She had said, "That's the point."
She was in the same advanced mathematics cohort that had been together since second grade: seven children who moved through the math curriculum at a pace that was two grade levels ahead of their chronological grade, and who had the particular bond of people who share a specific kind of intelligence that not everyone in their immediate community shares. She liked all seven of them, but her closest friend was a girl named Priya, who lived two blocks from Westbrook and who was the only person Amara had met her age whom she consistently had to think fast to keep up with. She found this satisfying.
She had told her mother, "Priya is very fast."
Her mother had said, "Good. You need people around you who are faster than you."
Amara had said, "Why?"
Her mother had said, "Because that is how you get faster."
Amara had thought about this for a week and then said, "I understand now."
Her mother had said, "I know you do."
She carried the elephant keychain because her grandmother—Winston's mother, Dr. Eleanor Beaumont, Professor of Mechanical Engineering Emerita—had given it to her at the start of first grade with the instruction that it was a good luck charm for people who never stop thinking about new things.
Amara had said, "What does the elephant have to do with thinking about new things?"