Six was the starting age for grade one, but after a few days it was clear that my year spent in a mixed-age class at boarding school had put me well ahead of the rest of the kids. I was pushed up to grade three, where I easily held my own against kids two years older than I. Doing the Judge’s arithmetic, my early grounding in reading, a comprehensive understanding of Afrikaans in a classroom of English-speaking kids coming without enthusiasm to the language for the first time, and Doc’s demand from our first day that I write up my field notes all gave me a hugely unfair advantage. I might possibly have been elevated even further but for the embarrassment it would have caused. I quickly earned a reputation, rather unjustly, for being clever. Doc had persuaded me to drop my camouflage and not to play dumb. “To be smart is not a sin. But to be smart and not use it, that, Peekay, is a sin. Absoloodle!” I had needed little encouragement. Under his direction my mind was constantly hungry, and I soon found the schoolwork tedious and simplistic.
