Heads You Win

The headmaster hesitated. “We do offer places for pupils in, shall we say, straitened circumstances. And of course,” he added quickly, “we award academic scholarships for exceptionally gifted children.” Elena didn’t look convinced. “Can I offer you a coffee?”

“No, thank you, Mr. Quilter. I’m sure you must be very busy, so please go back to work. I’m perfectly happy to read a magazine while I’m waiting.”

“That’s most considerate of you,” said the headmaster, “Yes I do have rather a lot of paperwork to be getting on with. But I’ll return just as soon as—”

The door was flung open and Mr. Sutton burst in even before the headmaster could finish his sentence. He walked quickly across to Mr. Quilter and whispered in his ear.

“Would you be kind enough to wait here, Mrs. Karpenko?” said the headmaster. “I will be back shortly.”

“Is there a problem?” asked Elena anxiously, but the two men had already left the room.

“You say he finished the exam in twenty minutes? That barely seems possible.”

“What’s even more incredible,” said Sutton, almost on the run, “he scored a hundred percent, and frankly looked bored.” He opened the door of his classroom to allow the headmaster to enter.

“Karpenko,” said Quilter, after he’d glanced at a long row of ticks, “can I ask if you’ve ever seen this paper before?”

“No, sir.”

The headmaster studied the pupil’s answers more carefully, before asking, “Would you be willing to answer a couple of oral questions?”

“Yes, of course, sir.”

The headmaster nodded to Mr. Sutton.

“Karpenko, if I throw three dice,” said Sutton, “what is the probability that the result will be a total of ten?”

The would-be scholar picked up his pen and began to write out various combinations of three numbers. Four minutes later, he put the pen down and said, “One in eight, sir.”

“Remarkable,” said Sutton. He smiled at the headmaster, who, as a classicist, was none the wiser. “My second question is, if you were offered odds of ten to one that you couldn’t throw ten with three dice, would you accept the bet?”

“Of course, sir,” said Sasha without hesitation, “because on average, I would win every eight throws. But I would want to place at least a hundred bets before I would consider it to be statistically reliable.”

Mr. Sutton turned to Mr. Quilter and said, “Headmaster, please don’t allow this boy to go to any other school.”

9

ALEX

En route to Brooklyn

Alex gazed into a dark hole that masses of people were rushing into. “Follow me,” said Dimitri, as he led his reluctant charges down a narrow flight of steps, before coming to a halt in front of a ticket barrier. He purchased three tickets, then they made their way onto a long dirty platform.

Alex heard a rumbling sound in the distance, like the prelude to a thunderstorm, and then out of a vast cavern at the far end of the platform appeared a train like no other train he’d ever seen before. In Leningrad the stations were carved in green marble, the carriages were clean, and it was only the passengers who were gray.

“You’ll get used to it,” said Dimitri, as the doors slid open. “Ten stops, and we’ll be in Brooklyn.” But neither of them was listening, both preoccupied with their own thoughts.

Alex looked around the carriage and noticed that no two people were alike, and they were all chattering away in different languages. In Leningrad, passengers rarely spoke to each other, and if they did, it was always in Russian. He was fascinated. Elena looked overwhelmed.

Alex followed the names of the stations on a little map above the carriage door: Bowling Green, Borough Hall, Atlantic Avenue, Prospect Park, came and went, and he never stopped watching the passengers as they got on and off. When the train finally pulled into Brighton Beach, Dimitri led his two charges out onto the platform. Another escalator took them up, and after they stepped off at the top, Dimitri showed them how to feed their little tokens into a turnstile. They emerged into the sunlight, and Alex was struck by how many people were walking up and down the sidewalk, all of them at a speed he’d never experienced. Everyone seemed to be in such a hurry. The road was just as busy, with cars the size of tanks blasting their horns at anyone who dared to step into their path. Dimitri didn’t seem to be aware of the noise. Alex was also mystified by the gaudy colors daubed on walls, even doorways. Graffiti, Dimitri explained, something else he’d never seen in Leningrad. A droning sound caused him to look up, where he spotted a plane that seemed to be falling out of the sky. He stood still, horrified, until Dimitri burst out laughing.

“It’s an airplane,” he said. “It’s landing at JFK, which is only a few miles away.” A second plane appeared, which seemed to Alex to be pursuing the one in front. “You’ll see one every couple of minutes,” said Dimitri.