It’s what I told our hometown cops.
The visit started with, of all things, a standardized test. One morning in May, faculty shuffled us thirty sophomores into the gym, where rows of those foldable student desk-chairs waited—the ones from the 1950s. Mr. Muckman, our social science teacher, mumbled something about verifying academic progress as we sat.
Four hours and three hundred multiple-choice questions later, I walked out massaging a sore writing hand. I would have treated the whole thing as a one-off, except I got called down to Principal Bingle’s office two weeks later. She slipped one arm around me as I walked in and waved a very thick envelope with the other, singing out, “Look what came in the mail for you!”
The half-hug wasn’t creepy, but a little off with her bigger bust pushing against mine and all these fashionable zippers jingling from her business-grade aviator jumpsuit. I rushed to read its cover letter out loud, figuring it would be the quickest way out of there. It explained that I scored off the charts and had secured a week’s worth of accelerated learning, all expenses paid.
“I knew it! I knew it!” cried Principal Bingle, anaconda-hugging me like we had won the lottery.” The first time in my twenty years! A day of days!”
My head filled with dread, imagining myself stuck in the middle of a henhouse of eggheads. I was about to dismiss the whole thing when the last line of the cover letter caught my eye: “The Program” would take place at the UNL City Campus—the same college Genie was attending! As a scheme formed, I thanked Principal Bingle for the opportunity of a lifetime.
Sorry about the acronyms! That’s the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. And it’s really Aunty Jeannine, but never, ever call her that. It’s Genie to all—from the priest to the policeman—until the day she dies. Three years had passed since “The Big Fight” between her and Aunty Meg. And if there was any hope of converting an egghead drop into a visit with Genie, I needed Aunty Meg’s permission to go—her being my guardian and all. The situation required tact.
Aunty Meg in her garden—that’s her heaven. So, the next morning, when she came into the kitchen looking like a happy mess, I synced her about the testing win, “The Program,” and the bonus of accelerated learning. She didn’t even wait for my song and dance to finish. Wiping her hands quickly on her overalls, she signed the form and its carbons. Aunty Meg even suggested I say hi to Genie when out there. That sort of blessing almost gave me a heart attack.
