Hi.

Who are you?

I'm Paige.

I like your bow tie.

Thank you.

You seem awfully young, Paige.

Are you with an adult who's taking this class?

No.

Dr. Sturgis heard about my research on quantum chromodynamics at high temperatures and invited me to audit his course.

Is that so?

Yes.

He's been super nice.

Interesting.

Well, just so we're clear, he's my mentor, he's my meemaw's boyfriend, and he had spaghetti and hot dogs at my house.

The spaghetti goes on the hot dogs.

No.

You realize this is a very advanced class.

We'll be discussing deriving nuclear physics from the quark model.

Do you know if he'll be doing a full-color octet calculation with matrix manipulations?

I do not.

Do you know how to differentiate under the integral sign?

No.

Oh.

Do you know anything?

I know you're in my spot.

Do you ever wish you were just like everyone else?

Not at all.

Me neither.

I love being smarter than everyone.

Me too.

I started to think that Paige and I might have more in common than I thought.

Maybe my mother was right.

I really did just need to get to know her better.

Checkmate.

You lose.

Red alert.

Phasers, stand by to fire on my order.

Guess that makes me the smartest.

I don't know if 10-year-old Spock ever flipped a chess board, but 10-year-old Sheldon sure did.

Welcome.

Glad to see we got so many people interested in radioactive decay.

Well, hello.

Hi.

This is a nice surprise.

I don't usually see young people at my lectures.

I enjoyed your paper on accelerator math spectrometry and wanted to find out more.

Is that so?

And you?

I read this magazine.

Uh-huh.

It has puzzles, too.

Okay.

Do you want to kick this off and tell us exactly what carbon dating is?

5,730-year half-life of carbon-14 is used as a geochronometer.

Anything else you'd like to add?

Um...

Carbon dating is how we figured out how old my grandmother is.

It was at this moment I learned I was not only brilliant, I was also hilarious.

I had survived a perilous trip to the accessory store.

But it turned out the real accessory was me.

I can't believe you stole.

You walked out with it.

You stole.

Why would I steal glitter?

I already have a sparkling personality.

Tell it to the cops.

Or your cellmate.

Go get me a beer, woman.

What?

It infuriates my mom when my dad says it.

Sheldon, stop.

You can't upset me.

Why not?

Because there are things in my life that are way worse than anything that you can come up with.

You mean your parents splitting up.

Obviously.

I think I know how to irritate you.

I bet you think the divorce is all your fault, and now your family is torn apart forever.

Did I do it?

Did I get under your skin?

I can still hear the sound of her fist hitting your face and your head bouncing off the floor.

That is enough.

It was like thwack, and then...

What are you doing?

We have a crush on each other, so... now we have to kiss.

We do?

I mean, it's where the data has led us.

I suppose.

Okay.

Now close your eyes and pucker up.

This might tickle.

What's happening?

Are we kissing?

You bet.

How was that?

I didn't feel anything romantic.

Hm.

Me either.

I guess it wasn't a crush after all.

I guess not.

To be continued...