out like a lighthouse; he was
the one who could supply the right answers when the class was stumped.
His teacher soon began to take a delight in belaboring the class for a
minute before turning to Jimmy for the answer. Heaven forgive him, Jimmy
enjoyed it. He began to hold back slyly, like a comedian building up the
tension before a punch-line.

His classmates began to call him "old know-it-all." Jimmy did not realize
that it was their resentment speaking. He accepted it as deference to his
superior knowledge. The fact that he was not a part of their playtime
life did not bother him one iota. He knew very well that his size alone
would cut him out of the rough and heavy games of his classmates; he did
not know that he was cut out of their games because they disliked him.

As time wore on, some of the rougher ones changed his nickname from
"know-it-all" to "teacher's pet"; one of them used rougher language
still. To this Jimmy replied in terms he'd learned from Jake Caslow's
gutters. All that saved him from a beating was his size; even the ones
who disliked him would not stand for the bully's beating up a smaller
child.

But in other ways they picked on him. Jimmy reasoned out his own
relationship between intelligence and violence. He had yet to learn the
psychology of vandalism--but he was experiencing it.

Finding no enjoyment out of play periods, Jimmy took to staying in. The
permissive school encouraged it; if Jimmy Holden preferred to tinker with
a typewriter instead of playing noisy games, his teacher saw no wrong in
it--for his Third Grade teacher was something of an intellectual herself.

In April, one week after his sixth birthday, Jimmy Holden was jumped
again.

Jimmy entered Fourth Grade to find that his fame had gone before him; he
was received with sullen glances and turned backs.

But he did not care. For his birthday, he received a typewriter from Paul
Brennan. Brennan never found out that the note suggesting it from Jimmy's
Third Grade teacher had been written after Jimmy's prompting.

So while other children played, Jimmy wrote.

He was not immediately successful. His first several stories were
returned; but eventually he drew a winner and a check. Armed with
superior knowledge, Jimmy mailed it to a bank that was strong in
advertising "mail-order" banking. With his first check he opened a
pay-by-the-item, no-minimum-balance checking account.

Gradually his batting average went up, but there w