Limitless - Book One Of The Less Series

Puzzle Pieces

Things have always just come to me, just made sense, just fit. Like the world was just a jigsaw puzzle, and every fact, every little bit of information, was just one small piece to that puzzle. Each and every piece had its place. Every time I found another piece, the puzzle would make a little more sense, and the picture would become just a little bit clearer. As I grew, my appetite for finishing that puzzle grew and grew and showed no signs of stopping.

All my life, I devoured information. Anything from weather to biology, from mathematics to literature. Everything I read, everything I learned, was like water on a parched throat. Wonderful and filling, but still not quite enough. Because as I basked in the glory of the knowledge I obtained, more questions would surface and I would have to look for my next fix, my next "meal."

My mother said I was a genius, my father said I was just smart. I thought I was just a normal girl, that was, of course, until I went to school and had to deal with people my own age. That took about two months until I realized that if I stayed with the fools, my brain cells were going to fry. Somewhere between ceaseless bouts of singing about a sponge in square pants living in a pineapple in the ocean and after a large batch of continuously repetitive and pointless questions, I was on my last straw of sanity. That day I went home and told my parents that under no circumstances were they going to be able to force me back into that building, that penitentiary if they wanted to continue to raise a sane child.

My mother immediately hired a tutor and I stayed home, cocooned in a warm blanket of sanity and left to learn at my own pace. My father thought it was an unnecessary expense to which my mother replied that my comfort was much more important to her than the expense of any tutor.

Or tutors, I should say. They left as fast as they arrived, some lasting a week, others many months, and some exceptional few who lasted mere hours. Some said I was belligerent, others that I was just plain rude. Some even accused me of ignoring them, which I did of course, but they wouldn't listen when I told them that yes, I was eleven years old, and yes, my age would have put me in about 6th grade. But no, I was not going to have them drone on and on about simple geometry and beginners algebra when I was currently reading all about differential equations and derivatives. I was learning about Calculus, for god's sake, and I wasn't about to go back for a review.

I also refused to reread 1984 by George Orwell just to please someone when I was only halfway done with rereading the Iliad and I had plans after to do an in-depth analysis of Beowulf. Plus I had already read 1984, and Animal Farm, and Fahrenheit 451, and all the others like Catcher in the Rye. I told her if I wanted to be bored, I'd reread the dictionary, thank you very much.

That got that particular one to leave and the next plain-haired, dull-eyed woman who walked through the doors and told me her name was Ms. Fill-In-The-Blank, was promptly told never to assign me books to read. Either because I had already read them, or that I didn't wish to ever read them.

After I had turned sixteen and caused another tutor to run out of the house in tears, hollering profanity and calling into question my legitimacy, I promptly went to my mother and told her, in no uncertain terms, was I ever going to learn anything I hadn't already learned with all of these people coming in and trying to mess up my lesson plans. Because no matter how many times I told them that I had already learned something, they told me that I hadn't learned it from THEM, and might learn something new. Which did not happen, I am pleased to report. The last two tutors assigned to me were below grade and frightened me in their shallow learning. Their "vast ocean of information" would barely be called a kid's pool.

I was afraid I had the draw the line of what I was willing to put up with when I spend most of the time teaching THEM. That was when I figured it was a waste of my time and my parents' money.