The Hothouse

by Natalie Minaker

I cringe at the excess of punctuation as my fingers trace the letters.

Sophia 4eva!!!

I’d been seven when I’d carved my name into the treehouse roof. Eight years later, the fortress built from old pallets and plywood still stands, only a hint of dry rot revealing its true age. Dad did a solid job. I lie back on the unsanded floor, splinters threatening my back through my t-shirt; my Converse clad feet dangle over the threshold, wafting in the summer breeze. I sigh as I accept that I’ve outgrown the treehouse; I’m a clear two feet taller than I’d been back then.

That summer, before I turned eight, had passed in a blur of scuffed knees, sunburn peel and ice cream drips. The treehouse had been my Fairytale Castle, my Pirate Ship, my Polar Research Station, my Large Hadron Collider. Above all, the treehouse had been mine.

Those summer memories – and the treehouse itself – now felt like they belonged to someone else. That September had brought endless days of tepid rain which limited my time outside. Pane by water-stained pane, I’d been encased in the humid conservatory with only books and tutors for company, the garden obscured by the condensation of my own expelled sighs.

September had also brought The Diagnosis.

I shouldn’t call it that; Mum hates it when I use the D-word.

I sit up, my high ponytail kissing the low treehouse ceiling. Three days ago, driven by both genuine need and a heavy dose of nostalgia, I’d waded through attic dust and retrieved my old science box. After the application of a rudimentary pulley system and a knowledge of basic physics, I’d hoisted the box into the treehouse; privacy was hard to come by in our cramped, two-bedroom terrace – as was space for performing experiments.

I open the faded plastic lid. Underneath the still serviceable (and recently redeployed) My First Chemistry Set, were some of my most beloved childhood books: Understanding Science, Magical Maths, and a favourite, simply titled Dinosaurs! By eight, I had far outgrown these books, so they had been sealed in airtight, attic-bound boxes, replaced with tomes that traded colourful images for increasingly complex pages of text. It’s important, the educational psychologist had told my parents, that Sophia is nurtured. A girl with her gifts needs to be stimulated. Challenged.

Challenged. That bloody word has haunted me ever since. The years since I’d been diagnosed as gifted had been nothing but challenge. I have the rosettes and trophies to prove it.

I hear a clatter, and shuffle to the treehouse entrance. Through the mossy glass of the conservatory roof below, I see Dad swearing at red and white shards scattered across the tiled floor. Mum shakes her head, and leaves, probably to get the vacuum.

Ah.

Auf wiedersehen, au revoir, adios and zai jian to my favourite mug. One of the perks of intensive years of home-schooling – I can be sarcastic in multiple languages.

Dad’s struggling. I guess, like perpetual motion machines, grand unified theory, and communism, the concept of his fifteen-year-old daughter leaving home was one that seemed much better in theory than practice. But how could he say no? As well as a full scholarship, Cambridge had offered free on-campus accommodation, with a full-time (and thoroughly background checked) chaperone to ensure that I don’t get too much of the full university experience. After all, I’m the girl who passed her GCSEs at twelve and got six A-Levels at fourteen. We’ve had multiple Family Meetings (i.e. my parents forming a committee of two with me as a neutral observer) where we have discussed at length My Future and My Potential. Yes, fifteen is rather young to go to university, but you’ve been granted a Golden Opportunity to Fulfil Your Dreams.

If only I knew what those were.

In the treehouse, I shift my weight, knocking the chemistry set which slides across the wooden floor with a tinkle of jostling glass. I lift the lid; beakers, vials and pipettes sit atop the remnants of my recent chemistry experiments. One of the test tubes has cracked. I lift it up to the light; a powdery residue is smeared on the inside of the broken glass. I’ll have to up my game; such sloppy lab hygiene won’t be tolerated at Cambridge.

Funny to think that my whole life started off in a test tube much like this one. Sophia Hughes: The Long-Shot Gamble. My aging parent’s final roll of the IVF dice, life savings staked on one outcome. For Mum and Dad, seeing those two red lines instead of the familiar, solitary, heart-breaking one, was better than a lottery win. As I’m reminded almost daily, I’m their little miracle.

I hear a soft chime. Below, Dad leaves the conservatory to answer the front door.

How long have I been up here? I ensured that Dad saw me climb the ladder to the treehouse, and I deliberately didn’t return his smile. I have to set up the groundwork that I’m Not Alright.

Step one complete.

I think it’s been half an hour. How long before he comes to check on me? My stomach churns. Even my Dad, as emotionally blinkered as he is, would through sheer annoyance rather than concern, eventually join me in the treehouse. Then we could have the Difficult Conversation – a conversation I would infinitely rather have with him than Mum. Hence my escape to the treehouse; God bless Mum’s busted knee and inability to climb a rope ladder.

With nothing to do but wait, I lie down and try to recapture the feeling of being seven again, letting my head hang backwards out of the treehouse entrance. The world flips: the sky becomes a carpet of mossy, unkempt lawn. The ground, an endless ocean of blue, an archipelago of white fluffy islands formed by the clouds. Beneath me, the tree waves its green fingered canopy in greeting.

As a child, I could hear the great gasp of the tree as it inhaled the carbon dioxide from the air, and the slow measured breath of oxygen being expelled. I’d close my eyes and breathe in and out in time with the tree. I would metamorphose in the warmth of the sun as I joined the leaves in a union of photosynthesis, the mitochondria in my cells exchanged for chlorophyll. Then I’d evolve again, no longer a tree but a dragonfly, Aeshna cyanea, hunting near the pond. Now I’m a white Pieris brassicas butterfly, fluttering around Mum’s buddleja davidii, unwinding its long proboscis to feed from the nectar within. Eventually, my atoms transmute into water droplets, soaring high in the upper troposphere where I coalesce into a cirrostratus, gravity and air pressure condensing me into rain that falls back on the tree.

It had felt so real, even if it was just pretend.

Before my universe became the glass walls of the conservatory, I was on the cusp of a change I could feel but couldn’t see. When I was seven, I could hear the heartbeat of the world.

I close my eyes. All I hear now is Mum vacuuming in the conservatory, and the distant rumble of the motorway.

            I’m on the cusp again, but this time, I see everything and feel nothing.        

I pull the pregnancy test from my jeans pocket. They were still there – two red lines. An accusatory number 11: the first double digit and palindromic prime. Or maybe it was 0011, the decimal 3 in binary.

            I doubt Dad would find these maths facts as comforting as I did.

            The boy’s name had been Freddie, or Frankie; something beginning with F. He was one of the vaguely familiar faces I saw every few weeks at academic tournaments. Last month, after the finals of the Young Natural Scientist Competition, we’d snuck out of the hotel conference hall. In a deserted service corridor, we’d fumbled our way through a short, forgettable encounter. He’d seemed appreciative; afterwards, as he cleaned his glasses on his shirt, he kept muttering his thanks.

            Before I can practice some potential conversation openers, Dad’s grey-haired head appears in the doorway of the treehouse. I jam the test under the chemistry set.

            “Hey kiddo,” he says. I wonder whether Dad can even remember my name. It’s been years since I was anything other than kiddo, sport, champ...

            “Hey. How goes the packing?”

            “Fine.” The treehouse gives an argumentative groan under his weight as he pulls himself inside. “A few minor breakages. You could always help – it’s your stuff.”

            “Me?” I throw my head back, mock-diva style. “I’m far too important for grunt work. That’s why I have you. What’ve you got there?” I say, noticing the hefty piece of metal and glass he carries.

            “Postman just brought it. It’s finally back from the engravers.” He hands over the trophy.

            I read the plaque: Sophia Hughes: Young Natural Scientist of The Year. I tap the metal rod spiralling out of the mahogany base – gold plated steel. It clearly costs less than last year’s award which currently shares a crowded shelf with the other meaningless accolades in our family trophy cabinet.

            “Check out this,” Dad says, pointing at the orange glass orb fixed to a metal base at the top. It’s about the size of a golf ball, but completely smooth. I hold it up to the light.

            Not glass – amber. Inside, a fossilised insect. This year’s tournament organisers have clearly just watched Jurassic Park.

            I look closer – this is no mosquito. It’s a butterfly.

            “Is this real?” I ask. Dad nods. I look closer; this would explain the inexpensive materials on the rest of the trophy; such a fossilised artefact wouldn’t have come cheap. “A blue-winged Prodryas perspehone,” I say. “Late Eocene, maybe thirty-five million years old. Probably from Colorado.”

            Dad gives me a familiar proud smile; my reward for doing a Genius Thing. “You know, you could switch to Palaeontology if you wanted,” he says. “Cambridge are so eager to have you, they’d let you do a bachelors in basket weaving if you asked.”

            “There’s no future in the past,” I say. “I’ll stick with physics and maths; like you and Mum said, they’re future proof.” I force a smile.

            “Good. Always be five steps ahead,” he says. “Remember what you learned from chess.”

            Why was it always bloody chess? My years on the genius-kid competition circuit had taught me that the parental obsession with chess seemed universal, like it was part of the introductory orientation: Welcome to high-IQ parenting. Here's your periodic table, scientific calculator, disdain for the arts, and a chess set.

Why couldn’t it have been Monopoly?

“Your Mum will struggle to find room in the cabinet for this one,” Dad says.

“She’ll cope,” I say, placing the trophy on the treehouse floor. It gives a slight top-heavy wobble on the uneven surface.

When I was ten, I’d been sitting at the table in the conservatory, which by then had become my de-facto study. Despite the rain that battered the glass roof, the heat was stifling. I’d been practicing my Mandarin Chinese while Mum had rearranged the trophies in the glass display case.

“I’m running out of room, Sophia. I think it’s finally time for me to pack away these old things.” I’d looked up from my textbook; Mum was filling a cardboard box with small, chipped and sun-faded medals.

“Mum, no! Those are yours.”

She’d given a dismissive wave. “It was years ago; my dreams of being an Olympic hurdler are long gone.” She’d placed her fingertips on a picture frame; inside a photo of me shaking hands with the head of the UK Mathematics Society. “At least there’s little chance of a shattered knee ruining your future.” She’d given a brisk smile, before readjusting the frame, closing the glass cabinet and leaving me alone in the conservatory.

I’d looked at the smiling photo. Trapped in a glass frame, in a glass cabinet, under a glass roof.

Precious. Preserved. Perfect.

            But the smile was pretend. I’d got good at pretending.

            Back in the treehouse, Dad stares at me. “Are you ok?”

            So, he’d noticed, at last. How to start?

            “Dad, I’m not sure about Cambridge,” I begin. “I don’t think I’m ready to leave home.”

            “Oh sport,” he says, shuffling closer and placing a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “This again? Me and your Mum discussed this. You are more than ready. You need to believe in yourself the way that we believe in you.”

            “But I’m only fifteen. Maybe I should wait a few years...”

            “You’re only fifteen in Earth years.” Earth years. One of his favourite running jokes; Sophia Hughes wasn’t actually human, but some advanced extra-terrestrial species. “If we didn’t think you were ready, we wouldn’t let you go. You’re one of the most mature, sensible, and level-headed kids – no – people I’ve ever had the privilege to meet. I honestly cannot believe that you’re mine.”

            “No, you were right first time. I am a kid.” I shrug off his hand. “Cambridge will be there when I’m eighteen. Maybe I could stay at home. Other kids my age are looking at Sixth Form courses. I could do that...”

“Why?” he looks at me as though I am speaking Chinese.

“I’m not saying never,” I say. “Just not yet. Why the rush? I could go to a local college, do art or drama or media studies or something. It would be a chance to expand my interpersonal experience.” Make friends with normal teenagers, go to parties, get a boyfriend…

“But why wait? You’ve outgrown this town. Outgrown us. Look at everything you’ve accomplished.” He nods towards the trophy – a butterfly perfectly preserved in amber.

I’m suddenly reminded of a butterfly that got trapped in the conservatory when I was twelve. How in its panic, it battered itself repeatedly against the glass, seeking escape to the garden outside.

Time for step two.

“I can’t go.” I take a deep breath, reach under the chemistry set, pull out the pregnancy test and hand it over. “I’m so sorry Dad.”

I expect screaming. Shouting. Tears. Anything would have been better than the absolute silence that follows.

People assume that having a high IQ comes at the cost of reduced emotional intelligence. This isn't true. Right now, for example, I can read my Dad’s emotional state as clearly as I could a table of statistical data. First is confusion, swiftly followed by a brief moment of doubt which merges very quickly into acceptance. Then a brief flash of anger before he finally settles on resigned sadness.

Well done, Sophia. You’ve done it. You’ve actually broken your Dad’s heart.

“Who?” he asks, looking anywhere but me.

“Just some boy.”

My stomach fills with guilt. This is what I’d wanted; in that underwhelming three minutes in the service corridor with the boy whose name began with F, I’d wanted this. As I’d fumbled with my trouser buttons, I’d had just one thought:

They can’t make me go to Cambridge if I’m pregnant.

Dad sighs and finally looks up. For a moment, I have no idea whether he’s going to cry, shout, or hurl himself out of the treehouse. Suddenly, he pulls me into a hug. “It’s ok Sophia. It will all be ok.”

The tension leaves my shoulders as I allow his arms to envelop me. I don’t deserve this blanket of love and support, but I’m still comforted by the solid thump of his heartbeat as he presses my head against his chest. We’ve stepped past some unseen threshold; everything’s going to change now.

For the first time in my exceptional life, I’m not perfect.

I knew I’d made a mistake the moment F-boy’s footsteps had faded from that corridor. What the hell had I been thinking? I didn't want to go to Cambridge, but risking a teenage pregnancy – not to mention all manner of STIs – was uncharacteristically rash for me.

Then I’d suddenly realised – there was a better way.

The following morning, under the pretence of going on a brain-boosting run, I caught a bus into town and bought the morning after pill from a stony-faced, but not-unkind pharmacist, who was rather confused why I accompanied my purchase with a dozen pregnancy tests.

In the treehouse, Dad whispers into my ear. “I’ll talk to your Mum. Leave her to me.”

“Thanks,” I sniffle.

“We’ll do whatever you want to do, ok?”

I give a snotty nod, surprised by my real tears. Seems I don’t need to pretend to be emotional.  

The science behind pregnancy tests is pretty simple. An absorbent strip imbued with monoclonal antibodies that turn red in the presence of the hormone hCG, detectable in the urine of pregnant women. It’s easy enough to mimic the effect with the right mixture of alkaline solutions – such as the types of chemicals one might find in a child’s chemistry set. It took some trial and error, but the deception was necessary. No simple hand-drawn red line would fool parents who’d spent a decade staring at negative pregnancy tests, searching for any faint signs of a positive.

Still, I knew that a faked test would be just a short-term fix, buying me a week at most. But by that point, we’d be on step three; Dad will have stumbled upon the piles of failed pregnancy tests in the chemistry kit. I’ll make sure that he also finds how to fake a pregnancy test in the search history of the family computer.

Step four will be when Mum and Dad have a long conversation. They might even let me be part of it. Who would go to such lengths to fake a pregnancy? Clearly Sophia isn’t as mature as we thought. We’re sorry sweetheart, it might be best if we delay Cambridge, just for a few years. Please don’t be too disappointed. Maybe we should look at getting you some help and support.

Step five: I will suggest enrolment in a local college. One with great pastoral care.

Always be five steps ahead. Thanks chess.

I let Dad hug me as I breathe in the clear, cool air of the treehouse. A light breeze dances through my hair. A butterfly glides by, blue wings gleaming in the summer sun.

It’s not a perfect plan, but it will do. If Mum and Dad won’t listen, refusing to see me as anything but a mature, older-than-her-years prodigy, then I’ll show them. I’ll make them believe that I’m just a dumb, scared kid who’s not ready to leave home.

Even if it is just pretend.