One
Rachel
Rachel
stared at the slimy mass before her through her big, round goggles.
The long, flat magnet that she held in front of her eyes made the
mass her own to control. It looked like a blanket. A large, slimy,
disgusting blanket.
Fully
concentrated, she extracted a fluid from a test tube with her other
hand and made it drop gently into the mass. Nothing happened. With a
sigh, and still holding up the magnet, she began to scribble down
another way to set up the experiment. She did not hear a door open,
but suddenly she heard her father's voice. Slowly, she turned around.
Her father was peaking through the open door. He gave her a friendly
smile.
“Darling,
it's ten already. You should be in bed.”
Rachel
nodded and pointed at the open experiment before her.
With a
shrug and a smile he left to let her continue. He had no idea what
she was doing. In fairness neither did she at the moment. But when
Rachel turned back to the equipment table, a smile broke out over her
face. So it had worked. The liquid she had dropped into the mass had
settled in the middle and was now changing colours. There was a puff
noise and some smoke
which made her know she had created... something. What, she
could not tell. She pulled the small-ish stone-thing – was it a
stone-thing? - out of the dark mass and wiped it on her lab coat. She
looked at it with big eyes but the only significant factor she could
find was that it was of a colour and material she could not
recognize. It looked like glass but it wasn't glass. It looked like a
jewel but it wasn't a jewel. She shrugged and tucked the thing in her
trouser pocket for safe-keeping. Then she noted everything in her
small, scrawly handwriting. She threw the mass into the chemical
waste bin and swapped the round goggles for her angular spectacles
with the black frame. She took off her lab coat and hung it on a
hook. It stood out quite a bit in that certain shade of pink,
flashing laundry incompetence. Oh well. At least she had a lab
coat. She released her dark brown, almost black silky hair from its
bound. It fell smoothly over her shoulders. Satisfied with the room's
clean state she left it, locking the door behind her. Her dad was
reading a magazine. He stood up when he noticed her and smiled.
“Proud of
you, honey”, he said, “ready to go?”
She let him
help her slip on her coat, as it was winter and cold outside. It was
a starless night and darkness wrapped her into another coat, one that
was as comforting as it was deceitful. Their footprints in the snow
were significantly different in size. Rachel had tiny feet, even for
her tender age of eleven, while her father had quite big feet, even
for a tall, grown man.
They were
greeted by the warm embrace that was her mother. Her thick, red hair
swirled around as she greeted them. As always, she was excited about
everything. Rachel loved that about her, but it could also be highly
annoying.
“I could
have sworn it was night, but the sun just came in!”, Angela Lake
cried out and kissed her cheek.
That was
one of the things Rachel did not like about her mum: The fuss she
made about her daughter.
“How are
you, my dear?”, Angela asked, her blue, innocent eyes looking
straight into Rachel's dark, deep ones.
“I'm
fine, Mum”, she signed, which did not stop her mother from giving
her a tight hug anyway.
“I've
made you some soup”, she said excitedly.
Rachel did
not like soup. She especially did not like the soup her mother made.
It usually contained burnt leftovers. It tasted like her mum meant to
poison her. Rachel knew she was trying to be a great mum to her. But
there were some things someone else should have taken care of.
Cooking, to name a crazy example. Her dad mouthed “sorry” to her.
He had already eaten. Rachel sighed noiselessly and sat down on the
kitchen bench to obediently receive her bowl of soup. Angela gave her
a large ladle full, which Rachel eyed suspiciously. But it did not
taste half as bad as she had expected it to.
“Now
Rachel, tell me”, Angela Lake began, watching her with that
concerned look in her eyes that Rachel so hated, “are you sure that
teacher isn't exploiting you? Having you work late like that when
you've got school in the morning!”
Rachel
shook her head firmly. Professor Dens was not exploiting her. He had
never asked anything of her. He had just been kind enough to help her
do what she wanted to do.
“I do
think you ought to be home earlier on a school night. Your grades are
down again...”
Rachel
shrugged. Her grades were constantly bouncing. Her mother knew that
as much as she did.
“I'm just
saying, you have to be careful not to get exploited...”
“I am not
getting exploited”, Rachel signed to her and stood up.
She had
eaten about half of her bowl of soup, which was more than she usually
managed.
“I want
to do this. Professor Dens is very kind to me. My grades will bounce
back. Good night, Mum.”
She hugged
both her parents and left the room.
“We have
an amazing daughter”, she heard her father say to Angela, “she's
smart. She has the sense not to get exploited. You worry too much.”
She heard
her mother sigh.
“I worry
all the time. That's the curse of being a mother. Maybe if we had a
second child, one with lesser problems...”
“Rachel
is fine, darling. We don't have to get ourselves another child to see
that.”
Rachel did
not go to her room. This was far too interesting.
“Sometimes
I wish”, Angela said in quite a sad voice, “that she wasn't such
a problematic child. I know that sounds horrible, especially since I
work with disadvantaged children, but I can't help the way I feel.
Sometimes I wish, I could turn the clock back...”
Rachel knew
precisely to which moment Angela wanted to turn the clock back.
“Rachel
is not a problematic child, Ange. She's different, that's all. You
just want her to be normal. I get that. But I think it is wonderful
how gifted she is. She could really make an impact on the world.”
Angela
looked up at him.
“Daniel,
do you know how many times Rachel's new school called today? Three.
And that's not counting that time I didn't pick up. 'What's the
matter with your daughter, Mrs Lake? Surely you must know... She's
your daughter, isn't she?' Do you have any idea how
frustrating it is, to try to explain again and again that you do not
have a clue why your daughter won't speak?”
Rachel
heard her dad move a chair. She closed further in on them and saw him
give her mum a sympathetic kiss.
“Of
course I know, honey. I'm possibly the only one who does. You're
right, it is frustrating. But if it's frustrating for us, can you
imagine how frustrating it must be for her?”
Angela
shrugged. “She never seemed to mind much.”
It had all
started when Rachel was a proud first year pupil of Springsen's
Honourable Primary School. The school took kids with a high IQ in for
free. Rachel had passed the IQ test with ease. She was one of three
children in her class of ten, who were labelled 'highly gifted'. It
had all started so well that her mum had almost died of all the
excitement and pride. Her dad had been happy as well, but in a less
jumpy and noisy kind of way. Then something happened which changed
the small family's world entirely. At first the teachers had thought
that Rachel had caught a bad case of stubbornness when she, from one
day to another, refused to utter a word. Her parents had not thought
much of it either at first, but when several days passed and she
still was not speaking, they were severely worried. Nothing had
worked on her in the past days. Nothing the school had tried:
patience, impatience, praise, anger, detention, suspension, making
her sit by herself and all the empty threats an entire team of
teachers could come up with had had no effect whatsoever. Mum and
Dad, too, had tried everything from yelling at her to giving her a
cuddle. When she still did not even make a sound, they started to
think there was something very wrong with her indeed. They took her
to numerous doctors, from their local GP to even a certified brain
surgeon, but they all just gave them the same answer: “There is
nothing medically wrong with your daughter. Try a psychiatrist.”
And so they did.
Rachel was
happily participating in all the activities that did not involve
using her voice. But when the lady asked her to answer a question she
refused to even try telling her what the problem might be. In the end
her parents went to see a specialist doctor and asked him if it was
possible for a brain to forget how to speak. The specialist thought
that it might be possible, but highly unlikely. The Lakes decided not
to put their six-year-old daughter through any more tests, but to
accept her and love her for who she was now. The school, however, was
not so understanding. Some of the teachers kept pressing on Rachel to
speak. They kept saying she was a stubborn, defiant and stupid little
girl and made her sit in a corner. Rachel did not mind. She hardly
seemed to mind not being able to speak anymore. She did not mind
sitting in the corner much, either. It did not keep her from
listening. She listened to every word the teachers said very
carefully and weighed it against her own knowledge and values. She
aced most of her tests and some of the teachers praised her for it.
The other pupils just thought she was weird. Someone spread the
rumour that what she had was contagious and from then on no one would
sit next to her anymore. In all of that Rachel grew quite lonely and
even more attached to listening to what everyone said. She started
keeping little notebooks, in which she noted when someone had said
something interesting, no matter if it had been a teacher or a pupil
or someone she happened to listen to on the street.
When people
asked Rachel why she did not speak, she would only shrug. She learned
Sign Language in three weeks and tutored her parents, who were still
taking lessons a year after she was fluent in it. She never
complained. In fact, she did not seem to mind much. After a while,
Daniel Lake grew to be exceptionally proud of his brave little
daughter. Rachel was exceptionally proud of her father, too. He was a
fire fighter and had saved many lives.
Knowing him
as family or friend, you would never have guessed he was a fire
fighter. He was very clumsy and quite often forgetful. But he was
very good at his job.
“It
doesn't matter how I act at home”, he told Rachel once, “there I
can drop everything, literally and figuratively, and no one will get
hurt. If I did that at work, someone might die. People are always as
strong as they need to be.”
That made
sense to Rachel when she stared through the black frames of her
glasses, ignoring the sneering remarks from the children and teachers
who seemed to think she had lost her hearing as well as her voice.
Teachers never quite seemed to be able to decide whether she was
stupid or smart. Some teachers grew very angry at that and gave her
extra homework when she would not answer their questions. Some just
always gave her a 'C', no matter what she did. Rachel could have been
furious at the injustice of that. But she found that she did not
really mind. The teachers were bound to their limited intelligence
and more than that their limited sense of care, so she could not
really blame them for not understanding her. Bad grades did not stop
her from learning and they did not encourage her to study more. In
fact they made no difference whatsoever.
Her parents
had stopped asking to see her work after her dad had once taken a
look at a science essay of hers and understood nothing at all.
“I get
where your teachers are coming from”, he had said, shaking his
head, “maybe you could try to make it a little bit simpler?”
“I will
never get anywhere if I make everything simpler”, she signed, “I
want to do big things. Change the quality of life on the planet. I
don't have time to write simple essays for simple teachers.”
Her father
shook his head at her arrogance. But since he principally agreed with
her, he did not stop her from treating school work the way she wished
to.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rachel had
figured out she was adopted at age seven. She told her father a year
later. He was surprised she knew, which in turn surprised her as it
was so obvious: His hair was goldish-blond, her mother's red, his
eyes were green, her mother's blue. Rachel's hair was almost black.
Her eyes were brown.
Her father
understood that she wanted to meet her birth parents and offered to
help her find them. And eventually, they did.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The man who
came out of the big, white house when they rang the bell was
undoubtedly her birth father. His hair and lips were exactly like
hers. They did not tell him who they were. Instead, they asked for
directions. Daniel managed to start a conversation with him about his
children. Her birth father, who was called Rupert Lind, was a young
man of about thirty years. He had married her birth mother, Tara
Lind. They had six kids. All girls. Tara had taken them out with her
mother and mother-in-law for an all girls' trip.
When Rachel
signed to him he had no clue what it meant. Her dad had to translate
for her:
“Are you
happy?”
Rupert
looked at her in surprise. Then he smiled.
“Yes,
little girl, I'm very happy. My family is wonderful and I have a
great job. I could not ask for a better life.”
This would
have been a queer answer out of anyone. But out of her birth father
Rachel found it downright insulting. She asked if she could use his
bathroom. He let her into his house. Then he went back outside. It
was almost too easy, standing on the window sill and planting the bug
just a tiny bit above the curtain unseen. She took a little time to
look around. There were photos everywhere.
'My mum',
Rachel thought, as she tenderly touched the family photos one by one,
'my sisters.' But it sounded wrong in her head. The children were all
tiny. She would have been the oldest by about two years, she
reckoned. Two of the girls were twins. Her birth parents had been
very busy. She left the house with a sad feeling in her heart.
“All
done?”, Rupert asked kindly. Rachel nodded. Then she went over to
her dad, her real dad, the blond one, the fire fighter whom she was
so proud of, and gave him a hug. Rupert saw them and smiled.
“I hope
that I'll have such a good relationship with my girls, too, when they
get to that age.”
'Me, too',
Rachel thought. They drove off, waving.
She made a
habit of listening in on her birth family every evening before
dinner. Rupert had not lied, they were quite a happy bunch. The
children's names all began with an 'H'. Hanna, Harriet, Hazel, Helen,
Hettie and Hilly. They were all very pretty, full of life,
intelligent, loving children. It was good that her birth sisters were
happy and not missing anything. It would not be fair to change that.
It was very clear that they did not want or need her. She had never
been mentioned, she was not a part of any of their lives. And she was
not like them, either. Neither of her birth parents appeared to have
any interest in science. A picture of Jesus hung in their kitchen,
above the sink, which Rachel found quite ironic. None of the girls
were mute. After three weeks of listening in on their conversations,
Rachel decided it was time to bury them. She deactivated the bug in
their home via remote control from her bedroom. Then she buried the
remote control in her back garden. Then she went to have dinner with
her parents. She never mentioned any of it to them.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Professor
Dens was quite a strange figure. He took it to heart to represent the
stereotype of the 'nutty professor' at school. He always wore
colourful suits and amazingly colourful ties and said things no one
else dared or wished to say. Rachel had admired him instantly. She
loved that he was different. That he stood out, like she did.
“Well,
class”, he had said to thirty-one new pupils, “welcome to this
school. You will love and loathe it, no doubt. Usually at the same
time. You will learn things here you never wanted to learn and you'll
forget them faster than you could imagine. Your goals for the time
you spend at this school and also for the time you spend in my class
should be threefold: have a bit of fun, call a teacher rightfully a
tosser and learn something exciting that sticks to your brain like an
expensive type of glue. Now, what do you think glue is made of?
Armand?”
A little
boy with bright red hair shot out of his seat and answered:
“Skin,
bones and hooves of farm animals, sir!”
“Relax,
dear child. No need for getting up and calling me 'sir'. What you
said was a correct answer, Armand. Correct answers are boring. Lucas,
tell me a wrong answer.”
'How does
he know their names?' Rachel wrote on a piece of paper and passed it
over to the girl sitting next to her.
Before the
girl could answer, Professor Dens suddenly appeared in front of them
and snatched it out of the girl's hand. He read it aloud.
Before
Rachel could get angry, he smiled at her.
“I like
to inform myself before I get into the cage with the wild animals.
But your name seems to have slipped my mind. What was it again?”
Rachel
scribbled some words on another piece of paper and handed it to him.
'Rachel', the paper read, 'I don't speak.'
“Rachel.
Indeed”, the professor said, “now, Lucas! Thought of an answer?”
Taken
aback, the boy shouted: “Giraffes!”
“Giraffes!
How wonderful! Now, wherever did you get that idea?”
“I think
I read it somewhere”, the boy said, now suddenly turning pink.
“How
practical, on a scale from one to ten, do you think it would be to
farm giraffes for glue?”
Lucas
thought about that for a moment.
“Five?”,
he then said, looking quite uncertain.
“Five!
Grand answer!”
The boy
looked at him in disbelief.
“It is?”
“Why, of
course it is!”
“Blimey”,
said Lucas, “I never get anything right.”
“Wait,
I'm confused”, a pretty girl with a big, green bow on her
hazel-coloured hair said, wrinkling her nose, “do they make
glue from giraffes?”
“May do,
may not, Rosie. Maybe we'll find out one day.”
The pretty
girl looked more confused than ever, while Rachel could not help but
laugh.
“Do you
find that funny, Rachel?”
He had just
been standing on the other side of the room, talking to Rosie, but
suddenly he stood right in front of Rachel's nose. Rachel's giggle
could not have made any noise. How did he notice it so fast when he
had just been talking to Rosie? She considered her possibilities.
1) Lie. 2)
Tell the Truth. 3) Faint. She was not loving any of them.
“We're
all waiting, Rachel.”
Rachel
tried to read his face. He did not seem particularly angry, but then
teachers seldom do before punishing their pupils. Rachel did not
think that he had a reason to be angry with her, but then again she
had often been wrong about that before.
Slowly,
very slowly, she nodded.
“So you
did find it funny?”
She nodded
again.
“Why?”
This left
her at a bit of a difficulty. To her knowledge, he did not understand
Sign. And writing all of her answer down seemed odd. She had usually
just waited until the teachers carried on with their teaching or sent
her outside. This one though, she thought, would not give up easily.
“What did
you find funny, child?”
Slowly,
very slowly, she took hold of her pen and brought it down to the
paper in front of her.
'You are a
scientist. You're not meant to question the existence of knowledge.'
He waited
until she had finished writing and then took the note from her. He
read it silently. Then he smiled, put it in his pocket and introduced
the class to the world of elements.
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