Oakwood Comic Book Program - Oakwood Healthcare System

NALGA
Deena Baty
The North American Little Genius Association contest is today, January 22, 1972.
Randolph Wemberley intends to be the NALGA Sunrise grant winner. Coming up on
thirteen, he has one last chance to qualify. Hadn’t he always been told he was a genius,
a prodigy? But by thirteen, a ‘prodigy’ becomes merely ‘gifted’, and by fourteen you can
kiss your grant monies goodbye. At fourteen, intelligence is no longer precocious. It isn’t
cute, unless you are Doogie Houser.
At the moment, thanks to a combination of science and nostalgia, young Wemberley is
still twelve, still puppy-cute enough for papers, all freckles and cowlicks, a prepubescent
scarecrow in a sporty sweater with patches on the elbows.
He strokes the picture of the former winners, caressing the glass. NALGA 1972. He
wants it. He needs it. His need bleeds into the air, surrounding him with a palpable aura
of desperation. He straightens his dad’s tie and tweaks the Unit just slightly to the left to
bring out its shine.
In the every day, in the real Now, it is 2009. Randolph Wemberley is 49 years old, a
has-been, unemployed, overweight, probably only a year from serious medical problems.
But he has conquered time and space, and the Time Travel Unit is the project he presents
to NALGA today. January 22, 1972 is the day he has chosen, of all days, to change the
course of his life forever. It is his last chance.
The judges come closer. Young Wemberley holds his breath.
Suzanne Baumann N.A.L.G.A. Sunrise Prize Recipients 1930-1970
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