Parent/Teacher Conference Dec. 1st 2299

Author's note: This is an online extra that takes place almost one year prior to events in Chapter 5 in Out of the Gray, where the narration changes from Alex Verin's perspective to Rica Miller's perspective.

I'd been dreading this all week, but at least I wasn't going to be the only other person in conference room when the Millers arrived. Both Principal Holdcraft and Coach Hastings had promised to be there--not because they had a lot of contact with Rica but because I was going to be the messenger of some bad news. It had been my general experience that no parent likes learning that their child has been cheating, but the Millers had developed a reputation of being antagonistic when they were told anything they didn't want to hear about their daughter. I had been warned by Rica's other teachers to expect this latest news to not be taken well.

The evidence was clear however. Spread out in front of me were Rica's test scores in English, math, and science. From August to early November, she had been in the low C's in math and science and barely passing English. Her sixth grade scores showed similar patterns. Then starting two weeks ago, she not only started making A's but perfect scores. The optimist in me wanted to dismiss this as Rica beginning to apply herself, but in class she was still as scattered as--

"Are you Mrs. Tourville?" a thin gray-haired man roughly in his fifties asked at the conference door entrance and then held his hand out to me. "I'm Charlie Miller--my wife Rebecca is held up in traffic but will be here in a few minutes. I checked in at the front desk but thought I'd just show myself in here. Can I ask what this is about? I know normally these things aren't until May, and I had to take an overnight transport here all the way from Alaska since you wouldn't tell Rebecca anything over the phone."

"I think we should wait for your wife to get here," I replied as I shook his hand, hoping my back-up would also arrive before then. "I'm sorry, but we couldn't do this over the phone--I had no idea you had such a long commute, though. Do you travel out-of-state for your job often?"

"Sometimes," he replied as he sat down in one of the chairs across from me. "I'm semi-retired, but I get calls for special construction projects by previous employers. In fact, a friend of mine just called me last week and wants me involved on the final stages of the Destiny project. Rebecca and I are still discussing it, with Rica's best interests being our main concern of course. We're not in any major rush and think it would be best to at least let Rica finish out middle school here in Baltimore. I think Rica would enjoy the adventure of it however. She's good with people and technology, so being in such an advanced environment could open up a lot of opportunities for her as she gets older."

It was then that I figured out why she was cheating--Mr. Miller had such high and unrealistic expectations for Rica that she was trying to live up to them. I also sighed in relief as I seen Principal Holdcraft come through the door with a woman who must have been Rebecca Miller. She looked younger than her husband, but I noticed a very fine line of silver in the roots of her brown hair. Mr. Miller smiled when he seen her, but Mrs. Miller's focus was on me as she sat down. By her expression, Principal Holdcraft had already told her why we were meeting.

"I don't care what you're going to show us, Mrs. Tourville," she said firmly as she glanced down at the paperwork in front of me. "Rica wouldn't cheat on her tests--we've always told her just to do the best she can and focus on--"

"Is that what this is about?" Mr. Miller interrupted in an appalled tone as he stood up from his seat and glared at Principal Holdcraft. "Rica's grades go up, and you think she's cheating? When she was struggling last year, you told us to hold her back in sixth grade because seventh would be too much of a challenge for her--but if we had done that, she wouldn't have had the opportunity to overcome anything. Now she actually starts doing well in regular seventh grade classes, and you accuse her of this! She may not be my biological daughter, but don't you dare think that I'm just going to sit by and let you treat her like she's--"

"We haven't spoken to Rica about this yet," Holdcraft said quickly as he walked behind me and turned the list of her scores around to put them in front of the Millers. "It's not just that her scores went up, Charlie--it's that they went up overnight, and they're all perfect. We don't know how she's doing it. Nothing else about her behavior in class has changed--she doesn't misbehave and gets along with the other kids, but her attention always seems somewhere else. We called you in here so we can get permission to search her DMR. We've confiscated it out of her locker, but to find out if she's stored copies of the tests on it we need the password."

"No," Mr. Miller replied as he shook his head. "I trust my daughter, Mr. Holdcraft, and the thing is if you bring her in here and accuse her of cheating--and you're wrong--well, you've just made a little mistake at your jobs and will forget all about it by next week. Rebecca and I will have to deal with the aftermath of not only breaking Rica's trust of privacy but her thinking that every time she starts succeeding that something must be wrong. Do you have any idea what that can do to a kid--especially after everything else she's been through?"

"If you refuse, we'll have no choice but to put that on her record," I replied, feeling a pit develop in my stomach even though I knew I had to do my job. "That would carry with Rica no matter where she goes, Mr. Miller--even Destiny. You told me you want what's in Rica's best interests. We clear this up now, and--"

"It's Narnia," Mrs. Miller said as she stared down at the list of Rica's grades, but she had a smile on her face when she looked up at me. "Her DMR password is Narnia. Rica's read the entire series outside of school in the past two weeks, Mrs. Tourville, which is why I know she's not cheating. Something has changed with her--more things are making sense to her than they have before, even just two weeks ago."

Mr. Miller sighed at this but reached over and grabbed his wife's hand, interlocking her fingers with his.

"I'll be right back," Holdcraft said as he was already half-way out the door, and I was thankful when Mr. Miller's phone rang a couple of seconds later. He released his wife's hand before he took out a small headset from his front shirt pocket and put it on.

"Hey Jerry. Yeah, I think I have a few minutes but might have to go at any time--kind of in the middle of having my time wasted right now. I'll have to tell you about it later. I told Rebecca about your offer, and it's looking really good right now. We just want a little more time to think it over as far as the timing and the impact it might have on Rica and also Rebecca being able to see her family. Part of me wants to check things out anyway before bringing the two of them all the way over there. That's fine--yeah, I have to go. I'll call you back in about thirty minutes. Bye."

Principal Holdcraft returned and handed Mr. Miller Rica's DMR.

"I owe you both an apology," he said with an odd expression on his face. "The most recent files accessed from the past two weeks are all books, videos, and music. I even checked her hub record to see if anything was deleted. It's clean."

Mr. Miller looked down at the DMR and for a brief moment his eyes got wide like something on the screen had surprised him. He passed it over to Mrs. Miller.

"She's been doing a lot more reading than just Narnia," Mr. Miller said to his wife as he pointed at the screen. "Looks like about three books a day if you average it out--only problem I see is she's been staying up late. We do need to talk to her about that."

"I'm just looking at the rate she's getting through the books themselves," Holdcraft said as he sat down in the seat next to me. "She's gone through several books in thirty minutes that should have taken a normal 12-year-old a couple of days. I'd like to have her tested--she may qualify for our gifted program. You may also want to have Rica checked out physically since this happened so suddenly--in twenty years, I've never seen a situation quite like this. I'll be honest--I thought we were going to find those tests..."

"We need to talk to Rica first before we decide anything like--" Mrs. Miller started, but she stopped when she saw someone behind us.

I turned around. It was my assistant teacher Elizabeth, who'd I'd told to watch the class while I was in the conference. She had a panicked expression on her face.

"What happened?" I asked. "Elizabeth, what's wrong?"

"It's Rica--she said she was getting a headache, so I told her to go to the nurse's station. She got up, took a few steps, and just collapsed on the floor screaming. We've called 9-1-1. They're on the way."

"Where is she?" Mrs. Miller asked as she and Mr. Miller were already out of their seats.

"Still in the classroom--Coach Hastings saw what happened and said to not move her in case she's hurt. Follow me."

I was expecting the worst when we got into the classroom, but Rica was sitting up where she had fell. Mr. and Mrs. Miller knelt down beside her.

"Are you okay, Rica?" both of them asked at almost the same time.

"Do you have a flashlight?" Mrs. Miller asked as she looked up at me. "I want to check to make sure her pupils are the same size."

"I have one in my office," Coach Hastings replied, "I'll be right back."

"I think I'm fine," Rica said as she looked at her parents. "Does reading in the dark cause headaches?"

"It can, but not like this kind," Mrs. Miller said as Coach Hastings passed her a flashlight, and she shined it at each of Rica's eyes. "Your pupils are normal, honey, but I still think we should get you checked out."

Rica blinked a couple of times then turned to Mr. Miller.

"Dad, what does...mean?"

I didn't understand what she said in between, but apparently the Millers did.

"Why?" Mr. Miller asked with a concerned expression. "Where did you hear that?"

"There was a woman's voice," Rica replied. "I didn't see her, but I heard her."

"Roughly it means 'I love you, my little child,' but I don't understand how you--" Mrs. Miller started, and then her eyes grew wide. "Charlie, we've been--"

Just then the EMTs arrived, and one of them started to shine a flashlight in Rica's eyes again.

"I've already been through this once," Rica laughed as she nodded toward her mother. "One of the many advantages of having a mom who's a nurse..."

"What language was that?" I asked Mr. Miller as the EMTs helped Rica get on a stretcher as a precaution. "I've never heard it before."

"It's Italian," he said quickly as he and Mrs. Miller followed the EMTs about the door. "We have to go, Mrs. Tourville. It was nice meeting you."

I never saw them again.

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