"I don't need to see the damn book, Allan!" Archie Clinter slapped his hand down on his desk. Allan had known the principal of Fluharty Middle School long enough to know it wasn't a sign of anger but of frustration. Archie didn't deal with frustration very well. Oddly enough, considering his job, he didn't have to.

Allan slid the encyclopedia closer to Archie; taunting him with it. There was a picture on the page of a much older Blaise. He was probably thirty in the picture and dead almost four hundred years. That same Blaise was eleven now and outside Archie's office waiting for doom to descend on him.

How the world had changed.

"I understand, Allan! I get it. Blaise Pascal; world's greatest mathematician. Do you understand me? You will note that he died at a ripe old age in this here book! But he almost died at eleven hanging from a church steeple! What the hell was he doing up there and not in class? What the hell happened? And why are you here and not Owen? Blaise is his responsibility. He's the Gifted and Talented Education teacher… more or less. We agreed with you, Allan. Blaise is gifted. Okay, I admit that. We admit that."

"Yes. Where is Mr. Maddox?"

"Look, he has his hands full with the normal special ed kids."

"Normal special ed?"

"You're confusing the point! You are not special ed qualified. If we were… if this was…"

"Blaise would be four hundred years dead and Owen Maddox would still need a special ed teacher for himself." Special ed qualified or not, Allan knew he was a better teacher than Owen Maddox, at least when it came to kids like Blaise and his sister.

"And he would have you before the school board!"

"Lucky for Blaise the school board has less time to play petty politics. It actually has to perform now, not sit around and bicker about things it knows nothing about, like education."

"That is not fair."

"David Weller."