I do not expect this scene to appear in any of the books I’m writing about Jeep Thompson, but the moment sprang from a daydream about Jeep’s formative years. I hope it will pique your interest for that hopefully-inevitable time when you finally meet her.
“Your daughter is reckless and disobedient,” the teacher said.
“Oh, yes?” Beverly Thompson said. “What makes you say that?”
“She is always trying to do things her own way. She won’t follow instructions.”
“Does she understand the concepts you’re teaching?”
“Only too well. As I say, she applies them wrong.”
“Are they wrong, or are they different from what you want?”
“It’s the same thing!” the teacher exclaimed.
“No,” Beverly said. “If she discovers her own way to apply the concepts, and her way is valid, then it’s only a different way, it’s not a wrong way.”
“Well! I can see why your daughter is incorrigible. No good will come of that one!”
“My daughter will save the worlds because she knows how to think. Not only will she put a square peg in a round hole, she will reshape the pegs and the holes and change the course of time and the universe.”
“I have no idea what you are talking about!”
“And that’s the sad part — you, her supposed teacher.”
“Well, I never —“
“Apparently that much is true. Come, Jeep, let’s go home.”
