Tilt - Alan Cumyn [21]
When Stan parked finally — perfectly between the yellow markers — his mother’s face was deathly white.
—
The new principal, Ms. Shorey, looked too young to be sitting where she was sitting.
She did not seem ready to send Lily to remedial classes. In fact, Lily was sitting in the principal’s office, too, and her face was lit with some new kind of fire. She and the principal had obviously been talking quite a bit in the last while.
But Stan’s mother started in anyway.
“I know what you’re going to say and I’m really sorry. Things have not been as settled at home as I would like and so it’s hard to spend as much time with Lily as I really need to. Stanley does his best with her but he’s busy in high school. Normally I’m there to supervise and to keep her focused . . .” The principal was looking at Stan’s mother oddly. “She can be a real handful sometimes as I’m sure you know!”
Ms. Shorey beamed for a moment at Lily. “The results of the comprehensive cognitive testing came in today.” She shuffled some papers and put them back down on her desk.
“Oh, God, not more tests,” Stan’s mother muttered.
“Lily has scored exceptionally high in particular aptitudes,” Ms. Shorey said. She could not seem to contain herself. “In all my years in education I have never —”
“I’m sorry,” Stan’s mother broke in. “Aptitudes?” The word did not seem to go with “Lily.”
“Lily is not only above average in imaginative actualization,” the principal said. “She’s stratospheric.”
What was the word for her smile?
Toothpastey.
“But her math, her reading — I mean, this girl has never had a strong report card in her life!” Stan’s mother said. Lily turned a sour look on her. “I’m sorry, sweetie, but you haven’t.”
“All those conventional scores have probably been suppressed by Lily’s imaginative capabilities,” Ms. Shorey said. “She is light years beyond what most children —” Lily nodded slightly, like a princess receiving a tiara.
“Her head is in the clouds,” Stan’s mother said.
“In the most refreshing ways,” Ms. Shorey continued. Stan’s mother blew through her pressed lips, pffft.
“At any rate,” the principal persisted, “what I’m trying to do today is open a dialogue with you about possibilities for Lily’s future. As you know the regular school system is not geared for children with exceptional abilities . . .”
Stan could almost hear the sequence of thoughts clicking over in his mother’s mind: there was no extra money for any special education program; no extra money for anything, actually; Lily was going to have to fit in with the regular kids.
“So I’m thinking about putting Lily’s name forward for Gifted Exceptions. She’ll have to submit to more testing, of course, and you’d have to agree.”
“Gifted Exceptions?” Stan’s mother was on the edge of her seat, nearly standing. “I’m afraid we —”
“We don’t run the program here. But it is part of the regular school system. Completely funded. I wrote about it in the opening week newsletter.” Ms. Shorey looked almost hurt that someone had failed to read her article.
But it was the word “funded” that worked its magic on Stan’s mother. She eased slightly back into her chair.
“You’re telling me that Lily has above-normal intelligence in —”
“Intuitive actualization. She creates whole worlds, other parallel realities, and peoples them at the same time that she functions in the so-called normal modes of reality. I was completely the same way when I was young. I recognized it in Lily as soon as we started chatting. She’s an exceptional child.”
Lily quivered. Stan tried to remember the last time she’d stayed this quiet this long.
“My Lily is . . .”
“An exceptionally gifted child. And there’s a program for her at Barclay Heights school. It’s a farther bus ride away . . .”
Lily nodded lightly in time with the rhythm of the words, like she had composed them herself and was now hearing them in someone else’s song.
—
On the ride home Lily gazed, beamingly, out the window. Stan could just see the edge of her face in the rearview mirror.
The car nearly drove itself. It really wasn’t that difficult