As the second say of school started, jake was suddenly pulled out history class
The school psychologist's name was Dr. Reeves and her office was a converted storage room next to the gym that smelled faintly of old rubber and floor wax.
She had a round face and reading glasses on a beaded chain and the friendly manner of someone professionally trained to deal with children.
Jake sat across from her and folded his hands on the table.
"So Jake," she said, opening a folder. "Mrs. Patterson tells me you're quite a reader."
"I like books."
"What kind of books?"
"Science i guess,whatever tells me how things work."
She wrote something and smiled
"Well today we're just going to do some activities together. There are no wrong answers and nothing to worry about, we're just going to see where you are with some things. Does that sound okay?"
"Yes," Jake said.
She started him on the reading section.
The early questions were straightforward — comprehension passages, vocabulary, sentence completion. Jake worked through them at a quick pace.
Dr. Reeves turned pages.
The passages got longer and the vocabulary more technical. Jake just kept writing.
She turned more pages.
He noticed her pen had stopped moving after his answers and she was just watching him work now, her folder open on the table in front of her, her coffee going cold.
He completed the last reading passage and set his pencil down.
She looked at the booklet for a moment. Then she turned to the math section.
The math started with addition and moved through multiplication, long division, fractions, basic algebra. Jake worked steadily and said nothing. When he finished a page he looked up and waited. She turned to the next one.
Pre-algebra. Algebra. Basic geometry.
She turned pages more slowly now.
Equations with two variables. The Pythagorean theorem. Area and volume calculations.
Jake solved each one and set his pencil down and waited.
Dr. Reeves reached the end of the section and looked at the booklet and then at Jake and then back at the booklet. She flipped back through the pages briefly, checking something, then forward again to the last page.
She closed the booklet.
"Jake," she said, pleasantly and carefully. "Can I ask you something?"
"Sure."
"Has anyone ever had you tested before? At another school or anywhere else?"
"No."
She nodded and made a note. "Where did you learn algebra?"
He let a small pause go by. "I read a lot dad has books in the garage from when he was in higschool."
"Right." She wrote something else. "Okay. I'm going to stop here for today." She stacked the booklets neatly and squared them against the edge of the table. "You did really well. I just need to make a call to your parents before we continue. Nothing to worry about, just standard procedure when we want to do some additional testing."
"Okay," Jake said.
She smiled and told him he could go back to class.
Walking down the hallway Jake calculated the timeline.
Dr. Reeves would call Judith today, probably this afternoon.
There would be a meeting within the week.
He pushed open the classroom door and slid back into his seat. Tyler was coloring something that was supposed to be a map of California but looked more like a purple rectangle. Madison was telling Mrs. Patterson about something her cat had done.
Jake started to ponder on everything he just had said, and realizing he hadn't said anything out of the order, he put his mind at ease.
Things were moving toward his goal.
...
Alredy in Home, the telephone starting ringing and Judith took the call.
It seemed that dr Reeves had called
"What kind of evaluation?"
Judith looked confused for a second before receving the explanation on the other end on the phone
"A full psychoeducational assessment. Including an IQ test." Another pause. "Mrs. Harper I want to be straightforward with you. In fifteen years of doing this I've had to make this particular phone call maybe three or four times."
Judith picked her pen back up and opened her calendar.
"Thursday works for us," she said. "What time?"
...
Thursday came by slowly, or at least jake perceived that way, spending hours with 8 and 9 year olds for three full days going four.
Reeves brought Jake back to the small office next to the gym.
Same chair, same table, same smell of floor wax and old rubber, she had a thicker folder this time, and she set it on the table and opened it with the careful manner of someone who had prepared for this session more thoroughly than usual.
"Okay Jake. Today we're going to do something a little different from last time. More like puzzles than questions. Does that sound okay?"
"Yes," Jake said.
She started with the verbal scale.
Vocabulary first, read him a word and asked him to define it, the words started straightforward and moved quickly into territory that would have challenged most adults. Jake defined each one clearly and precisely.
Then similarities. Abstract pairs. what do justice and mercy have in common, what do a hypothesis and a theory have in common. Jake answered each one and completed the thought fully before stopping.
Dr. Reeves was writing steadily.
Then comprehension; social reasoning questions, what should you do in a given situation and why. Jake answered each one and kept his reasoning clean and direct.
She turned to the next section.
General knowledge. History, science, geography, literature. Jake moved through them at an even faster pace. She reached the end of the section and turned to the next one and kept going.
By the end of the verbal scale she had stopped making notes after individual answers and was just marking scores.
The performance scale was mostly nonverbal,patterns, sequences, spatial reasoning, completing visual puzzles. Jake worked through each task, These were the kinds of problems he had always enjoyed, a single correct answer that either was or wasn't right.
He finished each task and set his pencil down and waited.
Dr. Reeves scored as she went. At a certain point she paused before presenting the next task, not long.
The processing speed section was last. Timed tasks, small motor work, symbol coding. Jake worked as fast as his hands allowed. The gap between what his brain wanted to do and what his nine year old hands could execute was faintly irritating in the way that bad tools were always irritating, but he pushed through it and finished well ahead of the time limits regardless.
Dr. Reeves collected the last sheet and sat back and looked at her folder.
She was silent for a moment.
"Jake," she said. "You did very well today."
"Thank you."
She looked at him over her reading glasses with something closer to genuine curiosity.
"Can I ask you something off the record?"
Jake nodded and waited.
"Is there anything about school right now that you find challenging?"
Yes, the kids, take me out of here.
TAKE. ME. OUT. OF. HERE.
"Mmmm, i guess my clasmates" he said calmly, not fully betraying his tougths.
She looked at him for a moment.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, we dont have much in common"
"What in specifically?"
"If i had to be specific i guess we arent at the same level"
She slowly nodded as she understood exactly what he meant, then she wrote something on the cover of the folder, closed it, and told him he could go back to class.
Walking down the hallway Jake thought about the session. The verbal ceiling had come somewhere in the last third. The performance ceiling a little earlier. She had kept going after both, which meant she was documenting exactly where the instrument failed rather than where he did.
She would call his parents again. This time the conversation would be different.
He went back to his clasroom and sat down in his chair.
Tyler had drawn a rocket ship on his folder and was showing it to the boy next to him with great pride.
Just one week more jake thought to himself, Just one more week.