“We… she said so many things… but I thought this was the funniest: She said all the Missions were so old and interesting, and I said yes, and she said, ‘You know, they were all built long before Columbus discovered America,’ and I thought she meant it for a joke, so I laughed. She looked very serious and said, ‘Yes, those people all come up here from Mexico.’ I suppose she thought they were Aztec temples.”
Welles, shaking with laughter, could not but agree that many adults were sadly lacking in the rudiments of knowledge.
“After that Zoo experience, and a few others like it, I began to get wise to myself,” continued Tim. “People who knew things didn’t want to hear me repeating them, and people who didn’t know, wouldn’t be taught by a four-year-old baby. I guess I was four when I began to write.”
“How?”
“Oh, I just thought if I couldn’t say anything to anybody at any time, I’d burst. So I began to put it down—in printing, like in books. Then I found out about writing, and we had some old-fashioned schoolbooks that taught how to write. I’m left-handed. When I went to school, I had to use my right hand. But by then I had learned how to pretend that I didn’t know things. I watched the others and did as they did. My grandmother told me to do that.”
“I wonder why she said that,” marveled Welles.
“She knew I wasn’t used to other children, she said, and it was the first time she had left me to anyone else’s care. So, she told me to do what the others did and what my teacher said,” explained Tim simply, “and I followed her advice literally. I pretended I didn’t know anything, until the others began to know it, too. Lucky I was so shy. But there were things to learn, all right. Do you know, when I was first sent to school, I was disappointed because the teacher dressed like other women. The only picture of teachers I had noticed were those in an old Mother Goose book, and I thought that all teachers wore hoop skirts. But as soon as I saw her, after the little shock of surprise, I knew it was silly, and I never told.”
The psychiatrist and the boy laughed together.
“We played games. I had to learn to play with children, and not be surprised when they slapped or pushed me. I just couldn’t figure out why they’d do that, or what good it did them. But if it was to surprise me, I’d say ‘Boo’ and surprise them some time later; and if they were mad because I had taken a ball or something they wanted, I’d play with them.”
“Anybody ever try to beat you up?”