This story reminded me of myself as a child.

TL;DR: Look up.

In school (and now at work too) I had the habit of fiddling with small object under my desk when in class. From stumped pencils to a knedible erasers, I always had something to fiddle with. It helped me concentrate and think, but of course no teacher ever believed that.

I also loved reading, and had perfected a few \’fast reading\’ techniques by the time I was 9. (relevant)

In class, there were often \’aloud reading\’ sessions, where the teacher would have us take turns in reading a story out loud. As a practised reader, I read faster than other kids and them reading aloud was even slower. So I would sit, listen, stare out the window, and fiddle with whatever I had in my hands.

More often than not, teacher would call out my \’not paying attention\’ and have me read the next paragraph. Multiple times per reading session. To which I turned my head to the book, found the last read phrase within seconds and continued reading the story aloud flawlessly.

It pissed more than one teacher off, but I never got sent to the principal\’s office because I technically hadn\’t done anything wrong.