The Petition
The guidance counselor's office was too small for Marcus Cole.
He sat squeezed into a flimsy plastic chair, his broad, work-hardened shoulders looking dangerously close to bursting the seams of his "good" polo shirt. He looked, Aris thought, like a tamed bear, profoundly uncomfortable and out of his element.
Aris sat beside him, silent.
Standing next to Marcus, the contrast was stark. Where his father was broad and sun-touched from years of outdoor work, Aris, at fifteen, was all sharp angles and pale skin, his blond hair several shades darker than his father's bright crop. The only feature he seemed to have inherited was the shape of his jaw, though on his narrower, thinner face, it looked more severe.
Elara sat on his other side, her hands clasped so tightly in her lap her knuckles were white. She, at least, was used to sterile, quiet rooms. She just wasn't used to being on this side of the desk.
"Thank you for coming in, Mr. and Mrs. Cole. Aris."
Ms. Perlow, the head guidance counselor, was a woman who seemed to be made entirely of beige. Beige suit, beige hair, beige, non-committal smile. She sat opposite them, a file open on her desk.
Next to her sat Mr. Henderson, his earnest face creased with worry. He'd put on a suit jacket for the meeting, a brown tweed thing that was slightly too large in the shoulders, and his tie was stained with what Aris identified as coffee.
"As I said on the phone," Ms. Perlow began, her voice a practiced monotone, "this is not a disciplinary meeting. Aris is, by every metric, a perfect student. A 4.0 GPA. Perfect attendance."
"He's beyond a perfect student, Brenda," Mr. Henderson cut in, leaning forward. His passion was a jarring splash of color in the beige room. "That's the problem. I have nothing left to teach him. None of us do. He's... he's just waiting."
Elara's posture stiffened. "Waiting? I don't understand. Is he in trouble?"
"No, not at all, Mrs. Cole," Ms. Perlow said, her beige smile firmly in place. "It's just that Aris isn't... participating. In his own education. We've offered him AP Calculus, AP Physics... he finished the entire curriculum for both in the first month."
"He said he was 'bored'," Marcus rumbled, speaking for the first time. His voice was a low vibration in the small room.
"Exactly!" Henderson said, throwing his hands up. "He's a freshman, and he's already mastered material we reserve for post-graduates at the university. He's not just bored. He's a bottleneck. It's... it's not fair to him, and frankly, it's disrupting the class."
Ms. Perlow took over. "So, we have some options. A special, independent study program..."
"No."
The word was quiet, but it cut through the room like a scalpel.
Everyone stared at Aris. He hadn't moved. He was just looking at Ms. Perlow, his gaze cool and direct.
"No?" Ms. Perlow repeated, blinking.
"I'm not being challenged," Aris said, his voice flat. "I'm wasting my time, and I'm wasting your resources. An 'independent study' just means I'll be sitting in the library, which is what I already do."
"Ari," Elara whispered, her hand flying to his arm. Her panic was immediate. "What are you saying? This is high school. You have to be here."
"No, I don't," Aris said calmly. He looked back at the counselor. "I'm petitioning to test out of high school."
Marcus's head snapped toward him. "You're what?" His voice was a low growl of disbelief.
"Aris Cole, this isn't a joke," Ms. Perlow said, her beige façade finally cracking. "That's not... there's a process. You can't just... decide—"
"I know the process," Aris said. He reached into his non-descript grey backpack, pulled out a forty-page manuscript bound in a simple black cover, and slid it onto the desk. The thud of the thick paper stack was obscenely loud in the quiet, carpeted room.
"This is my petition."
Mr. Henderson, the English teacher, picked it up, his brow furrowed. He read the cover.
"A Unified Field Theory: Reconciling Gravity and Quantum Mechanics at the Planck Scale."
He looked up at Aris, his expression one of profound, utter confusion. "Aris... this is... this is calculus. No, this is... I don't even know what this is."
"It's my final paper," Aris said. "It's proof that I'm ready for the equivalency exam."
"Ari, stop this," Elara pleaded, her voice trembling. "You're scaring me. What is this?"
"It's just math, Mom."
"This is absurd," Ms. Perlow said, finding her footing. "Aris, you are fifteen years old. You can't just submit a... a book... and skip high school. This has to go before the board, the superintendent..."
"Then send it to them," Aris said. "Or send it to the State University's physics department. Ask them if it's 'absurd.' Page 28. The derivation for the 11-dimensional boundary. I'm told it's correct."
Silence. Marcus was staring at the paper as if it were a live snake. Elara had both hands over her mouth, her eyes wide with a dawning fear.
Ms. Perlow, the bureaucrat, looked from the impossible manuscript to the severe, 15-year-old boy in front of her. She was holding a problem that had no solution in her binders.
She let out a slow, shaky breath. "Mr. and Mrs. Cole," she said, her voice thin. "I think... I think I need to make a phone call."