WHEN I WAS FOUR years old, I asked my parents one morning over breakfast, “What does convicted of road rage mean?”

Dad almost choked on his oatmeal. He showed Mom a headline on the newspaper he was reading: MAN CONVICTED OF ROAD RAGE.

On my fifth birthday, my parents gave me a Lego police car. They watched as I built it without using the instructions. When I was six, I could add up columns of numbers just by looking at them. I liked to take Mom’s grocery bills, fold over the total on each so I couldn’t see it, and then add the items up in my head.

When I was seven, Mom took me to see a nice lady who did a whole pile of tests. She told my parents I was gifted.

My parents shared what she’d said, and I got very excited for a moment because I honestly thought being gifted involved getting gifts.

“The gift is your mind,” my mom told me, which was a huge letdown at first. Still, my parents, Mom especially, seemed pretty pleased. Possibly even relieved. I think it explained a lot. Because being gifted can also mean that you excel in some areas while you stink in others. In my case, even though I scored well above average in intellectual skills, I scored well below average in social skills.

And this made a lot of sense.

Because socially speaking, I wasn’t doing well at school. I didn’t have many friends. The only birthday parties I went to were the ones where the whole class was invited. Looking back, I can see I wasn’t being stimulated enough, and when I got bored, I would start to bark like a dog, or crawl under the desks, or eat chalk. (By the way, chalk tastes exactly like you would expect it to: chalky.)

So I already had a reputation as a weirdo, and it only got worse when Freddy Nguyen discovered my secret. Except I didn’t know it should be a secret until it was too late.

We always had to go to the bathroom in pairs, and Freddy was partnered up with me one day. I thought I’d locked the stall door, but I clearly hadn’t, because suddenly the door swung open and Freddy was staring at me, puzzled. “Is that a diaper?”

I didn’t feel embarrassed. After all, there was a perfectly rational, scientific reason. “I have an immature bladder. It means my bladder doesn’t always signal when I need to go. It’s because I was a preemie. I was born six weeks early. The doctor says I’ll grow out of it.”

The next day, every single kid in my second-grade class started calling me “Poo-art.” Not only was it hurtful, it was inaccurate. An immature bladder has nothing to do with excrement. “Poo comes from the colon, not the bladder,” I tried to explain to them. “My colon isn’t immature!” Those details—even though they were grounded in biological fact—did not seem to matter.

Mom knew I wasn’t fitting in very well, and now, armed with my test results, she had the ammunition she needed. She got me into a smaller school that was specifically designed for gifted kids and went all the way up to twelfth grade.

I loved it. I had friends there, like Alistair, who couldn’t care less about my immature bladder (which I outgrew a long time ago, thank you very much).

So when we moved away from North Vancouver only six weeks after the school year started, I had a big decision to make: Stay at Little Genius Academy and commute at least two hours every day, or take the plunge and go to the local high school.

Dad told me he would support my decision, no matter what.

About a week before we moved, I said to him over a mac-and-cheese supper, “I think it’s time for me to work on my ungifted parts.”

“What do you mean?”

“The world’s a big place. I’m going to have to get along with all sorts of different people, not just people who are more or less like me. So I think I’ll try the regular high school.”

My dad put down his fork. His eyes watered a little. “Stewart,” he said, “that takes a lot of courage. Your mom would be proud.”

“Yes,” I replied. “I think she would.”

You see, my mom believed that every single person can improve him- or herself. So even though the scientific part of my brain tells me she probably isn’t looking down on me from heaven, and that all that is left of her are random molecules, I feel a deep need to do this for her. After all, she helped me find a place where I was accepted and where I could thrive. She gave me that solid base. And now that I have it, maybe I need to build on it, and work on the stuff that doesn’t come so easily to me. I’ve even made a list:

TO DO AT NEW SCHOOL

1) Join at least one club. Get involved!

2) Talk to people. Be bold. Make the first move.

3) Read the paper so you can be up on your current events and have interesting things to talk about.

4) Work on your repertoire of jokes—nothing breaks the ice like a good joke.

5) Smile.

6) Try not to make those grunting sounds you’ve been told you make when you get bored or stressed.

7) Don’t get discouraged if following the first six rules doesn’t yield big results right away.

I reread my list this morning as I ran a comb through my hair and slapped on an extra layer of deodorant. I held on to a sliver of hope that Ashley might walk to school with me, maybe even introduce me to some of her friends. But when I got downstairs, Caroline said, “Sorry, Stewart. Ashley’s already left.” Both she and Dad were dressed for work and drinking coffee.

“Thank goodness,” my dad said, “because I really wanted to walk with you, and now I can!”

It is for reasons like this that I love my dad.

“You look handsome today,” Caroline said as she handed me a glass of orange juice. I was wearing jeans and a white button-up shirt and a tie with yellow smiley faces on it, because I hoped it might make me look approachable.

“Thank you.”

The microwave dinged and Caroline took out a bowl of porridge. She put it in front of me with a wink. “A little bird told me this was your favorite breakfast.”

I didn’t have the heart to tell her that my mom always made her porridge from scratch, that she would never have used instant. I just smiled and ate.

Then Dad walked with me to Borden Secondary, which is only five blocks from our new house. We had driven past a couple of times, so I knew it was ten times bigger than Little Genius Academy, but when we arrived on foot, my bowels twisted into knots.

“I need to go back home,” I said to Dad. “It’s urgent.”

Dad understood then, because I never poop in public bathrooms. It is just one of those things I am particular about. So we walked back home at a good clip.

“Back already?” asked Caroline as I tore up the stairs, clutching my stomach. I have never been so grateful for my own bathroom.

Luckily, we’d given ourselves a lot of time, so we were still at school well before the first bell rang. Dad came in with me because we had an appointment with the school counselor. Over the entrance, engraved in the stone, were the words BORDEN SECONDARY SCHOOL, EST. 1927.

The first thing I noticed when we walked through the front doors was the noise. The halls were filled with teenagers, and most of them towered over me. The second thing I noticed was the aroma. It smelled like a mixture of BO and French fries. I cannot tell a lie. I felt terrified.

We found the counselor’s office. Her name is Ms. Woodbridge, but she insisted we call her Sylvia. She has a nice smile and very red lipstick. She had seen my school records from Little Genius Academy.

“Based on your academic performance, I’ve bumped you into ninth-grade courses, to keep you intellectually stimulated,” she said. “Unfortunately, it means I’ve had to put you into ninth-grade phys ed as well because it’s the only way I could make the schedule work.”

“That’s okay,” I said.

It was a quick meeting; I got the sense she was a very busy lady. “If you have any problems, or if you just need to talk,” she said as she led us back out into the hallway, “my door is always open.”

Then she went back inside and closed the door, which I found kind of ironic.

“Do you want me to walk you to your first class?” Dad asked. Even though he was using his cheerful voice, I could see the little creases of worry in his forehead.

“No, I’m okay.” I looked at my schedule. “It should be just down the hall.”

“Call me at work when you get home,” he said. “I want to hear all about your first day.”

“I will.” I shook his hand. Then I started the long walk down the corridor toward Room 203. When I reached the door, I looked back. Dad was still standing there. I gave him a little wave. Then I took a deep breath and walked into the room.

At Little Genius Academy, we never had more than twenty students per class. I did a quick tally and counted thirty-three kids.

One of them was Ashley.