9.10

Quincy

I have often been described as oppressively normal. I describe myself that way, and that's how I know it's true. I read books, but not as often, I guess, as other people do, and my friends tell me that the characters in those books are so often kooky and intelligent that they have become memetic. Ooh, another introspective teen. I haven't read enough of these books to confirm that, but Franky Fish Fingers tells me its true, and she never steers me wrong. Franky is interesting. You would be better off reading her journal to find out why she is named Franky because her father ran away from the military and the Argentinians put out a warrant for his arrest so that he can never go back to South America. But you are not reading that journal. For your sake, I hope that you can at least read this and not think to yourself "another one of those obnoxious smart kids who are so quirky and can't let well enough alone and have to tell you that they're intelligent rather than just being obviously intelligent (Knute tells me this is the main problem with such books and films. A narrator is forever popping up and gushing over how well that ten-year-old can spell or how many equations this tweenager has memorized, as though that's intelligence, somehow, a thing the author can look up and report, and not, as it occurs in the real world, the terrible speed with which the person deduces, connects, indicates, processes you down to a fine powder and then devastates you with one sentence or two. Anyway, that's the kind of intelligence Knute favors and the reason why he's friends with me. I do not threaten him with this. Anyway.) I've double-sided the page and I have room for one more sentence. Miss Turnbill, I would like an A on the [editor's note: here the text becomes very small and turns on itself like an Ouroboros on the last line of the ruled paper] recent test, but I am oppressively normal.