Birthright

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

       You know, the sounds of nature in rural Idaho can be very soothing. The birds are singing. The wind rustles through the trees, and it’s a soft sound track of background music. It sounds beautiful. 

       The small island seemed to be floating in a sea of despair and ignorance. The sea was, of course, the grounds of my high school, and the island paradise I could see from the window of Mrs. Smith’s science class was a wish, a hope, a distant dream spawned from the depths of my imagination, brought to the surface by mind-numbing boredom.

       The daydream is always the same, but the location is different. Sometimes it’s a deserted island; sometimes, a secluded mountain top cabin, even a tropical oasis in the middle of an arid desert. But the daydream is always the same, and the question that plagues my thoughts is always the same: which Doctor Who would I rather be stranded with?

       “Elizabeth! Elizabeth Stevenson, are you there?” a voice says.

       “Yes, Mrs. Smith.” Wish I wasn’t.

       “Then could you answer the question?” she asked.

       “I don't know the question,” I told her. Good old Mrs. Smith is at it again. She’s going to ask me a question that she hopes I won’t know the answer to. Why can’t she just leave me alone?

       “Okay, Elizabeth, here's the question again If you threw a switch in New York City, how long would it take the current to reach Los Angeles?” she inquired.

       I thought this was going to be a hard one. “Electricity moves at the speed of light—176,282 miles per second, so if New York is 2,446 miles from LA, an electric signal would take only a little over a hundredth of a second to travel between the two. It would be 2,446 divided by 176,282 equals 0.013 seconds.”

       Mrs. Smith hates it when I do that. Maybe someday, long after she retires, she will come to accept that I know more about science than she does. For as long as I can remember, I've had a photographic memory. I can remember everything I read. My friends say it makes me sound like a living textbook.

       “Well, it’s good that you were listening in class today and not daydreaming,” Mrs. Smith said with a little sarcasm. My only hope is she leaves me alone until the end of class. Mrs. Smith always puts the next day’s assignments on the board, so I better start writing.It was all aboutelectricity(like I don’t know anything about it). Last summer, my Dad sent me to science camp for four weeks! I was so excited! I know this makes me sound like a geek, but I met Stephen Hawking. That's why I wanted to attend so badly. I've always thought smart is sexy. Please don't get me started about Albert Einstein.

       As I wrote the assignment down, I could have sworn I heard a voice. Not the usual classroom chatter about who saw who with whom, more like a soft whisper. Looking around, I didn't see who had spoken. The bell rang and then the mysterious voice was back again. It’s going to be you, not me. Clearly, I was still daydreaming.