9 year old Nora was a disgrace to her entire family, To disguise her intellect, Nora observes and emulates her classmates so she doesn't stand out. She becomes interested in one of her schoolfellow, Stephen, and they become friends. When their CMT (Connecticut Mastery Test) scores come out, Stephen's low scores persuade him that he is stupid as students start treating the scores as a competition reflecting their intelligence. To encourage Stephen and prove the CMT scores are not important, Nora deliberately gets a bad report card: all Ds except for a C in spelling.