protect what remains of his childhood by refusing to refer him to a doctor—but it’s kept his parents from probing any deeper, so he supposes he’s grateful.)
He’s still sitting on the bed, rubbing his elbow with one hand, when the door swings open and his father is there, dressed in khaki slacks and a button-down white shirt, like he came home from the office five minutes ago. “Roger?” he says. “You feeling up to a little game, sport?”
“Yeah, Dad,” he says, grinning ear to ear. He slides off the bed, his fight with Dodger already virtually forgotten. He’ll remember it later, but sometimes it’s best to let his brain work like this, puzzling over the problem in the background while he gets on with the business of living. It’ll be okay. It always is. He and Dodger have fought before, and it’s always been okay. So why should this time be any different?
Dodger sits at the kitchen table with her notebook in front of her, trying to make her parents understand. Her frustration is obvious in the red tips of her ears and the high, bright color in her cheeks; no matter how much she explains, there will always be concepts she doesn’t have the words for, ideas she doesn’t know how to express. She wishes Roger were here to feed her what she needs, and she hates herself for being weak enough to need him, and she hates him for being gone.
Her father picks up the notebook, frowning. He hasn’t looked at any of her “independent study” in years; while he’s happy to stick her schoolwork to the fridge like any proud parent, this isn’t math anymore. This is poetry written in a language he doesn’t know, and something about it makes him feel unnecessary and small, like she’s gone on to decode the universe without him.
“You’re sure you didn’t copy this out of a book at the library?” he asks, for the third time. “We’re not going to be angry. It’s not like there’s anything wrong with copying things for your own use. It’s only wrong if you pretend you created them.”
Dodger, thinking of the reams of copier paper beneath her bed, sits up straighter and shakes her head. “No, Daddy,” she says. “I didn’t copy it. Only the equation at the top, in the purple ink. That’s the puzzle Mr. Monroe’s institute has been trying to solve, and I solved it. It’s my work, for real. I can come to the school and do it again while one of the math professors watches, if you want.” She doesn’t really understand the difference between teachers and professors, except that professors know so much more than teachers. Professors are like wizards: they create the universe. Having her work checked by one of them isn’t insulting, like it is when Mr. Blackmore does it. He doesn’t think girls are good at math. When he checks her work, it’s because he knows, all the way to his toes, that she cheated. A professor wouldn’t know that, wouldn’t even think that. A professor would be neutral.
(And to be honest, somewhere deep, deep down, she harbors the fantasy that if a real professor saw her work, they’d gasp and cry, “This girl is a genius!” and pull her out of elementary school to put her in college, where she could do all the math she wanted, and no one would whisper about her behind their hands or throw things at her “accidentally” during lunch and recess, or make fun of her name, or tell her girls weren’t supposed to be more interested in decimals than dolls. All she has to do is find a way into one of those classrooms, and her future can finally begin.)
“You say there’s a monetary prize?” The idea of paid academic challenges is nothing new to Peter Cheswich, who has never left academia; he’s seen manna from heaven a time or two, usually as a result of a translation project or the successful unraveling of an ancient riddle. He’s never looked at the math side of things, but math isn’t his forte. The scribbles in his daughter’s notebook (in purple ink, no less!) might as well be cuneiform.
And yet.
And yet he knows enough to know she’s smarter than he’ll ever be, especially where things like this are concerned. They’re comfortable—between his classes and Heather’s work at the store, they don’t want for money—but “comfortable” isn’t the same as “wealthy,” and this prize of hers could make a world