Inhale, exhale, concentrate; inhale, exhale, concentrate; inhale, exhale, concentrate...

"STEVEN!", my mother thunders.

Inhale, exhale, concentrate; inhale, exhale, concentrate....

"What are you up to STEVEN?"

Inhale, exhale, concentrate...

"If I come in there and you haven't finished your homework STEVEN!"

"Nearly done, Mum!", I shout in reply.

Drats! I very nearly did it this time. I push aside the spoon I've been staring at for the past hour and pull up the pile of exercise books that haven't been touched ever since I got back from school. Echa from school says that it's possible to bend a spoon if you want it hard enough. Echa also says that he bent a spoon once. I don't know if he's telling the truth though. Echa also says that he doesn't like girls and I don't see how anyone couldn't like girls.

I wouldn't tell my friends, but I think girls are fascinating. I wouldn't want to spend a lot of time with them. Playing with dolls and talking about soap operas isn't very interesting to me. I like their faces though, and how different they are from us. There's a certain softness to them that I think is perfect... even though it's probably the reason I can't fight with my sisters anymore.

Enough about girls though! It's really important that I learn how to bend spoons; whether or not Echa was telling me the honest truth. You see, Paul and I (Paul is my best friend) have a plan. We're going to be superheroes!

Dad says that life is about solving problems. Anything useful we do has to be a solution to a problem. That's why engineers and are such useful people. They make things that solve our problems: Like the telephone, the camera, the bicycle and peanut butter.

I don't really want to be an engineer though. I want to be a scientist like Einstein, and blow things up! More importantly, I also want to be a superhero... not because they solve problems, but because they're awesome! I asked Dad whether Einstein's theory of relativity solved any real-life problems and he was stumped. He said that he'd check and let me know. I still think Einstein was awesome though.

"Are you done, STEVEN!?"

"Almost there Mum!", I shout back. Sometimes it's hard to catch the love and kindness in Mum's voice; even though she claims it's there.

I take a look at my math book. The sums here are pretty easy. I love the story problems because you can almost see how you'd use them in real life: Like how many posts I'd need to fence my land. I'm not sure if it's easy to find a perfectly circular piece of land... but I figure they just do that to make the problems harder. I think that's why there's a distinction between real-life problems and homework problems. The only person that homework problems help is me. Thy help me escape a whooping from...

"I'm coming up there in five minutes, STEVEN!"

As I blaze through my math homework I think about what I'm going to do once I can bend spoons and stop the school-bus with my mind. I'd probably have to find someone to save. I could lift rocks off of people's homes. I could stop the car that killed Mug.

I don't like to think a lot about the day that Mug died. It makes me sad. Mum says that we can always get another dog... but it won't be Mug.

"Hey Steve!", a head pops around my door.

"Hi Dad!", I say... closing my math book and pulling up my English book, "I'm nearly done with my homework. I promise it won't take long."

"That's ok son. I just wanted to tell you something interesting. Do you remember the device I was using to do the land survey a couple months ago?"

"Yeah! The one that shows you where you are on the map?", I ask... glad that he isn't so interested on how far I am with english.

"Yeah, that one! It's called a GPS device and it uses a bunch of satellites in the sky to show you where you are on the surface of the earth. To do that, it has to be in sync with all of the satellites and that requires really precise timing. It turns out gravity is a little weaker up where the satellites are and time ticks by a little quicker. The GPS devices and satellites have to make up for the lost time in order for positioning to be accurate. Guess what theory predicted that would happen?"

"Umm...", I say... thinking aloud.

"Einstein's general theory of relativity!", he says with a smug smile. "... So don't give up on making those great ideas of yours useful!"

"And finish your homework before your Mum decides to cook you for dinner!"