Page 66 of Time Stops With You

“If it’s not interrupting his school work.”

“Uh, we wouldn’t normally… but for a donor like you, no problem at all.” She smiles. “This way.”

We cut through a hallway and round the back of the building, cutting left in the direction that I’d seen Josiah walking in.

The school grounds are impeccably kept, as the principal had boasted to me the last time we met. Inside, the school feels more like a college with vaulted ceilings, stained glass, and lockers all painted a uniform pale blue.

The administrator rams her knuckles against a classroom door and gestures for me to follow her in. I see Josiah immediately. He stands out among his classmates, not only because he’s the only African American child in the class, but because he’s several sizes smaller than his peers.

It’s amusing to see but, when I think about it, I can see how it would be very lonely to be too brilliant to learn with kids his own age and yet be unable to relate to the older kids in the classes that truly challenge him.

“This is Mr.—”

“Ronan Cullen!” The male teacher with white hair, oval glasses and a big smile rushes up to me. “I was hoping to attendthe ceremony, but I had a class at the same time so I couldn’t make it. What an honor to have you.”

“I’m not here to interrupt,” I say.

His cheeks bunch under his eyes, turning them to slits. “We were working a Java script.”

“Don’t mind me. I’ll just observe. Please carry on.”

The administrator points to the door. “I have other matters to attend to, so we’ll part ways here, Mr. Cullen.”

I nod and make my rounds around the class.

The students all whisper to each other and watch me. I nod at a few of them as I browse the class but, despite my slow gait, I’m making an intentional path toward Josiah.

Finally, I stop behind his desk. “Weren’t you the young man who handed me my certificate?” I wiggle the piece of paper as evidence.

Josiah giggles. “Yes, sir.”

“I’m Ronan Cullen. And you are?”

Josiah glances around at his jealous classmates before answering me proudly. “I’m Josiah Davis.”

We both exchange smiles.

I lean down, balancing my hands on my knees so I can see his computer. “What are you working on?”

“Conditional statements,” Josiah says a little too loudly. However, when he shakes his mouse over the screen, he’s in a different program altogether.

I arch an eyebrow, silently questioning what I’m looking at.

Josiah whispers to me, “Don’t tell Nardi, but I’ve been working on the simulation.”

His sister will kill me, so I make a half-hearted attempt at being a responsible adult by saying, “Josiah, you should listen to your sister.”

“I do. She said I can’t code at home. Not at school.”

If this kid doesn’t grow up to be a good person, he’ll probably become the world’s greatest supervillain.

I laugh. “If Nardi asks, I never saw this.”

Josiah doesn’t seem too concerned. He turns back to the code. “I’m trying to connect the control to the device, but I keep getting an error message.”

“We faced a similar problem.” My eyes skim over his coding and then skip back. “What are you connecting this to?” I point to an unrecognizable variable. “It’s totally outside of the parameters of our software.”

“I don’t know.” He shrugs. “I think it’s a super computer or something? I copied and pasted it from an online server.”

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