To sum up his elementary school years, he spent them reading, with half an ear on what Ms. or Mr. Whoever was teaching. If it was something he didn't know, which wasn't very often, he'd put down his book. If he did, he merely shut off his hearing and focused on what he was reading, whether it be a textbook he stole from one of his siblings (he had learned how to pick a lock quick enough for it to look like he wasn't, and broke into their lockers. This endeared him to them in no way, but he only got punched once by Ruth when he mixed up her schedule and took a book she needed, so at least she didn't mind too much) or something from the library. Students looked at him like he was just the bookworm of their grade, shorter than the rest of them, nerdier than the rest of them and smarter.
But he was more than that.
He was ten, he got his first laptop. Nathan (who was in fact the 'snootiest' of the entire family, beyond even Noah) had saved up enough for a new one as he was a three years into collage and the thing just wasn't as fast as he needed it to be. It took an average of six minutes to load an Internet page and was more beat-up than Samuel's well-loved art supplies, but it was his. And so Noah tumbled into the wondrous world of online gaming. His web-peers gave him advice. How to de-frag a hard drive to make your computer faster, take advantage of a glitch in a game, even told him everything he would ever need to know about spam. But one guy will forever be his idol, his mentor.
She simply called herself his Yoda.
Cretin-Queen taught him how to hack into anything. She showed him code so intricate it made Noah's eyes light up and fingers ache. There came a time, that after months of student-to-teacher interaction, she saw fit to give him her name and age. At which point something needed to be cleared up. She was a brilliant hacker, and found out early on that the computer he used belonged to Nathanial Wilson, age twenty-two.
Cretin-Queen: Hi, my name is Allison Macky, I am twenty-eight.
Ninth Chapter: Noah Wilson, ten years old.
Noah waited nearly three minutes, the longest of his life so far.
Ninth Chapter: Hello? CQ, you there?
Another minute.
Cretin-Queen: I'm sorry, I've just been lmao at my own stupidity.
Ninth Chapter: ?
Cretin-Queen: I've been thinking all this time that you were Nathanial and twenty-two. Anybody ever tell you you're smart for your age?
Ninth Chapter: Some use the word genius.
Cretin-Queen: Modest as always my young student. So why's your computer say it's Nate's?
Ninth Chapter: Nathan's my oldest brother, and like I've said before, this computer is fucking slow. He gave it to me when he got a new one.
Cretin-Queen: Sorry, you're ten, not allowed to swear anymore.
Ninth Chapter: Sigh…
Cretin-Queen: I've always wondered what was up with your screen name.
Ninth Chapter: Yeah, I'm the youngest of nine kids, but the time it took you to 'lmao' you were doing a little check, didn't you?
Cretin-Queen: Guilty as charged. What's it like with a ginormus family?
Ninth Chapter: You're the youngest Wilson kid. People expect you to be overly pretentious like Nathan, or gothic like Tina, or kind like Gabe, get into fights like Ruth, or be studious like Theresa, or be an artsy-delinquent like Samuel, or some kind of charisma-charged cool guy like Myra, or sports-loving like Bekah. They don't expect that I have my own identity, that I can do something one of my siblings hasn't already done.
Cretin-Queen: Whoa, slow down dude. Are you sure you haven't hit you teen years there?
Ninth Chapter: I'm less than five foot and my face hasn't started sprouting hair yet.
Cretin-Queen: Both pretty indicative signs of either a girl midget or a pre-pubescent boy.
Ninth Chapter: Checking… Checking… I am neither a female nor a midget, thank-you-very-muchly.
Cretin-Queen: Alright then, I was getting worried about you.
Ninth Chapter: Hardy-har-har.
Cretin-Queen: So, almighty genius-boy-wonder, what grade are you in?
Ninth Chapter: Going into sixth pretty soon. And before you ask, it's because my freaking idiotic parents don't want me to skip grades. I ace all my subjects, heck, I know more than some of the teachers.
Cretin-Queen: Nice job on the not-swearing there. I give you an A+.
Ninth Chapter: I'm frowning at you. I had to go back over that to change the swearwords.
Cretin-Queen: B+
Ninth Chapter: Glaring.
Ninth Chapter: Shit, I've gtg, my mom's calling me down to dinner.
Ninth Chapter has signed off.
Cretin-Queen: Tut tut tut, C-.
Cretin-Queen has signed off.
CQ was fun, the most knowledgeable of anybody he'd met online or off, and willing to teach him anything he wanted to know. It came upon one day when she announced that her little Jedai had surpassed her and that she was very proud of her only student.
Cretin-Queen: Just don't pull a Darth on me, okay?
Ninth Chapter: I solemnly swear I am up to no good.
Cretin-Queen: Serious time. This is important.
Ninth Chapter: I promise I won't use my hacker skills on banks to steal money from people, or something like that. Only to get information.
Cretin-Queen: Close enough. Alright hacker Formally Known As Ninth Chapter. I bequeath to you my crown, and christen you the Ninth King! It'll get you into a lot of circles if you even know my screen-name, but remember this if you ever get in deep with anything (the law mostly but anything else as important as that) you tell them this : Allison Macky. Concrete breaks paper. Good luck, my little Jedai. May the Force be with you.
The Ninth King: CQ?
The Ninth King: You changed my name? Do you know how corny it sounds now?
The Ninth King: …CQ..?
Cretin-Queen has signed off.
Minutes passed.
The Ninth King has signed off.