone
"This is Max Power, Starhead sighted," he said "south side, headed into an ally. What should I do Big Blue?"
"Do not pursue on foot," ordered Marge "repeat do not pursue, she'll see you. Move two streets south and attempt to reacquire target, I'll move to your current location in case she doubles back. Good luck Max."
Homer parked his car two streets down and sure enough Lisa emerged, more confident now that she was further away from school. After all she would draw more attention if she did sneak.
"Big Blue, this is Max," said Homer "target re-acquired, please advise."
"Hold your position, until she is out of sight," replied Marge "I'll keep her in my sights."
Eventually she led them to Springfield University. They met and discussed the situation.
"I told her last time," said Marge "college is no place for an eight year old."
"I think there's something more going on here," said Homer, displaying an unusual wit "she wouldn't normally disobey you like this."
"Oooh, maybe her brain was taken over by aliens." he said excitedly, destroying any semblance of wit he might have gained
"uh huh," said Marge "or maybe it's a person who's leading her astray. We should keep watching, see if she leaves with anyone."
An hour and a half later Lisa and Colin left the College on their bikes, unaware that they had a tail. Lisa was happy. It was the last week of the semester and the project was drawing to a close. She and Colin had more time to spend together now that every waking moment wasn't spent trying to catch up with their class work. Lisa decided it would be romantic to go to makeout point. It wouldn't really be the same because they didn't have a car, nor did they know how to drive (despite their licences to the contrary), but the important thing was the two of them. They rode side by side even holding hands in the easy parts.
When they reached their destination they looked into eachother's eyes and moved in for a kiss -
"Not so fast!" cried police chief Clancy Wiggum. "Licence and registration college boy."
"But sir, this is a pedal bike." said Colin
"Oh," said Wiggum tapping his baton "wise guy huh?"
Colin quickly offered his licence.
"Says here your 18" said Wiggum "She looks underage to me."
Lisa offered her licence.
"Oh, sorry to disturb you ma'am." said the police chief backing off.
Wiggam walked over to Marge and Homer.
"You didn't tell me your daughter was eighteen." he said "You need to let her run her own life."
"Oh they grow up so fast," said Homer "seems only yesterday she was eight years old."
"Homer, she was eight yesterday and she's still eight today," scalded Marge "and chief, if you won't do anything then I will."
Marge stormed over towards them.
"Lisa," she yelled "get away from that college boy!"
xxxxxxx
An hour latter they were all back at the Simpson house including chief Wiggum for some reason. Colin's parents had been called and were there too. Lisa and Colin had explained everything.
"Well it looks like my job here is done." said Wiggum
"But chief," said Marge "you didn't do anything."
"And that was the brilliance of my plan." said Wiggum, everyone stared at him silently. "I'll just leave now." He said backing away slowly.
They all agreed that they would have to have a meeting with the Dean of the university and Principle Skinner to sort it out.
xxxxxx
The next day Lisa and Colin along with their parents were seated in a meeting room at the university. Also present were the Dean of the university, Professor Lewis their Social Science teacher, Mark the leader of their project, Principle Skinner and Super intendant Charlmers.
"It's almost unbelievable to me that two of my brightest students turn out to be elementary school students," said Mrs Lewis "I mean, the looked small, but their intellects and work ethic are on par with some of the best students here. When I first saw them I was a little sceptical, but after I saw what they could do, I didn't suspect this at all."
"I agree," said Mark "when they were first placed on my team I had my doubts, now they have become an integral part of my team. Sure they were a little socially awkward, but there are a lot of students like that, and they proved I could trust them to get things done."
"They shouldn't be encouraged," said Principal Skinner "if we reward them for this, it might result in other students trying the same thing."
"I don't think that's a big concern," replied the Dean "I doubt there is many other students out there with the intellect and resources to pull something like this off and even fewer would even want to. This really was quite a sophisticated operation they had multiple forged documents and documents to support those documents, the fact that they remained undiscovered for so long is really a testament to their ingenuity."
"Like it or not," said Chalmers "the state law requires that they attend school until the age of 15."
"I think we can come to an agreement," said the Dean "Lisa and Colin will continue to attend their respective schools until the day they turn 16. After that we are willing to offer them full scholarships, they will be the youngest students the college has ever accepted, but I think they've deserve that distinction."
"They may have come in halfway through the project," said Mark "But they've worked as hard as any of us. It would be unfair to deny them the opportunity to finish the project. Would it be possible for them to stay for just one more week so they can see the project through to the end?"
"I would see no problem with that." said the Dean
"It could be done – we'll just reclassify their days off as a field trip," said Superintendent Chalmers "it is educational after all."
xxxxxx
A week later the envelope was unsealed and the final pieces of data were entered. An additional column was added for the amount the IQ had been lowered or raised. Final analysis showed that there was a trend towards students who received raised IQ's improving over the course of the experiment and among students who received lowered IQ's there was a smaller trend towards decreased results. There were many outliers who bucked the trend but statistical analysis proved that the trends were mathematically significant. Their report recommended that IQ tests not be conducted in schools, because of the potential damage they could do to students' self-esteem and performance at school.
Lisa checked the list of names and found Bart's number, when she checked his actual IQ she was shocked. Bart was not going to be happy about this.
"Hey Mark," asked Lisa "do you mind if I give the results at Springfield Elementary, it is my school after all."
"Sure," Mark replied "I wasn't going to ask you to do it, I figured it would be weird addressing to your classmates as a college student rather than a peer, but so long as you're OK with it."
In the ethical considerations of the project it was decided that students would be made aware of their actual IQ's at the end of the experiment.
"I doubt it's possible for me to be any less accepted at school," said Lisa "but while I've been here, I finally felt like there was somewhere I belonged, where people respected me for my accomplishments. They're taking it away, their taking everything from me."
"Hey," said Colin "you'll still have me!"
"I'm sorry," said Lisa "I know that, and I love you, but you're going back to Ireland. They're taking everything and it's not fair."
"I'll write," said Colin trying to cheer her up "and I might be coming back to accept the scholarship."
"Uh huh" sniffed Lisa
Mark put a hand on each of their shoulders.
"I know they wouldn't let you receive credit for completing the course," said Mark "but while they do mark us on the report, we're the ones that own it, so your names will stay on this report. I would say we could hang out sometime, but with the age difference, I'm sure you understand. If you need some help or advice though you can call me."
"Thanks Mark," Lisa said as she left for Springfield Elementary "I won't forget this."
"No," Mark agreed, "this isn't the sort of thing you'd forget overnight."
xxxxxx
It was seven pm and the sun was going down. Mrs Krabable's class had come to a special meeting. They were told it was news from the university about their IQ scores so they were all surprised when it was Lisa who came to address them. Even Bart, who by now knew that Lisa had been attending College, was surprised to see that she was a part of the team who developed the IQ tests.
"I have good news and bad news." said Lisa
"What's the bad news," asked Nelson sarcastically "you couldn't find the second grade classroom?"
"No," said Lisa calmly "The bad news is that some of you didn't do as well on the IQ test as you thought, the good news is that some of you did better."
Instantly a rabble rose up in the classroom.
"Allow me to explain," she said
Lisa explained the experiment to them in terms she expected them to understand, but still received some blank looks.
"Alright then," she said "I will now hand out slips with your real IQ's on them, but don't take them too seriously, our study suggests that it is detrimental for students to know their own IQ."
She walked between the rows passing out the slips.
"I knew it," said Martin "142"
Nelson threw a pencil at the back of his head.
"Ow" he squealed
She gave Bart his slip and everyone looked at him, and he looked at the slip in disbelief, 98. He was average again. Nelson grabbed the slip.
"98!" he exclaimed, handing Bart back the slip "You're one of us again Simpson"
In that moment Bart realised that being intelligent had caused him nothing but misery, this was his chance to go back to his old life, and he took it gladly.
After the meeting the students were picked up by their parents, and Lisa pulled Bart aside.
"I have something to tell you" She said cryptically "do you still have that slip?"
"Yeah," he said handing it to her "It's right here"
Lisa took the slip and rubbed a portion of it with her thumb and flakes of white came away. He realised that one digit had been whited out and a part of the number nine had been written on top of whiteout. As the sections fell away a new number was revealed 148.
"But How…?" Bart asked
"It's very rare for siblings to vary by more than 10 IQ points, we vary by 8," she explained "Other studies have shown that IQ alone isn't really a good indicator of ability –"
"But you told everyone back there that I was an idiot…" Bart paused for a second of contemplation before enveloping his sister in a hug "Thanks sis."
Well that's the end, everything is back to the status quo. If people want a happily ever after ending I could include an epilogue set in the future otherwise I'll leave it as is. I hope you've enjoyed reading this story, although if you made it this far it's highly unlikely that you didn't. Till next time.
UndeadSamurai