geniUS

/chapter 4 - galeno/

         

Savvy grabs the board out of Cailey's hands. Cailey tries to take it back, but Savvy has already begun to jot down something under our faces on the board. She props it up on the table, and I see numbers written under our names. I don't understand what the point of this is, but Amen immediately starts pointing to the numbers, then to each of our faces.

But as he begins to recite the numbers, we all realize the way he says his numbers are not the way we say ours. If we want our new language to work, we have to be able to understand the others. I shake my head at Savvy, signaling that this won't work. I have another idea, though. I rush to the board and point to Savvy. I make a "beep-boop" sound. The rest of the geniuses look at me like I'm insane.

I draw a calculator over Savvy's face. I repeat the "beep-boop" sound, this time pointing to the calculator. Abhinav smiles and nods, then points to himself and taps his fingers on the table. I can tell he is symbolizing typing on a keyboard, and I nod back excitedly.

We are the only two out of the group, however, that seem to understand what I'm trying to do. In an effort to help them get it, I point to Brogan's face on the board and then stomp my foot, to represent running. Brogan looks skeptical, but she gets up and comes over to the whiteboard. Over her own face, she draws a stick figure running, turns to me and shrugs. I clap and jump to tell her that she understands. She slowly nods.

I help the others understand by making sounds to represent their names as well. Once everybody has the idea, we begin to draw different things up on the board and make up sounds to symbolize as that thing. After a while, I look up at the timer. 20:00. We have 20 hours left. Savvy looks worried, and as we keep going, I understand why. We can't memorize this.