Mid-May 1987, (Flashback)

"Austin, sit down! You'll wrinkle your nice clothes!"

Four-year-old Austin sighed grumpily at the bark of his mother's voice, abandoning his attempt to write his name in the window condensation and plonking himself back down on the uncomfortable train seat, he was already uncomfortable with this stupid fancy collared shirt and stiff trousers his mum had had made him wear. He'd decided he didn't like trains much, it was as boring as the bus except you couldn't even look out the damn window since you had to have your back to it. He swore it smelled funny too.

"And stop slouching!" his mum barked again from the seat next to him, he pouted but pulled himself back upright. Not as upright as she was sitting in her fancy work clothes, mind, but then he didn't think anyone could sit up as straight as she did, "This is a very important interview, Austin, you need to be on your best behavior."

"I know, you've only told me like a thousand times," Austin complained at her, she hadn't shut up about it since they'd been given the date, "I'm not stupid, isn't that the whole point of this?"

"Yes. But you're also not well behaved," she told him icily, eying him skeptically as if expecting him to jump up and yell 'boo.' That might be fun actually, "And try not to do anything, you know… strange."

"Yeah, I'll make sure to not do the thing I can't control," Austin quipped sarcastically and very deliberately winked, he was incredibly proud of his newfound ability to wink which had required much practice on his part. He wondered if it would impress the interviewer. It didn't impress his mum though, he saw her reddish-brown eyes narrow and he continued speaking before she could scold him for back talking or whatever nonsense she was always complaining about, "You know, Mum, I've been thinking about it a lot though and I think I might be Jesus."

"Austin!" his mum snapped and he noticed some elderly lady opposite give him a very angry look, "You are not Jesus."

"But think about it," Austin insisted determinedly, dropping his voice and holding up his hand, "He did a lot of miracles and what are miracles really? They're just weird stuff that people couldn't explain. And who else can do weird stuff that people can't explain? Oh yeah, me."

"Austin, you're not Jesus," she reiterated firmly before also lowering her voice, "There's no such thing."

"Dad believed in Jesus."

"Dad also believed you were a devil child so he left," she pointed out icily to which Austin hung his head unhappily before they were distracted by the loud disembodied voice announcing the next stop, "Oh Austin, that's us. Come on."

Austin rolled his eyes as his mum half-dragged him to his feet as she hit a button on one of the yellow poles in the train, he was glad for her grip though as he almost lost his balance as the train came to a halt. They shuffled out along with a handful of other passengers, his mother keeping a tight grip on his hand the entire time as if afraid he might try to run off… again.

"See how nice this neighborhood is compared to our own?" his mum wondered aloud as she let him away from the station and through the streets, occasionally stopping to check the map she had folded up in her blouse pocket.

He responded with a derisive grunt though after a few more minutes wandering though the cleaner and greener part of the city, he did mentally concede she was probably right. He still didn't get why they had to come all the way out here though, he was getting fed up with walking and having to hold his mother's hand, also his tummy was rumbling from hunger.

"Mu-"

"We're almost there, Austin. God, you're so damn impatient," she snapped at him immediately and he scowled at her but said nothing, he felt like he was being pretty patient since he hadn't said anything since they left the train. He tried to behave if they were walking somewhere, ever since his dad had gotten pissed off with him and just left crying in the street that one time, he also forgot him a lot… maybe it wasn't such a bad thing his dad had left. He wondered if he was a bad person for thinking that, his mum would probably say he was, she always said he was.

She actually seemed to be right though, before they even rounded the bend he heard the sound of children laughing and sure enough there was the school. It was a weird shaped white building with one of those cages that schoolkids ran around in playing, Austin thought schoolkids must be even stupider then the kids in his preschool since they never seemed to notice or care they were in cage instead just they just ran around laughing like crazy people. They walked around the cage though, through a pathway lined neatly with all different colors of pretty flowers to the entrance. He gave a squeal of delight as the door slid open automatically, like the ones at the supermarket, he loved those doors.

"Austin, behave!" his mum hissed at him to which he rolled his eyes grumpily, "And don't roll your eyes at me."

"Welcome to Blackwell Academy," a woman greeted them as they entered, she was sitting (or standing?) behind a brown reception desk to their right, "How can I help you?"

"Good afternoon, I'm here with my son. We should have an appointment with Admissions for one o'clock?"

"What is your son's name?"

"Austin Kemp."

"Alright, let me just check that," the receptionist offered and started clicking away at one of those computer things, his eyes surveyed the room which while small had numerous corridors leading off. It also had some comfortable looking chairs opposite the desk and a large green plant with fan-like leaves, "Yep, I see it here, you'll be meeting with Humphrey Latimer. You're a bit early but if you'd like to take a seat, I can call and let him know you're here whenever he's ready."

"Thank you very much," his mum offered kindly before leading him over to the chairs, he slumped down readily, "Austin! What did I tell you about slouching?!"

"Ugh," Austin grumbled and pulled himself more upright as she sat down beside him, opposite he noticed the receptionist was now on the phone.

"You need to be on your best behavior," she hissed at him quietly so that the receptionist couldn't hear, "You have no idea how good an opportunity this is for your future and I don't want you to screw it up, this guy is going to be a stuffy old fart who won't tolerate your foolishness."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Austin brushed her off as he looked around at the plain white walls, she'd only given him the same speech like a million times already. The most interesting thing was the carpet, it looked very clean and had some kind of cool geometric pattern with purple and red.

"I'm serious, Austin."

"I know, Mum, you're always serious."

"I-"

"Good afternoon, you must be Austin," a man greeted them with a smile as he came in from one of the corridors, he was as tall and thin as a rake and all dressed up nice in a blazer with a sweater vest. He was pale with neatly combed jet black hair and aviator eyeglasses, he had a soft, kind voice and despite what his mother had said, he didn't look any older than she did, "My name is Humphrey Latimer, I'm very pleased to meet you."

"Hi!" Austin jumped up happily to greet the stranger, it wasn't often people wanted to talk to him specifically and he offered his hand for the man to shake like his mum had made him practice, she said it was what grownups do. He looked a little surprised by this but nonetheless shook his hand with a smile, Austin thought he had really bony fingers, "It's an honor to be here, sir."

Austin glanced at his mother to gauge her reaction to the fact he'd said and done exactly as she'd asked, quite frankly he'd expected her to interject already. To his bemusement however, she looked completely taken aback and was blushing as she hastily got to her feet. Smoothing out her skirt and fussing with her hair frantically, she was also smiling. He didn't know whether to be amused or disturbed.

"And you must be, Mrs Kemp," the man offered in the same pleasant tone, offering her his hand which she took.

"Oh, it's Miss," his mum correctly very firmly, laughing nervously- nervously?! – and continuing to shake his hand far longer than she'd told him was reasonable, "But you can call me Michelle."

"Humphrey then," Humphrey – which Austin thought that was a stupid name – responded not seeming perturbed by her odd behavior though he did look at their shaking hands which caused her to let go, "If you'd both like to follow me to my office."

"I'd love to," she agreed over eagerly as Humphrey turned and started to lead the way, Austin could only gape at her unusual behavior which upon noticing she reverted to her usual scowl and pushed him into a walk following after Humphrey.

"So what do you think of the school?"

"It's wonderful, you keep an excellent school here."

"Why thank you though I can't really take credit, I'm just the Admissions Officer but we do have an excellent staff here. What about you, Austin? You're the one who'd be here after all."

"I dunno, why you keep the kids in a cage?" Austin wondered as Humphrey stopped to open a door.

"Austin!" his mum snapped immediately but Humphrey chuckled as he opened it to let them inside.

"I can see why it might look that way but they are just fences," Humphrey explained as he and his mum entered his office, "That way the kids can play safely outside without danger of wandering into the street."

"Oh."

"Why don't you both take a seat and I'll get my files? Usually I'd have them ready but I'm afraid you caught me just as I got back from lunch."

Austin looked around the room curiously, the walls and floor were identical to the halls and reception but it was spacious here. There was a black leather couch and black leather armchair with wooden frames in the middle of the room with a curvy wooden coffee table between them, there was also a square side table with an fat ugly lamp and odd cube and like a wall of cabinet bookshelves opposite them then wedged in the corner besides a large blinded window was the an desk that Humphrey was moving towards. Austin guessed he'd meant to sit on the couch so he aimed for that, his attention immediately drawn to the cube thing which had different multi-colored squares on each side.

"Hey Humphrey, what's this?" Austin asked as he plopped himself down on the couch, not as comfortable as the reception seats but it did look fancy.

"Huh? Oh it's called a Rubik's Cube, the last child was playing with it," Humphrey answered from afar as Austin started fiddling with it, realizing you could turn segments of it to change where the colored squares were, "You're supposed to turn it so that each side has one color, it's pretty challenging to solve."

"Hmm…" Austin mused to himself as he started trying to solve the cube, hearing rather than seeing his mum taking a seat beside him and Humphrey's returning footsteps a few minutes later as his focus was entirely on the cube he swiveling in his hands. He liked a challenge.

"So it's Austin Gareth Kemp… and you just turned four last month?" Humphrey said after the sound of flipping pages, speaking slower as if he was reading but Austin didn't want to look away from the cube. He was making progress, he already had one side red, "Is that right?"

"Yep."

"Can you count to four?"

"I can count to four thousand if you like, it's really simple," Austin answered disinterestedly as he kept his focus, he thought there was a kind of rhythm to it, "It's boring once you notice the pattern, the hard part is just learning what the higher numbers are called."

"Austin! Pay attention when the nice man is talking to you," his mum snapped.

"It's alright, he can do that for a minute while I confirm some things," Humphrey brushed and her off and Austin smirked inwardly without taking his eyes from the cube, he kind of starting to like this guy, "So he's only child, correct?"

"Correct."

"And you say you're a single mother Mis- Michelle?"

"Very single," she answered in a much more pleasant tone then he was used to hearing her have, "His father's not in the picture, we never married – his choice - and he left months ago."

"He left because he thought I was Satan," Austin pointed out without looking up from the cube he was still twisting.

"I'm sure he didn't really think you were Satan," Humphrey responded with a nervous laugh and Austin noticed his mum didn't correct him, even though his dad had been very explicit in loudly proclaiming he was a devil child with demon powers. He supposed she thought it might look bad, "I see the father's name is listed but not his profession?"

"He didn't really have one," his mum admitted.

"He just liked to drink and watch football all day then throw loud parties at night until Mummy came home then they'd argue-"

"Austin!"

"What? It's true," Austin protested, briefly looking up from his cube to see her glaring at him.

"Unemployed will do," Humphrey offered very politely as Austin went back to solving the puzzle, "And you're employed as a junior paralegal?"

"Yes, I'm fresh out of Uni so I'm pretty low on the totem pole," his mum admitted in a much more cheerful tone, she loved going on about her job, "But I'm committed to climbing up the ranks, eventually I'd like to open my own law firm."

"We all have to start somewhere, I wish you all the best, and it's an excellent career path. Have you given much thought to Austin's career path?"

"I was thinking he could follow in my footsteps in law, or possibly a doctor-"

"Finished," Austin interrupted her boring ramble as he completed the cube, tossing it to Humphrey so fast the poor man struggled to catch it and almost dropped it. He smirked proudly, "It's not that hard."

"To a lot of people it is," Humphrey chuckled as he put it back on the side table besides the fat lamp, "Well done."

"Why do you have such an ugly lamp anyway?"

"Austin!" his mum snapped once again.

"It's alright," Humphrey brushed it aside again, looking rather interested, "Why do you think it's an ugly lamp?"

"Because everything else in this room is so… neat and clean and designed," Austin tried to explain, gesturing lamely with his hands, "But then you have this lamp which is just a big fat blob, it's like you lined up some dominoes then dropped a glob of playdough in the middle. It's also brown like a pile of shit-"

"Austin!"

"Poop?"

"Austin!"

"It's alright, it's good to have opinions," Humphrey insisted still perfectly calmly while that vein on his mum's forehead looked ready to pop, he picked the file backup off his lap which had a label.

"Hey, that file has my name on it!" Austin realized aloud.

"Of course it does, it's your file," his mum muttered irritably and bit her tongue as if resisting the urge to call him an idiot, Humphrey looked pleased though.

"Can you read, Austin?" Humphrey asked as he turned the page and started scribbling away in the file, "That wasn't mentioned in your file."

"Sort of," Austin shrugged, not entirely sure how the ability to read was defined, "It depends what it is."

"Have the pre-school been teaching you?"

"They can't even teach half those idiots to not eat crayons! No, I just figured it out myself."

"Do you like pre-school much then?"

"No," Austin scoffed with a derisive snort, leaning back and folding his arms, "The other kids there are so stupid, half can barely talk and the other half can't talk at all! They don't know anything, or understand anything, or remember anything. They can't sit do anything for more than five seconds, a lot of them can't even go to the toilet by themselves or they're still in diapers like babies and they're always doing ridiculous things like trying to eat paint or wooden blocks or whatever else that clearly isn't food- I don't know how they're even alive they're this stupid, I've seen animals on TV that are smarter."

"Kids all develop at different rates," Humphrey pointed out kindly as he continued scribbling down on his files, "You're just a bit ahead of the others."

"Doesn't mean they're any fun to be around. And you know the grownups there aren't much better, they get annoyed with me asking them questions and they never teach us anything useful. Like they only let us count to ten – which is basically nothing when you think about how much higher the numbers go - and they do it so slowly and they make us sing the alphabet song every day – every single one! – even though I already know the damn alphabet, you only need to hear something once or twice to remember it. And that's about it, you can learn more from TV just by putting the words onscreen so you can see how what matches the word sounds."

"The preschool staff were actually the ones who first suggested Austin was gifted and suggested I seek out scholarships for private schools like this one because of how bright they said he was, I thought they were just messing with me," his mum informed Humphrey with a nervous laugh, he wasn't sure Humphrey noticed his mother's newfound insanity though as he was still flipping through his files and scribbling stuff down, "But they insisted and when I finally looked into it, I realized that Austin did seem ahead of other kids his age. The preschool said it was probably why he struggled to fit in with the other children, even why he was… a handful."

"Oh yes, it's actually quite common for gifted children, if they're not being intellectually challenged they're prone to being easily bored and acting out. And Austin clearly is, gifted I mean, he comes across very bright and articulate," Humphrey confirmed and glanced briefly up from his file to gesture in Austin's direction with his pen, "And as Austin just explained rather well himself, it can be hard – especially at this age – for them to get along with peers who aren't on the same developmental level as them. You should be happy to know, Austin, that hopefully you shouldn't have those kinds of problems at our school."

"Does that mean I get in?" Austin noticed and when Humphrey looked up at him, he made a very deliberate to effort to wink to show him his new skill, "I taught myself to do that if you want to write that down too, it's harder than reading."

"Austin! He doesn't care that you can wink," his mum hissed at him irritably as Humphrey closed the file.

"Well we still need to do the assessment part of the interview, I have some things to get out of the cabinet, but let's just say it's looking likely," Humphrey explained with a smile and then very pointedly winked at him, Austin grinned all over.