The cuckoo

They said that aliens have already landed on Earth. That they were passing themselves off as humans.  Cuckoos, living in families, pretending to be the children of human parents. That they were planning to destroy us from within.

Naxal never took these claims seriously, they were the sort of idiocy that made up the worst of science fiction stories and the conspiracy theories that filled the internet.

No one took the claims seriously.

Except those who did. And nobody took them seriously.

At least, nobody took them seriously until it was too late.

Naxal didn’t really notice the rise of the nutters. She was too busy living her life. She didn’t notice that the TV shows and newspapers gave more and more coverage to the nutters, as they made for more interesting viewing than sane people. Then, when nutters started standing for parliament, they were elected, because they were ‘characters’. Their views were taken with a pinch of salt. Surely nobody really believes in cuckoos.

And when the nutters gained power, she didn’t really take notice. Governments come and go, she thought, nothing ever really changes.

Of course, the nutters’ messages were everywhere. On the TV news there were daily stories about suspected aliens – children who were much, much smarter than their parents, doing GCSEs at the age of five or six, degrees before they were teens. “Action must be taken against these ‘cuckoos’” ministers said. They passed legislation, made speeches.

But when they finally took action and removed a suspected alien ‘child’ from a family, here was a public outcry, street protests.  The public hadn’t really supported a clampdown on cuckoos after all, even though they’d voted for it, which isn’t the same thing. Alas the child was never returned. It was too late. The government claimed it had been sent back to the planet it came from, though, whisper it, critics suspected the child had already been killed.

There were no more public seizures after the protests.

And yet …

Stories began to spread. Rumours, stories, of children being taken from families. At first it was just a friend of a friend of a friend. But after a while, names were being attached. In every town a child had been snatched.

Parents worried. As parents do. They watched in anxious terror when their child took its first steps a few months earlier than normal.

When Naxal’s sister’s son Tommy turned out to be a slow developer, she made no attempt to hide her delight. “He’s one of the most stupid children I’ve ever seen,” she’d beam at every opportunity. “He’s still going to be in nappies at twenty the way he’s going. But at least he’ll be safe.”

‘At least he’s safe’. It was an expression you heard a lot about children that were slow on the uptake. You never heard the opposite, it was never spoken, but when children returned home with top marks in a maths test they were invariable greeted with anxious looks by parents who understood the implications. But these fears were never spoken, for to say you feared the government would take your child was to be critical of the government, and those who were critical of the government were showing evidence of ‘alien tendencies’. It would also suggest, wouldn’t it, that you thought your child should be taken? Better to say nothing, say nothing, and encourage your child to watch the trashiest TV, play the stupidest games.

Naxal didn’t have her sister’s luck. Her child, Trixie, was clearly special. She hit every milestone early, she was walking at five months, talking at six months. And Naxal had nobody so share her worries with – the father of her child walked out on her before Trixie was born.

Trixie was reading, writing and doing maths before she even started school. “You mustn’t do this at school,” Naxal told her on numerous occasions. “Even though the teachers will be asking you to show what you can do. You have to pretend you can’t read, can’t write, can’t do maths.”

“That’s silly mummy.”

“I know dear. But it’s dangerous. They might think you’re an alien. They might take you away.”

It was with the sort of dread that only parents can feel, that Naxal took her daughter to her first day at school. By this time, at the age of just five, she was already a fluent reader and writer, with a sprightly mathematical brain and keen understanding of everything happening around her.

Naxal was so worried she could barely move her legs, but she forced her body down the street, the short walk to Trixie’s school, for not to take her to school would be to guarantee the state’s attention. Her fears were genuine, she had heard stories of numerous children starting for their first day at school and then never returning that night, never being seen again.

A miserable day passed. Finally it was 3.30.She watched the children run out of the gates. There, at the back of the crowd, she recognised Trixie. She’d survived.

“How did you get on?” she asked, “did they ask you if you could write?”

“I had to try to write an ‘a’,” she said.

“And what did you say.”

“I pretended I couldn’t. I copied the other children.”

Trixie continued to demonstrate that she was smart as well as clever. Her teachers had no idea that she was anything other than an average child. Even her classmates and friends had no idea that she was faking ignorance.

At home Trixie continued to develop at astonishing speed, writing short stories of several thousand words, whilst at school she would bite her lip with effort as she struggled to copy out the word ‘tip’ or ‘tap’.

Naxal still worried, but she knew that her worry was misplaced. Trixie was too clever to be spotted as clever.

Months passed unremarkably. Trixie would come home carrying large cards with the number ‘six’ on, or the word ‘tea’, then she would go upstairs and work through the higher level textbooks that Naxal has bought from a neighbouring town – she daren’t buy them anywhere she might be recognised.

Then one day, while Naxal was cooking dinner, Trixie said: “There’s another girl hiding her intelligence.”

Naxal froze. This could only mean trouble.

“Has she been discovered?” she asked, tentatively. “Did the teacher say anything?”

“No, but I noticed because I’ve been through similar things.”

“What happened exactly?”

“Her name’s Sam. Well, Sam wasn’t paying attention properly when we were going through the times tables and the teacher spotted this and asked her ‘What’s six times seven?’”

“What did she do?”

“She answered correctly straight away. The teacher said she’d answered too quickly, accused of working it out in her head.’ Sam denied it, saying she’d learnt it. The teacher asked her a few more questions, then asked ‘what’s thirteen times seven?’”

“Thirteen times seven. That’s not covered in the times tables. What did she answer?”

“She said she didn’t know miss, but that twelve times seven was eighty four.”

Naxal had turned off the dinner and was fully engrossed in the conversation. Warnings of cuckoos featured on the news every day now, usually the top item. People were warned constantly of the alien threat. And although there had official been no children taken into care, Naxal knew of at least three children in her town who had ‘disappeared’ without warning. The threat was ever-present.

“Did the teacher suspect?”

“No. I don’t think the teacher actually believes a child of six could multiply 13 by 7. She let it pass.”

“Does she know you know? This Sam, does she know she’s been discovered.”

“Yes. I talked to her afterwards. It’s all right, there wasn’t anyone else anywhere near, we weren’t heard.”

“But she knows that you know?”

“Yes.”

“And does she … well has she worked out that you’re clever too.”

“Oh yes, we talked about it. We’re very similar.”

Naxal bit her hand. “And she knows your name?”

“Don’t worry mum. Sam won’t say anything. She’s too clever to get caught.”

Although she was anxious, she couldn’t stop Naxal talking to Sam at school and against her wishes the two girls soon became firm friends.

“I need someone who’s the same as me,” she said. “A friend, someone my age.”

“There’s Tommy. Your cousin.”

Trixie scowled. “Someone the same level of intelligence. Someone I can talk to. If I could bring her back here we could study together.”

“Does her mother know?” Naxal asked. “That you’re, well, like Sam?”

“No. I have to play the idiot around her. Her mother would prefer it if she thought Sam was having fun, playing with me, doing silly stuff. She’s against her learning. She believes in cuckoos, at home Sam pretends she’s less clever than she is. If she ever found out the truth she’d probably report her. That’s why I’m so important to her. That’s why you’re so important. You don’t believe in cuckoos, you encourage learning.”

“Don’t ever argue like that at school. You sound far too clever.”

“I know mum, at school I just cry and scream when I want something, but you listen. So will you let her come round.”

“Oh go on then. But it’s crazy to think that way about your own daughter.” But even as she said it she realised that there were such people, people who believed the stories, people who’d voted for the government, people who would report their own children if they showed too much intelligence. Because, as God demonstrated in the Garden of Eden, striving for knowledge is the ultimate sin.

And so Sam and Trixie met after school every day. Sam was as bright as Trixie had said, with a sassy understanding on the world that seemed entirely inappropriate for her young body. It was understandable how a child this clever could be seen as an alien, as cuckoo, for the intelligent comments and observations she made seemed alien to the tiny, squeaky child that made them.

Upstairs in Trixie’s bedroom they would study, reading through classic literature, working through text books aimed at children several years’ older than they were. They avoided the internet, as that was traceable. Naxal was careful to ensure that they only read books she had bought elsewhere, in a neighbouring town, using cash, never her credit card.

And then, after studying, they would play for a few minutes, just enough time for them both to get messed up in time for when Sam’s mother collected her.

“I’m so relieved she’s found a friend,” her mother would say every day.

“I’m sorry about the mess,” Naxal would say. “They get so carried away when they’re playing.”

“Oh don’t worry, don’t worry,” Sam’s mother would say. “I’m relieved she’s playing normally. You know, before she met Trixie, I used to worry that she was too clever. You know, spent a bit too much time studying.”

The girls’ teachers never suspected. As Trixie had said, the teachers had clear expectations of what a child’s brain could consume, and lacked the wit to even conceive that any child might be beyond that level. After another day’s rote repetition of mindless trivia Sam and Trixie would return to Trixie’s bedroom for several hours of serious study.

And then, one day, without asking, they brought another friend home, Jerry.

“Is he,” Naxal struggled to find the words, “is he going to play with you?”

“Jerry’s like us,” Trixie had said, “he’s going to study with us.”

“Does his mother know?”

“No, he’s like Sam, has to pretend his less intelligent than he is, even to his parents. She thinks he’s come round to play.”

There was a term for what the children were doing. She heard it every night on the news, on the adverts broadcast constantly calling for the public to be vigilant and report any sightings of cuckoos. ‘A cuckoo university’, that’s what they called it, the alien children developing a level of knowledge beyond anything that us mere humans could teach them. If allowed to graduate, to grow to adult age, their super-human intelligence would enable them to destroy us all, to take over the world.

Of course, that wasn’t what was happening, Naxal knew that. There were just bright children who didn’t want their intelligence suppressed. They were just learning, as they would naturally, if they were allowed to.

A year after Jerry, another child joined them, Barry, and within the next year they were joined by Jenny, Sally and Mitchel. How they spotted and recruited the children was unclear, other than Sally they all went to different schools from Trixie and Sam, and it is hardly likely that the children would have displayed their intelligence in public. 

But the recruitment process, like everything else, was cloaked in secrecy. Naxal felt she was being told only as much as she needed to be told. After all, she knew how good these children were at deceiving their parents.

They were careful not to arouse suspicion. Naxal kept a selection of classic novels in the house, which the children read. However, Naxal daren’t have more than one copy of any book, or else it would arouse suspicion. To allow literary discussion they devised a simple solution. Each child would read one of the books for half an hour, after which they would be passed round in a circle. Once all of the children had read each book they would talk about all of the books, often discovering recurring themes.

They took precautions. They would take in turns to watch children’s TV, reporting back the key plot lines, the latest catchphrases and each would memorise the nonsense so they could repeat it at home and at school the next day.

 

Soon they had reached university level. Of course, they daren’t approach any university. Naxal had to register for an Open University maths degree. “I can’t do maths to that level,” she’d replied, “they’ll find me out in no time.”

 

“It’s okay,” Trixie said, “we’ll teach you.” So Naxal spent the next few months being taught high level maths by her ten year old daughter. A strange experience.

 

And so the children began their university course. They progressed rapidly, and soon Naxal was persuaded to register for a university Physics course, and a Chemistry course. Again the children had to teach her, so that she would be of high enough standard to pretend it was her work.

“You’ll have nothing to do when you get to university,” she said to the children one day. “You’ll have done all the courses before you’re even old enough to start university.”

“Don’t be a fool,” said Jerry, who could sometimes be blunt about Naxal’s inferior intelligence. “By the time our generation grows up there will be no universities.”

“But it’s only children they worry about, not adults. There are universities, books, websites.”

“There are now, but how long do you think those will last? Don’t you see what’s happening around you? It’s endemic. All signs of intelligence or originality are seen as alien. The views will only increase, spread, as the ‘cuckoo generation’ grow older the fears will increase, us cuckoos will be even more of a threat.”

“But there must be universities, where else will we train our doctors, our scientists?”

“There will be no doctors, no scientists, not even artists or writers. Can’t you see what’s going on around you? Our generation will grow up to assume that total, infantile stupidity is the norm, even more so than your generation. Anyone passing an exam would be taken away. Our generation is doomed to underachieve on a mass scale.”

“But what will you do? You will stand out even more. The degrees, the books, all your understanding.”

“Will be hidden. We won’t give ourselves away,” Trixie reassured her.

“But your whole lives?”

“There will be more of us,” Jerry said.

“More of you?”

“Around the country. Around the world. And there will come a time. We will be ready.”

“Come a time? What do you mean?”

“There will come a time when we are vastly more intelligent than the rest of humanity, when we will have developed technology that will enable us to seize power, to scrap the cuckoo laws, to re-introduce education. To banish compulsory stupidity to the history books.”

Naxal looked at the other children. They were all nodding agreement at Jerry’s words.

It was as if he was already their leader, their commander. For there was no doubt that they were preparing for war.

They were so young, Jerry eleven, Jenny, Barry and Sally thirteen, Mitchel, Sam and Trixie twelve. What would they be like at seventeen, eighteen, nineteen? How far would they have advanced? And what if they were right, what if the rest of the children grow up in total ignorance, and they emerge, super-human in a society of total idiocy. How dominant would they be? How easy would they find it to take over, to destroy everything in their path?

Because, as they say on the news every day, it’s a war, isn’t it? Them and us. And if the cuckoos are allowed to grow up we’ll have no chance against them.

She waited until Trixie had left for school the next day, when she was alone in the house, and rang up the number given out every few minutes on the TV adverts.

“Hello,” she said, “I’m ringing about my daughter. I’m afraid she might be a cuckoo.”