Who ? Mateo and Gunner Where ?outside the kitchen When ? Wednesday afternoon What ? Gunner meets Mateo
Mateo was only sixteen years old and even if he didn't look like it the way he dressed in bow ties and sweater vests and fancy shoes or in the way he spoke, using the largest words he could possibly think of just to make sure everyone knew how smart he was, but he was still just a kid. His abilities had manifested at a late age but once they had made themselves known he'd left his home in Silver Spring Maryland to be with his father. That meant he had to leave everything behind and while he didn't have any real friends to lament the loss of, he had been pulled out of school. Leaving Montgomery Blair High School in of itself wasn't a sad thing either but the fact that now he had no real formal education was a little bit worrisome to him. What was he supposed to do? Get a GED or some other ridiculous equivalent? Those sorts of things were for drop outs and stupid teen mothers.
At first not having to attend classes was a ridiculous turn of good fortune. He hated the retards he'd had to be stuck with for eight hours every day back in his old life, but slowly a seed of worry planted in the back of his brain, probably by his unfortunate brother, had bloomed. He didn't think he would grow up stupid just because he hadn't finished his sophomore year of school because he was already smarter than anyone he'd ever met, but it was a real threat that somewhere out there someone would know something he didn't just because he hadn't finished all four years.
That was why he had set up a curriculum for himself, ordered some books through the internet and downloaded some college syllabuses and made a plan. He would study maths, science, history, English, and foreign language just to start. After that he'd expand into higher levels of education and was also even considering getting an online degree.
He was doing just that at a dining table outside of the main kitchen since studying in his own room was next to impossible. It was too easy to get distracted there and here, there was little, not even too many disturbances. He was bent over a copy of The Complete Works of Shakespeare, which he liked since the book was practically a tome, thick and important looking. He hadn't expected the plays to be that good, though. Usually he loathed English and anything creative but some of the stuff in there was amazing!