In which Karen is met and we find out how she's doing; where we find out some more of Ruth has been up to; and where Ginny asks some questions.
Who Was I
By: Annette MacGregor
"What are you and mom and Ruth always so sneaky about?"

"Hmmm? What do you mean honey?"

"Well, sometimes two or three of you go off to your office to talk. Other times, you suddenly stop talking when I come into the room. I mean, it's not like it's my birthday or anything coming up."

"No, it's not. I guess Ruth was right though."

---

Part 26   Wednesday evening (22-Nov-06)

"Becky, you off now?"

"Yes Bill, I doubt I'll be all that long there, but you never know."

"I hope something good comes from this."

"I'm sure it will Bill. I'll let you know how it goes when I get home."

"Thanks."

I checked on Ginny, and she was reading. Craig was off at Rogers I figured. On my way to my study, I stopped off at Ruth's Room. "Hey Kid. Sorry I couldn't drive down and pick you up today."

"No problem dad. The train home wasn't very full. How did things go on Monday with Dr. Wong?"

"Right to the point aren't you?"

"Of course dad. You know who I learned it from! So, what gives?"

"Well, if the memory pulled is legit, that doctor really did something to me. Your mom's off to meet one of my classmates right now."

"I wondered where she was going the night before Thanksgiving. Do you think she'll find anything?"

"Knowing your mom, yes. But, I'm not sure what."

"Okay. But back to Monday's session. Tell me about it."

"I can only tell you what your mom and Dr. Wong told me."

"What? Last time you remembered the whole thing. What was different about this time?"

"Apparently those selective memory things are a form of coercion and apparently that is still effective to some extent. Even after the session, I couldn't remember what I'd described while under."

"Wow dad, that's not good. Can she do anything about it?"

"She said that if it was done, then maybe."

Ruth laughed at that one. "She sounds so much like my Prof. some times. Not answering a question directly. So, when will you know more?"

"Well, she wants to try to confirm some of what I may remember. That's one a more important reason that your mom's going to talk to one of the girls, well women I should say. Hopefully, she'll remember something and either confirm or deny what I remembered."

"Okay, I'll keep my fingers crossed. Now what else? You've got that evasive look about you."

I looked at her. "Evasive look?"

"Yea dad, you will usually look me in the eye when we talk, tonight, you're looking almost anywhere else."

"Hmmm. I'll have to watch that."

She laughed some more. "Come clean dad. What else are you doing?"

"She wants to get a biopsy of the scar tissue in the back of my head."

Ruth frowned at that. "Why dad?"

"Well, I think she's hoping she'll be able to use the results to identify the chemical used on me."

"Dad, you did it again!" I looked up at her with a blank look on my face. "What Chemical?"

"Oh. Do you remember the Neurosurgeon's report?"

"No dad, you never showed that to me."

"Oh. Get your mom to show it to you. She's got it. As I mentioned before, there's a mass of scar tissue at the base of my brain. One of the ways it could have gotten there was application of some chemical. In my memory from Monday, we were injected with something."

"Oh my goodness, that's terrible dad."

"I seem to have survived the experience."

"Okay, but, it's still terrible."

"Agreed. I hope it didn't really happen. In any event, I need to get a little work done tonight. Are you going to be helping your mom with the meal tomorrow?"

"Yep, and Ginny will be as well. Don't worry about stuffing your tummy dad."

I snorted at that, and headed off to my study to get a little more done on the sizing project. They were being very short sited in insisting on small boxes. Well, not horribly so, but it sure increased the complexity of their system. Well, they made the decision.

# - # - # - # - #

Later that evening

I'd just shuffled Ginny off to bed. It was nice she wanted to snuggle a little before being willing to craw into her own bed. I looked down at my watch. Hmmm. Becky was taking longer than expected. I wonder how much longer she'll be. About this time, I heard the sound of the garage door opening.

Becky came in, and with a big yawn said. "Hi Bill that took longer than I’d thought it would. Sorry I'm so late, but there was an accident on the bridge so, and I was stuck waiting for them to clear things."

"Glad you're home dear. I was beginning to get worried." After giving her a big hug, "You're looking a bit tired."

"I'm exhausted. Now I remember why I wanted a job on this side of the river! Oh. Tonight went well Bill, Karen's really nice!"

"I'm glad to hear it. Do you feel up to telling me about it tonight?"

"If you don't mind, I'd rather wait until tomorrow."

"That's okay. You need to get your sleep."

"You're just thinking about your stomach Bill!"

"You know me too well." I said chuckling.

# - # - # - # - #

The next afternoon

"Well, Craig's ensconced in front of the Tube until the games are over."

"It's kinda nice that he tolerates Ginny watching with him."

"Oh, I don't know if he really realizes anyone's in there. He's so focused on the games."

I laughed at this last. "You need to take a nap, or do you feel up to telling me about what went on yesterday evening?"

"Okay Bill, I can see that curiosity is getting to you. Let's go get this over with." We went back to my office and sat in a couple of the chairs. "Bill, Karen doesn't remember you either." At my shocked look, she continued. "At first, she didn't want to believe me. I had to show her your yearbook. At that, she ran, well walked quickly anyway, and found hers which was the same. She expressed her surprise at not remembering you, saying if the two of you were one and two in the class; you must have been in the same classes. She was really surprised to not remember any of that, despite having other memories of High School."

I finally got my breath. "Did she recall the enrichment class?"

"No. In fact, she was sure there hadn't been any such class, but since the other info I'd shared had been true, she called her mom and asked. Bill, I've only seen one other person look so shocked in my life." At my questioning look she continued. "You Bill."

"Oh." I sat a moment. "Then, I guess you didn't ask about any of the other stuff did you?"

"No Bill, I didn't see much point."

"Ummm. That makes sense. What did her husband make out of all of this?"

"She's not married Bill." I looked back up at this. "No ring either. I'm guessing she was never married. But, I didn't feel right asking."

"I wouldn't have either Becky. So, what's next?"

"With Karen? I don't know. I'll try to get in touch with Stacy Monday, and see if I can talk to her. She'd also like to meet you, and I thought I'd set something up so you can get together and compare lack of notes." I looked very nervous at this apparently. "Don't worry Bill. People like you. She'll be fine! She's a very nice lady!"

"Okay. Thanks Ruth, you're one in a million."

"I know." At my quick look, she continued. "Gotcha. Now quit brooding."

"I'm not...." and she interrupted.

"No, you're not, but you might have started."

# - # - # - # - #

Friday afternoon

"Hi Ruth. How's the studying coming along?"

:"Okay dad. I'm working on my paper right now. Almost got it done."

"That's good. Are you still considering doing research this summer and next year for an honors degree?"

"You bet. By the way, I found some interesting papers, when cross referencing to the guy that taught your enrichment class."

"Really?"

"Yea. I was looking at the papers he referenced, and what else those authors had published. Not a whole lot of useful stuff, but one of them had a reference to some other papers your teacher had published that weren't showing up in the literature." I must have looked a little quizzical. "Dad, when you publish in a journal, you list your references, right?"

"Yes."

"Well, I was looking at some other people's stuff that had he had referenced. And one of them had referenced some papers your teacher had published." At my nod that I was following her this time, she continued. The kicker is the papers, that were referenced, were not available!"

"That's strange isn't it?"

"Well, yes, but usually it's caused by a paper being classified."

"Okay. So, just missing papers is interesting?"

"Maybe a little bit, but I asked my Prof about them, and he recognized the guy that wrote the paper that referenced them. So, to make a long story short, he gave his buddy a call, and asked about the paper and references. Believe it or not, this guy must have a massive file system or something. He actually still had copies of the papers he'd referenced, so he was able to fax them to my Prof."

"And?"

"Oh, I've got them here. They describe an experiment to develop efficient and highly motivated teams that knew each other so well, they KNEW where their teammates were. Now get this, the study used kids in 2nd through 9th grades. The study protocol was that they identified underachieving children that were at genius or near genius intelligence. Once identified, they'd look to see if they had close friends already. If they found one of these kids with friends, they would be recruited into the study. The study encouraged the kids to become closer friends while teaching study habits and generally encourage the kids to maximize their performance. The first paper said there were 18 such groups of kids. Most were pairs. There were two groups of three, and two of four. The result, after the first year, was that all of the children recruited were doing MUCH better academically, so the decision was made to continue the experiment."

"Sounds interesting. I don't see anything about that that would make it something to be classified."

"I think it's the stack of papers, not just the first one. Though experimenting on children, even with their parent's permission can sometimes be an issue. The thing that's missing is a detailed description of the techniques they used. Leaving that out would have gotten the paper rejected today. In any event, the second paper has an interesting twist. They list adding 6 more groups of kids, 5 pairs and one group of four. But get this; the total number of groups is only 23. The implication to me is that they dropped one group and they don't explain why. They also report continued improvements in the academic and extra curricular achievements of the kids. One observation they made, that they wanted to continue to watch is that it seems even numbers seems to be more effective than odd."

"Okay. Even if my group was the odd group that was dropped from the study, which doesn't make sense to begin with. That doesn't say anything."

"No dad, but here's the clincher for me. There's a final wrap-up article that includes the conclusion that pairs of students are by far the most effective using the techniques they tried. The groups of four actually ended up being two pairs rather than a single group of four. The triads they tried all failed to complete the course at some point or another. They did say that even the triads gained academically and became more aggressive at achieving their best. But they were unable to absorb all of the training.

"Yes, this is all fascinating, but what makes you so sure that I was one of the failed triads?"

"It's at the same time as you were in elementary school dad, and he was your enrichment teacher!"

"Okay, okay. So it could have been. Do you have copies of those papers? You know you're mom's going to want to add them to her 'case' file."

"Dad? File I get, but 'case' file?"

"Yea, the case of the missing memories. Surely you've read it?"

She laughed at that one. "Okay dad. And yes, I've got copies for mom."

I stood there a moment, and then light dawned. "You’re doing something about educating kids, for your research, aren't you?"

"Sort of dad. If there's a way that we can help really bright kids that are doing way below their potential, I think it'd be great! I mean you and mom wouldn't let any of us sit on our duffs, but I had some friends that were plenty smart, but cause they didn't want to work or weren't encouraged, either ended up not going to college, or in a worse college than they deserved. It's a loss to them, and a loss to everyone."

"Hold on. You don't have to climb on your soap box there. Besides, I recognized a few of those phrases anyway." I think she realized she'd stolen a few from me at that. "Just keep on the good side. If something really did happen to me, I don't want you using the techniques those guys used!"

"No worries dad! In reading this about teams working, and talking to Steve about the Team Programming concept got me thinking that maybe pairing kids up to learn might be a good idea. I've got to flesh things out some, but what I figured was two kids do all their work together. One with the pencil or keyboard and the other looking over his/her shoulder correcting things and such. They'd periodically trade places. This way one couldn't really carry the other. There are still some details to work out, like gym and such. But the idea is to keep the two kids together as much as possible. For the study to work, we'd also have a group of kids that don't study this way and a third group that does - but the pairs keep getting shuffled. Dr. Wong thought the concept had promise and so did my childhood development Prof."

"Okay kiddo. Just make sure you keep the kids interests first!"

"No kidding dad. But, in many ways this is no more unusual than some of the other things they've tried in school over the years. I remember you complaining about 'New Math'."

"Now, about that Steve you mentioned."

"Daaad. He's just a friend." I looked at her seriously. "You don't have to go all protective dad. He's a nice guy, but that's all."

"All right."

# - # - # - # - #

Saturday afternoon

"Dad"

"What's up Punkin?"

"What are you and mom and Ruth always so sneaky about?"

"Hmmm? What do you mean honey?"

"Well, sometimes two or three of you go off to your office to talk. Other times, you suddenly stop talking when I come into the room. I mean, it's not like it's my birthday or anything coming up."

"No, it's not. I guess Ruth was right though."

"Huh"

"She said you were seeing more than we thought."

"Daaad."

"Come here kid, and I'll tell you some of it." She joined me on the sofa, like we used to when we read together. "Well, it's this way. You remember last Christmas at my folk’s house where I was telling the story about how I couldn't remember a lot of stuff from when I was about 10 and before?" At her nod, I continued. Well, I decided to finally try and get those memories back. It's a bit difficult."

"Whacha mean dad?"

"Well, I've got the pictures my mom took. And I went and got my report cards and such from the school. And I'm even going to try and meet up with some class mates from back then."

"But if you don't remember them?" she started.

"That's the problem. So I'm seeing a head doctor to see if something caused it. In fact, they found a bit of a scar in the back of my head and they're going to look at it Wednesday morning."

"Wow, you mean if you hurt your head, you can loose memories?"

"That's right punkin. And, we're hoping that if we can figure out what caused the memory loss, we can do something about fixing it and I'll get my memories back."

"That'd be really neat. And mom's helping you find stuff about back then?"

"That's right. She's actually been tracking down some kids I used to play with back then. Maybe talking to them or seeing them will help me remember some stuff."

"But what about Ruth? She's doing something too."

"That she is, and it's not just hiding it from you!" I didn't want her too upset at her big sister. She thought the world of Ruth. "One of the doctors I'm seeing is on Monday mornings, and your mom usually would go with me, but sometimes she can't. It's like sometimes she can't make it to your programs at school."

"I know that dad. So Ruth is filling in for mom on Mondays sometimes?"

"That's all it is Punkin."

"Okay dad. I was worried it was something I'd done."

I hugged her tightly. "No Ginny. If there was something you'd done, you would have heard about it already! We don't hide stuff like that. Though, I guess we'll have to be sneakier when it comes to your birthday this year." She giggled at that.

"That's okay dad. You don't have to."

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To Be Continued… Karen doesn't remember either? Will Stacy? What does it mean if she also doesn't remember? Was Bill part of one of those groups in the study? Why did his group 'fail'? Will something come of Ruth's honors research?
 
Author’s Note: Thanks for all of your comments! They really help me, and encourage me to keep going on this story.