The grin he gave her was genuine. From the sounds of it, this kid was smart and marched to her own beat. "The kids that everyone thinks are oh-so-spectacular are usually the ones that are dumber than a brick, useless, and have some other way of making up for it. Usually Mommy and Daddy, who aren't much smarter than they are, money, or they're a bully no one wants to argue with. There's nothing special about what they think. It's the people who stand their ground when it comes to what they believe that are going to get somewhere."
Unlike Izzy's, his voice remained at a conversational level. If people heard him, so what. They could only get offended if it was true. Denial was a bitch when the truth was in play. "The thing is, you get hell for what you believe in, but if other people see you sticking up for what you believe in when everything is going against you? The smart ones will respect you. The dumb ones won't get it, which doesn't matter. You don't want anything to do with them anyway." Except to use to further agendas but that was over the head of the nine year old, no matter how smart. He had a feeling she would follow her mother's philosophy on that more anyway.
"You're always going to have to deal wth stupid people. Never feel guilty about making them look moreso when they give you grief. They ask for it when they start in on you."