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They all heard the veiled whispers about her. Sat behind her horn rimmed glasses, Sarah was purported to be the genius. The problem with being a genius is that people set themselves apart from anyone who falls outside of the norm. She was lonely, isolated, ignored. Her tears went unnoticed. No-one saw the way she longed for normality. No-one wiped away the tears from her tear stained cheeks, as she lay awake while all others slept. She longed to be like everyone else, though knew she never could be.

Her parents made sure that would never happen. As soon as she displayed unhappiness, her parents had taken her to a shrink to find out why their baby girl was different from others. Once diagnosed as genius, nothing would ever be normal. News soon hit the classroom that Sarah was absent because of appointments with the shrink. News like that travels fast and no-one was surprised, least of all Jennifer who lived next door.

Jennifer knocked at the door, but she didn't want to be Sarah's friend. She just wanted to get inside that house and stare at this freak everyone talked about. As Sarah's mother let her in with an encouragement which was almost overwhelming, Jennifer looked at the freak's house. It was filled with certificates. On the wall of the hallway, there were lines of certificates, where other people had photographs. Another thing she instantly noticed was the silence. Most kids of Jennifer's age had music blaring from their bedrooms, but not Sarah. When she entered Sarah's room, true to form, she was sitting on her bed with a huge textbook, her spectacles balanced on the end of her nose. Hi, said Jennifer though Sarah knew why she was there. They made fun of her in the canteen. They poked fingers in her direction when they thought she wasn't looking, though she was.

What Sarah wanted was to meet someone who would just let her have fun. Often, she had seen girls walking down the corridors at school arm in arm and had never experienced that warmth. Falling asleep in class didn't help, and certainly the reputation of straight A's made her street credibility zero. In this neighborhood people didn't get scores like that. Only Sarah did. Jennifer asked Sarah to help with an algebra problem, though she didn't want help. She just wanted to hear that complex explanation that came out with an enthusiasm in language she didn't understand. After all, that added fuel to the fire that Sarah was a freak.

Growing through the awkward stages of puberty, Sarah

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