Hal's lexical-prodigy testing: "Whatever's Beyond Eidetic"

texture · UNDATED (early childhood, Weston)

• When: early childhood, Weston MA; undated (~ages 5-8)
• What: "It was Mario, not Avril, who obtained Hal his first copies of the unabridged O.E.D." — hauling them home in a wagon by his bicuspids over Weston's fake-rural blacktop — "months before Hal tested out at Whatever's Beyond Eidetic on the Mnemonic Verbal Inventory designed by a dear and trusted colleague of the Moms at Brandeis." The origin of Hal's documented lexical-prodigy status, seeded by Mario. AGE ANCHOR: E.T.A. was "erected… when Mario was nine and Hallie eight and Orin seventeen" (mild tension with scene 001's "in residence since age seven" — see Dating notes).