Hal the lexical/tennis prodigy who recites the O.E.D. and gets beaten up for it

texture · YTMP (2003)

• When: ~age 10, YTMP (2003), as established fact
• What: Hal is a "potentially gifted ten-year-old tennis and lexical prodigy" who can "recite great chunks of the dictionary, verbatim, at will" (working through the condensed O.E.D. alphabetically — "just finished jew's-ear"), wears a bow tie, and "tend[s] to get beat up, sometimes, at the Academy" for the dictionary-reciting. Establishes Hal's prodigy status and social cost from his own mouth.