Her Royal Madness

Her Royal Madness Part 6

A week and a half later, it happened again. I woke up hearing voices in my head. The voices were again unidentifiable but the message was clear. 

Someone was trying to find me. I still didn't know why. Again I tried unsuccessfully to contact them when I was fully awake. 

The voices kept coming back more and more frequently. Usually it happened at night, but one time when I was daydreaming in class. It startled me so much that I fell out of my desk. This prompted howls of laughter from my classmates and some stern words from Mr. Purvis, my math teacher. 

"Miss Johnson, on behalf of the school board, I apologize profusely for not providing adequate facilities for your mid afternoon nap. Now if it's not too much bother, would you be so kind as to get back to your seat so I can continue my class!" 

I gathered myself up and got back in my desk, while mumbling, "Sorry, Mr. Purvis." But he wasn't ready to drop the matter yet. 

"Miss Johnson perhaps you can share your brilliance with the class and tell us how to solve this problem." Mr. Purvis and I don't exactly see eye to eye on everything. He thinks I'm a smart mouthed kid who needs to learn to respect her superiors. I think he is a pompous old fool with no talent for math or teaching. 

Not wanting to disappoint him, I showed off my brilliance. "Huh! What problem?" Impatiently he tapped a series of equations which obviously had the rest of the class stumped. I glanced up and absentmindedly said "Oh, uh, X=7, Y=12." 

"Miss Johnson, surely you've learned by now that in my classroom, guessing the answers is not tolerated. We have procedures to follow. This is Mathematics." Mr. Purvis always said it that way - Mathematics with a capital M - as if it was some great important mystery, instead of just a fun game. 

"I didn't guess. The answer is correct which should be obvious even to you. If you could give us some questions with a bit of a challenge, I might be interested enough to pay attention to your boring old lectures!" 

I knew as soon as I said it that it was a big mistake. I thought about it while I was walking to the principal's office. When Ms. Howard let me into her office, I could tell by the expression on her face that I was in for a long lecture. 

"Maddie, please tell me you weren't fighting with Mr. Purvis, I thought we discussed this. You agreed to behave in his class." 

"But Ms. Howard, everything I said was true! He just -" 

"That's enough Maddie. The question here isn't about who's right or wrong. Regardless of your personal opinion of Mr. Purvis, you need to treat him respectfully and obey the rules of his class. 

"You're a smart girl Maddie. You may be advanced intellectually and academically beyond your classmates, but emotionally and socially you're still a twelve year old girl." I almost interrupted her to say that I wasn't twelve; I was twelve and a half and would be thirteen in August. After a rare second thought I decided Ms. Howard wouldn't consider that a relevant point. "And that is precisely the reason you're in the seventh grade. Remember what we discussed this last summer with your father."  

"I suggested that we could enroll you in eighth grade this year and perhaps recommend an accelerated high school. Your father flatly refused the idea. He wants you to have a somewhat normal childhood. Not that it matters, but I agree with him wholeheartedly. 

"As a compromise to you, we agreed that you would have access to study as much of whatever material at home that you wanted. In exchange you agreed to take a regular seventh grade course load and everything that entails. 

"By the way, how did you like that text on introductory quantum physics that I lent you?" 

I admitted that I was having a little difficulty with it and hadn't gotten all the way through it yet." 

"Well keep plugging away at it. That book plagued me for an entire semester my junior year of college. I eventually mastered it and I know you will too. Perhaps you should discuss it with your father. He may need to be show you a little more math. 

"But back to the reason you're here. Despite what you think of him, Mr. Purvis is a dedicated and competent teacher. I put you in his class because I thought he could teach you some valuable lessons. And no, I didn't expect him to teach you anything about mathematics. What you need to learn from him is how to get along with him. Mr. Purvis is a rigid and structured thinker. You, on the other hand, are an intuitive, free spirited thinker. The two of you are complete opposites. You're going to meet a lot of people like Mr. Purvis in your life. You need to learn to work with and for people who are different from you, who think differently than you. This is going to be harder than any mathematical problem that you'll ever encounter. But, I promise you, if you work on your people skills, with your intellectual abilities, there will be no limit to what you can accomplish. 

"Have I made myself clear Maddie?" 

"I think so Ms. Howard." What more could I say? When Ms. Howard was on a roll, she could reduce the most experienced lawyer into a blubbering idiot. 

"Good. I don't want to see you back in here under similar circumstances. Now you better hurry back to class."