Donna (Girls of Spindrift 2)

“Open it up,” my mother urged.

I did. There were pictures of what looked like a modern high-tech library, a computer room, and a chemistry laboratory that made our school’s look like some child’s playroom.

“Piñon Pine Grove? That’s in the Coachella Valley,” I said.

“Not that far away,” my father said. “It’s a very unique school.”

I nodded and read more of the description. They watched me and waited.

“It doesn’t sound like any ordinary school or college, for that matter.”

“You saw that there’s no so-called school year, semesters. It’s like something constantly going that you can jump on anytime,” my father said. “What you don’t see there is the criteria for acceptance.”

He reached into his inside jacket pocket and handed me a card that opened. There were no names, just numbers, and next to them were obviously IQ scores as well as the scores of other tests I had taken during the last few years. The scores were off the charts like mine.

“Those are past graduates and a few current attendees. It’s obviously privileged information,” he said.

I put the card down and looked at the brochure again.

“The school was started by a famous biochemist who himself had those sorts of scores,” my mother said.

“The point is, you’d be with boys and girls like yourself,” my father added.

“Seems odd to call them boys and girls,” my mother told him.

He smiled and nodded. “Young men and women, for sure. Some of the graduates of Spindrift work for NASA. Some of the other places are also privileged information, but I’m thinking government security positions, the military and government brain trusts, as well as corporate ones.”

I looked at the pictures again. “Seems walled in or something,” I said. “Why?”

“They’re very protective of their assets.”

“Assets?”

“He means their students. Mrs. Pelham used the word assets.”

“That sounds like the CIA,” I said.

“You work at your own pace, but there are teachers with doctorates, specialists, part-timers from high places, constantly challenging the students.”

I looked at the back of the brochure. “So there are dorms. I’d be leaving home.”

“This has to be your decision entirely,” my mother said. “But in light of what’s happened and your happiness . . . going to another school might be wise.”

I nodded. “I wouldn’t exactly refer to it as another school. I don’t imagine they have a prom.”

“You make everything yourselves there, social life included,” my father said. “Of course, we’d visit you periodically.”

“Is it expensive?”

“There are some costs,” my father said. “But we’d have those costs when we sent you off to college anyway, and at Spindrift you’d earn any and all degrees you were seeking.”

“The work would be postgraduate; that’s why it’s more challenging,” my mother added, obviously parroting what Mrs. Pelham had told them.

“The place seems like one gigantic experiment.”

“I’m sure in

a way, it is. But it’s apparently quite successful.”