Hiro is Smart

Disclaimer: All familiar characters, events, settings, etc. belong to Disney/Marvel.

When Tadashi is born, Cass watches her older sister read him books and purée organic spinach and make sure he had adequate tummy time. Every time she comes over they're working on something: Flashcards. Picture dictionaries. Block towers. Puzzles. The TV is hardly ever on, and when it is her sister only lets Tadashi watch sign language and phonics DVDs and Mister Rogers. Tadashi learns to read before entering pre-school and wants to show Cass what he can do with Legos and bubbles and activity books. Apparently all the crazy parenting pays off because her nephew is a smart little booger and gets to start first grade a year early.

Then Hiro comes along and they're back to cloth diapers and liquefied yams. But Hiro is not Tadashi. He won't sit still during reading time. He escapes from bumbo seats and high chairs and footie pajamas. He screams through his first haircut and every single subsequent one. He won't sit through Mister Rogers except, Cass notes, when they tour the crayon factory. He destroys Tadashi's Lego sculptures and the only trick he insists on showing Cass is his ability to accurately pee at Cheerios in the toilet.

And then she inherits both of them.

Tadashi cries and asks why and hoards photographs and mementos. He says sad things about "our last Christmas" and "Mom and Dad can't watch my karate tournament."

Hiro throws tantrums and wakes up at night, then disassembles part of the vacuum cleaner.

Cass lets them watch all the Disney videos and puts them to bed late and feeds them boxed macaroni and cheese. Tadashi goes on a sort of grief fast, but Hiro inhales it.

She sticks Hiro in pre-school because there is no way - no way - that she can handle that kid and the cafe at the same time. He takes the batteries out of everything. Unplugs things. It takes her almost two hours to get the TV and media player hooked back up correctly, and that's with Tadashi's help. For the first time in her life, Cass understands why outlet covers and those other dumb baby proofing things exist...except that they don't stand a chance against Hiro. She resorts to duct tape.

The pre-school teacher says Hiro is a "handful." Yep, could've told her that. Cass accumulates a year's worth of finger painting projects and things with cotton balls glued on them, along with Tadashi's student of month and high honor roll awards. Cass holds Hiro down for all his kindergarten shots and gets him registered before the elementary school can think twice.

"Why don't they put Hiro in first grade?" Tadashi asks, pointing out that he went into first grade at Hiro's age. He chews on a carrot stick. "He's really smart."

"Your brother needs kindergarten," Cass tells him. They watch Hiro shoving three different colors of Play dough into the squisher machine. He better not destroy that too.

But Hiro does not destroy Tadashi's potato clock science fair project. No...the electric potato leads to experimentation on multiple other unsuspecting vegetables, and eventually Cass finds the potato clock hooked up to wires that trail into a glass of Gatorade.

The kindergarten teacher thinks Hiro is "bored." She says he has exhausted all the dot-to-dots and that he not only retells the stories but embellishes them (usually with robots and lasers and ninjas) and that he can multiply. Then they talk about all the reasons he gets sad faces instead of happy ones on his behavior chart.

"Hiro is really smart," Tadashi repeats, like a broken record. Cass looks at Hiro, who has just stuffed an entire package of bacon into Tadashi's solar cardboard box oven project. Multiple objects are covered in tin foil during the course of the week. More bacon is sacrificed.

Cass just hopes they survive first grade.

The first grade teacher tells her that Hiro is "unusually bright." He burns through his worksheets, she says, except the penmanship ones - then doodles all over them. He gets in trouble for correcting the other kids and getting impatient with them. She has resorted to letting him do Sudoku puzzles to keep him occupied. The teacher suggests they move him to a "pod."

"I'll talk to him about the other kids," Cass tries to promise.

The teacher insists that the pod is a good thing, but Cass isn't sure she buys it. Pretty soon the principal and the counselor and the educational support people all gang up on her and keep talking about the stinking POD so she finally agrees to let Hiro try it.

"Is it with other smart kids?" Tadashi asks, all excited.

"I hope so," Cass answers. She's just going to pretend that she didn't find Hiro's experiments in mold and decay under the bed today.

Tadashi celebrates the controversial pod by buying Hiro ten rolls of mentos and a bottle of Coke. Cass thinks her sister is probably rolling in her grave. She has wrecked the the kids...but she's kind of too busy cleaning up soda and candy foam to worry about it too much.

"Hiro is something else," Magic Pod Teacher says, and she actually seems happy about that. Cass just stares at her. Yep, Hiro is really something else. Today they found out that Tadashi's algebra book costs $85, thanks to Hiro's apparent desire to solve for x.

Cass asks if they can try normal second grade, but they break the news to her that "Hiro's educational progress doesn't align with his peers'." What?! They never warned her that there was no return from the pod! Yeah, he's still trying to take apart her kitchen appliances, but he's good at math, right?

They tell her loads of stuff: that Hiro far exceeds kids his age in multiple areas. That they want him to explore his areas of interest. That he'd be unhappy in a typical classroom environment.

But Tadashi is happy in a regular classroom, right?

"Sure," Tadashi answers when she asks him. They're in the middle of Mothra vs. Godzilla, but her older nephew doesn't seem to mind the interruption. He's had the benefit of ten years with parents who fed him brain vitamins and basically did their best to give him a shot at becoming a well-rounded individual before leaving him to the corruption of Cass. He looks over at Hiro, who is flopped over Cass's lap, entranced with the giant insect on TV. "But Hiro is smarter than me."

Cass wraps one arm around him, thankful for such a thoughtful nerd kid. She throws a piece of popcorn at Hiro's head. "Do you want to stay in the pod? Do you like it?"

"Yeah," Hiro shrugs, chewing on his popcorn. "They let us eat snack two times a day."