Remember how I used to make you practice saying words? I’d say, Repeat after me: Egg, and you’d lean back ever so slightly like you were about to take off and then go, AIG!, the most emphatic Oklahoman in the universe, although each time for one split second (German: Augenblick, literally: blink of an eye) you’d just sit there waiting for my face to tell you whether you had done it right. And then I’d scowl, and you would look away

**

On August 10, 1997, they move Amy into her dorm

On August 10, 1997, they move Amy into her dorm. The girls live on the second floor; the four of them trudge up the stairs carting boxes and garbage bags of things.

Zoe weeps. Zoe won’t stop weeping. Amy would like to hug her, but she can’t. She just stands there and waits for them to leave, and then when they do, she steps up to the window and watches them as they get smaller, trailing her fingers down the glass pane.

Amy lives in the Honors House, in the middle of fraternity row

Amy lives in the Honors House, in the middle of fraternity row. The Honors House is a designated residence for participants in the Honors Program, otherwise known as nerds. But it used to be a fraternity house, too. It was converted in 1995 after one of the new recruits was accidentally killed during hazing.

There are not that many nerds at the University of Tulsa, so unlike in most of the campus residences, everyone has their own room. Amy has never had her own room before. She takes her few things out of their bags and boxes and lines them up on top of the extra bed. She is about to hide her valuables at the bottom of what is to become her sock drawer when she realizes she doesn’t have to anymore.

She leaves her things lined up on the extra bed and makes her own bed and lies down. She does some snow angels, and then she lies still and thinks of Sasha in his coffin and begins to cry, silently, as she has learned to do. She thinks of her sister’s sadness, which redoubles her own. She cries until she falls asleep, wishing she had never wished for her own room.

The next day Amy meets people

Everyone is friendly, and no one seems so much older, and she doesn’t tell them she’s fifteen. But she doesn’t tell them anything other than her name. When in the evening they all gather in the living room for their first official house meeting, Amy hangs back, standing in the doorway, watching them like you watch TV. They go around and introduce themselves officially and say their major; Amy’s whole body is shaking by the time it gets to her. She almost whispers Amy, undeclared, and then it’s even worse because she knows no one’s heard her, and yet she also knows she has done the best she possibly can. She has the inexplicable sensation that trying again may kill her, although she couldn’t say how. But just then the boy standing closest to her repeats her information on her behalf. She had not noticed him there, in the shadows. Now she looks at him with wet and thankful eyes. He goes on and says his name is Tommy, and that he is doing a dual major in philosophy and German.

After the introductions, once everyone turns their attention to something else, Amy starts to take baby steps backwards until she reaches the base of the stairs. Quietly she creeps back up to her room. Without Zoe Amy has no idea how she should be when she's with people.

But the next day Amy becomes famous

But the next day Amy becomes famous. She wakes up in the morning feeling what she feels on Christmas: pure elation. She showers quickly and gets dressed and heads fast across the campus towards the QuikTrip on 11th Street. It is early, and there is no one around. It is her favorite time of day.

Amy has never gone to a gas station alone before, and now as she glides along the asphalt of the parking lot and pushes in the glass door without slowing it occurs to her that now her life will be like this. That all she has to do is get the money and she can go wherever she wants. She approaches the counter where The Tulsa World is kept, and she pictures herself on Red Square. It is a Red Square with Saint Basil’s Cathedral, the Eiffel Tower, a pair of tame rhinoceroses, and the Berlin Wall. She is standing very straight and looks the boy behind the counter directly in the eye.

Yet while Amy feels all-powerful at the thought of her name in the newspaper, when she glances down and sees her face taking up the whole top half of the front page, the power bursts, and she starts shaking, and she runs back to the bathroom, where she pees with her head in her hands.

In the front-page picture Amy’s long blond hair rolls smooth as a single piece of silk over her shoulders

In the front-page picture Amy’s long blond hair rolls smooth as a single piece of silk over her shoulders. She wears an oversized coral-pink t-shirt and a little amber pendant on a slender silver chain. Her eyes appear greenish-gray, and she appears to be looking at the camera and looking away at the same time. She smiles without showing her teeth. Except for the slight sunburn on her cheeks and across her nose, she looks like a doll.

The headline of the article reads: Wonderkid Starts TU at 15. It starts by explaining that Amy is the youngest freshman in the history of the University of Tulsa. It goes on to include statistics from the U.S. Department of Education and interviews with the University of Tulsa’s Dean of Admissions, Amy, and their mom. The Dean of Admissions is quoted in the second paragraph saying he would advise against anyone doing anything like this. The article’s author explains that the issue is not so much whether Amy belongs in a college classroom as whether a 15-year-old belongs in a residence hall on TU’s fraternity row. The Dean of Admissions again: But we made sure she and her parents are aware of the maturity issues.

According to the U.S. Department of Education, says the journalist, The number of college students who are younger than 17 has actually declined since 1970. The potential for that number to grow, however, is considerable. How many Amys are out there is anyone’s guess.

Some people, Amy is quoted as saying next, underestimate their abilities.

A second, smaller picture on Page A4, where the story is continued, shows Amy sitting cross-legged with all her books for the semester piled up on her lap: Antigone, Anna Karenina, Fundamentals of Astronomy, and a bunch more whose titles are hidden by the ones on top. Her head is bowed as though she’s reading.

Amy is described as reserved but articulate and not exactly shy. Physically, she could easily pass for 17.

When Amy reads this she wonders if it’s true.

The article explains that Amy has been homeschooled for the past 6 years. Amy is quoted as saying, My sister had a brain tumor, and that made it difficult for her to go to school of any kind. I think my parents ultimately decided they might as well keep me at home, too.

Their mom is quoted as saying, We knew what we were doing was best for her. If anything this is the proof of that. We have raised Amy to be a strong and independent thinker, passionate about her interests, dedicated to achieving her future. At home she was able to focus in a way we knew she would never have been able to at school.

The article concludes with another quote from the Dean of Admissions: You just have to be very careful. If you go out trying to recruit younger kids, you can be doing a disservice to the students. It’s got to be the right situation. We had a battery of campus personnel, ranging from admissions staff to faculty to housing staff, meeting with Amy and her parents. We’ll see how things go. We certainly all wish her the best of luck.

This is not the first time Amy has appeared in The Tulsa World

This is not the first time Amy has appeared in The Tulsa World. Once when she was still in school she starred in a school play about a butterfly, which she also wrote and directed. The next day there was a picture of her wearing a pink leotard and the butterfly wings she made out of poster board and emerald green glitter.

Once when she was eleven she caught a mistake in the paper and wrote in to the editors to voice her complaint. The letter was featured the next day, signed Amy Smith, age 11.

The error had to do with the classification of dolphins, which had appeared in a list with fish.