At school, I was always being roped into all kinds of academic competitions. One day, they hauled me off for the chemistry Olympiad. At the time, I took it as recognition of my intellectual abilities.
My mother, a chemist herself, who, prior to meeting my father, bore a venerable old family name, reacted as if she were Mrs Bridges from the kitchen. Normally, she laughed with the quiet poise of a Victorian lady, but this time she managed to spill her tea and burst out in raucous laughter.
That was the first and last time I saw my mother laugh like that. Not long after, they sent me to compete in the local physics Olympiad. Then another, and so on. I began to suspect that the school administration simply deported me at regular intervals to give the other children a chance to get on with their lessons in peace.
For the biology Olympiad, I wasnt sent alone. They paired me up with Tony Kirkham. He was, allegedly, adept at biology toojust as I could tell a deer from a tortoise at fifty paces. When the biology teacher found out whod be representing the school, she nearly staged a hunger strike. “But theyll be out of the school all day,” the head and deputy must have said to convince her. In the end, Tony and I found ourselves in a massive lecture hall with sixty other unfamiliar would-be biologists, each handed a large folded sheet of questions.
Just then, a woman at the podium was giving an inspiring speech. On her jacket shimmered a brooch the size of a small apple. The gist of her address was this: we werent there by accident. Ahead lay the rest of our lives, so best not to cheat or chatter, because otherwise wed spend our days unloading lorriesthough, she added, there was nothing wrong with that either.
I had a look around and touched the shoulder of the girl sitting to my right. She blushed and lowered her mascaraed lashes. Suddenly, everyone started scribbling feverishly in their sheets, which greatly unsettled Tony.
I dont get itwhat are we meant to do? What do we do? he whispered urgently.
Tony genuinely thought wed only been brought here for the lemonade. Looking through the paper, I worked out that the empty spaces were for our answers, and told Tony as much. The woman with the brooch asked me to please settle down.
So where are the answers, then? Tony asked me.
Hearing this, the brooched lady casually asked which school the two eager boys belonged to. The sort of kids on first name terms with the local PCSO arent that easy to trip up, so I told her we were from School One-Seven-Two, jotting it down for both me and Tony. She chewed her glasses and made a note in her own pad.
Were from School One-Seven-Five, arent we? Tony objected.
Be quiet, you idiot, I told him.
Tony kicked me, but struck the chair of the girl in front instead. She turned her head like a barn owl, concluded we posed no threat, and asked that we refrain in future. I couldnt help noticing her freckles.
What do you want? Tony shot back at her. Sit still and stop distracting us.
The lady at the front then issued the girl a final warning, and the girl began to cry. Making a vague effort at comfort, the lady told her maternally to believe in herself, and that everything would be just fine. Teachers back then really knew how to persuade: the girl wiped her tears and managed perfectly well after that.
I was in a bit of a jam. Trying to recall the years Carl Linnaeus had lived while also sneaking glances at the girls lashes was impossible. It was either Linnaeus, or the lashes. If both, I pictured Carl Linnaeus with mascara. Unsettling image, whoever he was. Not pleasant.
How many species of fish live in the Thames? Tony asked out of the blue.
Nine hundred and twelve, I replied.
Sure?
One doesnt joke about these things.
I gave an answer about Linnaeus, the sort you couldve shoehorned into a biography of Enid Blyton, and it would have seemed plausibleprovided you didnt look too closely.
Shall we go to the cinema? I wrote on a slip of paper, folded it tightly, and flicked it across to the girl with the lashes. The reply came back within a minute: I already have a boyfriend, written in neat handwriting. I am, to this day, perplexed by how girls can never just say yes straight away. Really, I hadnt the faintest desire to break up her relationshipjust to form another. I myself was already mates with two girls who, incidentally, were best friends. Their boyfriends slept soundly, the only one disturbed was my father, constantly counting out pounds for me.
Is he better than me? I scribbled, and sent it over. Yes, came the answer. Then why isnt he at the Olympiad? That stumped herI could see her mind working.
Youve not mixed up the Thames with the Pacific, have you? the woman with the brooch asked quietly, passing Tony for the third time. She was clearly hoping for cheat sheets in our territory, but in order to have such things, you need at least a vague idea of the subject. Tony and I were a dead end for cheats.
He looked like a particularly ornery child needing a prescription. But that, in fact, was his normal expressionthe woman just wasnt to know.
Ocean? What is she on about? Tony nudged me, frustrating my attempts at illicit correspondence. Theres not a single question about oceans in here.
“Whos Who with Belmondo,” I wrote and sent off. “No!” came the reply, along with a doodle of a grinning face with pigtails and sticky-out ears. She shouldnt have. Those ears excited me even more than the lashes. Emojis these days just dont have that same charm. I was nearly lost in the moment, but Tony, my fellow naturalist, interrupted.
Serious question for you, he said, with the gravity of Attenborough. What sort of con-formation do hair proteins have? Keratin, is that the answer? Some foreigner mustve written these. And squirrels have red hair, yeah?
I confirmed. Then added, In winter, grey.
So Tony scrawled, Red. In winter, squirrel is grey. He fit seamlessly into any conversational structure.
The freckled girl turned to me and whispered, Alpha-helix.
Where? I looked around, startled.
The protein structurealpha-helix, she clarified, turning away.
I looked at her ears. There was something about those ears. Quickly, I jotted down the answer, tore a scrap off my rough work sheet and scribbled: Shall we go to the pictures? Surely it had to work at least once
Alright, landed on my desk.
A minute later, another note: Fine, Ill come.
It was an existential catastrophe. Emerging from it, I found myself faced with the next question: What do you call a baby rhinoceros? Hard to field such queries when two girls simultaneously expect you to get serious. Rhinokid? Rhinolet? Calf? Tony Junior? Lashes on my right, freckles ahead. Treading water. So I wrote: A baby rhinoceros.
The freckled one and I lasted until winter, when the squirrels coats turned grey. The girl with the lashes never showed up at the cinema. What mysterious creatures women can be.
Meanwhile, I secured second place in the biology Olympiad and got a certificatethough they only gave it to me two months later. They combed the whole of School One-Seven-Two for a pupil with my surname. They found only a Year 1 boy, who, when faced with the headmistresss rhetorical question, How could you have ended up at the Olympiad? burst into tears and promised never to do it again. Eventually, though, they did catch up with me.
I turned out to be the only one from that whole gathering of would-be scholars who knew what a baby rhinoceros was called. Scientists still havent agreed on the proper term for a baby Tony Junior, and thats the long and the short of it. Thus I became part of the scientific worldand, as you can see, eventually lost my way.
