At School, I Was Always Roped Into Various Academic Competitions—One Day, They Entered Me in a Chemistry Olympiad. I Took It as a Tribute to My Intellectual Talents.

At school, I was always being drafted into various academic competitions. One day they pulled me into the chemistry quiz. At the time, I took this as a mark of my intellectual prowess. When my mother heard the news, shebeing a chemist herself with an old, stately family name before she married my fatherbehaved not at all like the genteel lady I knew, but more like she worked in a bakery. She was usually a picture of refined humour, the sort of woman youd find in a Victorian novel, laughing softly at the right moments. But on this day, she splashed her tea and burst into the loudest laugh I ever heard.

That was the first and last time I saw my mother truly laugh like that. After chemistry, I was sent to a physics competition in the borough, and then to another, and then another. It was only after a while that I suspected the school staff were simply exiling me on these academic jaunts, giving the other students a chance for quiet lessons without distraction.

When it came time for the biology quiz, I wasnt sent off alone. They saddled me with Arthur Cray, another boy who could tell a deer from a tortoise at a hundred pacesbarely. When the biology teacher was told wed be representing the school, she nearly staged a sit-in out of sheer despair. At least theyll be gone all day, I imagine the headmistress and deputy assured her.

Arthur and I were seated in a vast lecture hall with about sixty other would-be biologists, as unfamiliar to us as foreign coins. We each received a large, pristine exam sheet. At that moment, a woman with a glass brooch the size of an apple gave an inspiring speech from the podium. Her message: we were there for a reason, ahead of us lay great things, but if we wasted time or cheated now, wed end up unloading lorries for the rest of our dayswhich, she admitted, was a perfectly respectable job, but not what wed signed up for.

I glanced about and tapped the shoulder of the girl next to me; she blushed and lowered her mascaraed lashes. Just then, everyone seemed to dive into writing as though their pens were scalding hot. This deeply unsettled Arthur.

I havent the foggiest what were meant to dowhat are we supposed to do? he whispered, genuinely thinking wed been brought only for the lemonade.

Parsing the exam, it dawned on methey expected answers in the blank spaces. I mentioned this to Arthur. The woman with the brooch asked me to quiet down.

Where do you look up the answers, then? Arthur asked in earnest, prompting her to curiously enquire which school boasted such eager scientists as us. Arthur was the sort of lad well known to the village constable, and not easily tamed. I replied quickly, One hundred and seventy-two, marking it on both our sheets. The woman chewed on her glasses and took note in her book.

Arent we from one hundred and seventy-five? Arthur protested.

Keep quiet, you ninny, I hissed.

Arthur gave me a shove but only succeeded in bumping the girl in fronts chair. She was sharp as an owlone quick turn and she assessed we werent worth fussing over but did kindly ask us not to do that again. Her freckles were hard to forget.

What do you want? Arthur muttered, Sit there and keep still.

The woman gave her a final warning, and the girl began to cry. In a soft, motherly way, the woman assured her that if she could trust in herself, shed do splendidly. Teachers knew how to encourage, thenthe girl wiped her tears and, to everyones surprise, truly did begin to shine.

Meanwhile, I was in a bindtrying to recall Carl Linnaeuss lifespan while catching the sidelong glances of the girl with bold lashes. Either Linnaeus or the lashesany attempt at both only conjured up a mental image of Linnaeus himself with painted lashes, and that would unsettle anyone. Whoever he was, it was not a pretty picture.

How many species of fish live in the Thames? Arthur whispered randomly.

Nine hundred and twelve, I replied without a blink.

Really?

About such things, one doesnt jest.

My answer about Linnaeus I wrote with such literary flourish it might have graced the biography of Enid Blyton, as long as no one checked too carefully.

Shall we go to the pictures? I scribbled on a note, folded it tight, and sent it sailing to the girl with the dark lashes. Her response came back swiftly: Im already spoken for, written in a fine hand. Ive never understood that feminine reluctance to simply say yes. I had no intention of breaking up any budding romancejust wished to add another friend. I was already friendly with two girls who were themselves close. The boys they fancied slept soundly, though my father grumbled over handing out extra shillings for cinema tickets.

Is he better than me? I wrote next.

Yes, came back, plain as that.

Then why isnt he at the quiz? The girl paused to ponder, and I felt her dilemma.

You havent mixed up the Thames with the English Channel, have you? asked the brooched woman as she made her third circuit past Arthur, searching us for answers scribbled on hands or cuffs. But to cheat, youd need to know the first thing about the subject. With us, she was hunting in vain.

Arthur sat scowling, looking like a child in need of proper care, though that was just his naturethe poor woman couldnt know.

Whats she on aboutoceans? Theres not a single question about oceans! he grumbled, sabotaging any chance I had for further fleeting connections.

Whos Who but with Roger Moore, I sent next. No! came back, illustrated with a doodle of a grinning girl with pigtails and pronounced ears. She shouldnt have. The ears were more captivating than even her lashes. Todays smileys have lost that magic.

Just as I was flushed with schoolboy exhilaration, Arthur again tugged at my sleeve.

I say, one for youwhats the conformational level of keratin in hair? Keratinis that the answer? Was some Welshman writing this? Do squirrels really have ginger hair?

I assured him they did, then added, in the winter, it turns grey.

Arthur wrote down earnestly: Ginger. In winter, squirrel is grey. He could adapt to any situation.

The freckled girl turned and whispered to me, Alpha-helix.

Where? I looked up.

The conformational levelits alpha-helix, she nodded and turned back.

I marvelled at her ears. I jotted down the right answer, tore off a scrap of my rough paper, and scribbled, How about the pictures? Surely something would come of it.

Yes, appeared on my desk.

A minute later, from the right: Oh, all right, lets go.

Now I was entirely at sea. Two girls, both asking for real devotion, whilst I was supposed to name a baby rhinoceros. Rhinocerosling? Rhinokid? Calf? Rhi-narthur? One girls lashes to my right, the others freckles in frontI was done for. So I simply wrote: Baby rhinoceros.

The one with freckles and I lasted until Christmas, when the squirrels fur turned grey. The girl with long lashes never turned up at the cinema. Such is the way of cunning women.

Nevertheless, I won second place in the biology quiz and received a diploma, though they only handed it to me two months later after a long hunt. In the one hundred and seventy-second school, there was but a single student with my surname. A child in year one, who burst into tears when asked by the headmistress, How could he be in the contest? and promised never to repeat the offence.

In the end, they found me. I was the only one among that gathering of budding scientists who knew what a baby rhinoceros was called. Scientists still havent agreed on the name for baby rhinoceroses, and that was the heart of it. And so I drifted into the world of scholars and, as you can tell, drifted right back out.