"For a year in college," Rhea admitted. "I tried shrinking. Shrinking made me sick. Literally—stomach, sleep, the works. I went back to asking and got better at choosing audiences. That's not purity. That's survival with principles."
"Is that what we're doing? Surviving with principles?"
"Yes," Rhea said. "And insisting the school meet us with paper. Paper is boring. Boring protects children."
They sat until Imani's eyelids grew heavy. Rhea walked her back to bed and tugged the blanket up with a tenderness that had nothing to do with strategy. Imani slept finally, dreamless for once.
---
The week after the conference, Room 214 developed a new social weather. Some students treated Imani like a curiosity: asking her to check their homework with a mix of respect and testing. Others avoided her desk as if correctness were contagious. Elise—before the science lab of later months—offered her a mint at lunch with no speech attached, which Imani ranked among the better human behaviors.
Mr. Ellery taught with a careful neutrality that sometimes tipped into stiffness. He called on Imani at a normal rate. He called on Sutton more than usual, perhaps to rebalance some invisible scale. When Sutton got a factoring problem wrong, Mr. Ellery corrected him gently and without spectacle. Imani noticed. She also noticed that gentleness given after public sting could be growth or public relations. She logged observations without pretending she could see into his soul.
In the faculty lounge—though Imani was not there—rumor would later filter through Lila's brother that two teachers had argued about whether Ellery had been "undermined." Ms. Dane, according to the same rumor, had said, "If a sixth grader can undermine your pedagogy by reading your board, examine your board." Imani never confirmed the quote. She kept it anyway as a story that felt true enough to warm her hands.
Friday afternoon Rhea took Imani to the eye doctor because one hinge of the gold-rimmed glasses had loosened. The optician tightened it while talking about school sports. Imani stared at the eye chart and thought about clarity as a literal and figurative need. On the walk back to the bus stop, a woman selling secondhand books from a folding table called out prices. Rhea bought Imani a battered paperback of logic puzzles for two dollars.
"For fun," Rhea said. "Not for armor."
Imani solved three puzzles on the bus and failed a fourth and did not treat failure as prophecy. That, too, was practice.
---
October's end brought a costume-free harvest festival because Halberd preferred "seasonal community gathering" to anything that might look like joy without a learning objective. Parents volunteered at cider stations. Cole's father appeared in a Halberd crew jacket and shook hands like a candidate. When he saw Imani he smiled with too many teeth.
"So you're the famous mathematician," he said.
Rhea materialized at Imani's shoulder as if summoned by tone. "She's a student," Rhea said pleasantly. "Famous is a newspaper word."
Cole's father chuckled. "Character builders make character. Kids these days—"
"Need accurate equations," Rhea finished, still pleasant. "Enjoy the cider."
They moved away. Cole found them later near the pumpkin display, mortified. "I didn't tell him to say that."
"I know," Imani said. "Parents aren't worksheets. You can't erase them."
Cole kicked a mulch chip. "I'm still coming to office hours sometime. Not because of him. Because the honest problems are actually… fun? Don't tell anyone I said fun."
"Your secret is safe," Imani said, and meant it.