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Quick comment before I look at today’s chapter: Did everyone notice the book’s dedication? If not, go and check it out!

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Chapter 2: Hypermisfit (Noah Youkilis)

I remember every year when I was young, for the first month or so of a new school year, there were bountiful elderberry shrubs growing along the path I walked to get to my elementary school. My friends and I would grab a handful of the berries and eat them as we walked—which I later found out was ill advised, since they are toxic until cooked. I hope Noah’s genetically modified strain eliminates the toxins.

Noah seems surprisingly chill about college life—and about how unchill Donovan is. @Fii, I think you’re spot-on that choosing Donovan as his “plus-one” will be key to Noah’s college experience. In Chapter 2, Noah starts to see himself as less of an oddity on the Wilderton campus and recognizes that Donovan is uncharacteristically out of his element. Beyond that role reversal, it’s a huge step for socially oblivious Noah to recognize this at all. (I’ll credit his increased awareness to his YouTube exposure.)

But Donovan isn’t completely off his game. I noticed he played the Adam Webb to Noah’s Bugs Potter—helping his earnest but oblivious friend escape the college student he’d just informed was lucky to have a lower IQ. I’ll be fascinated to see if Donovan continues as the smoother-over.

@Owen, I’m with you—a summer at college sounds way more fun than being stuck at home with nothing but a game controller. And like you, I missed the stickers on Heavy Metal (good eye, @Fii!). They’ve got to mean something. And I predict that waffle iron will become a vital tool later in the story.

@Josh, I can already tell you are going to spark some intense thinking about earlier GRK stories and how HYPERGIFTED compares and contrasts. Interesting take on schools/administrators/teachers seeing students as problems to squelch rather than as minds to mold. Asher and Shira of “Zucchini Warriors Podcast” fame have noted that in early GRK books protagonists—no matter how “too cool for school” or rebellious—lived by an ethos of unimpeachable honesty. Alongside that honesty was usually a desire to please adults and to live up to expectations. You’re right—that doesn’t seem to motivate Darryl or Nelson or some of GRK’s more recent baddies.