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dioramas for local science exhibits, selling cards that described the constellations, hunting wildflowers, collecting stamps, and reading hungrily and widely. In research notes he took around this time describing the attributes of people born under his astrological sign, Leo (and surely ascribing them to himself), Douglas listed: “Super-vitality, courage, brusque, waste no time in politeness, men of action, energy, enterprise, never listless, stubborn . . . very touchy, passionate . . . perhaps genius . . . generally rise to top of whatever position they choose.”
    This precocious boy—increasingly certain in his intellectual judgments and commanding in his confidence—soon came to the attention of Lewis Terman, a Stanford University psychologist who was starting a study of the lives of highly intelligent California children. Keenly aware of her son’s intellectual distinction, June took him to Terman’s numerous examinations and appraisal sessions.Douglas’s measured IQ was lofty enough, above 135, to qualify him for inclusion in the study, and he and Terman regularly corresponded for the next four decades as part of the psychologist’s drive to find out if exceptionally bright children grew into exceptionally bright adults.Terman kept close tabs on all of his subjects as they grew into adulthood, but he came to regard Kelley as one of the most intriguing and puzzling ofthe 1,444 children in the study.
    By the time Douglas was fifteenhe had amassed collections of wildflowers, fungi, and lichens; was a leader of his Boy Scout troop (and would soon become an Eagle Scout); joined his high school’s debating society and served as the president of its botany club; and earned money on a lumber crew and as a worker in the school cafeteria. The boy was ardent in his intellectual pursuits, something of a brain beast. He was driven to succeed, to amass and classify knowledge, and to dominate all his challenges.
    Years later, even Douglas’s young children perceived his need to master everything he tried and make sure others recognized his mastery. Sometimein his teens he took up the hobby of stage magic, a pastime well suited for a boy intent upon impressing others. Whether performing with cards, tricks, or other illusions, the stage magician controls where his audience looks and what it perceives. From simple tricks learned from magazines and manuals, Douglas advanced to more complicated illusions. His interest in magic intensified as a premedical student at the University of California’s Berkeley campus. The school’s newspaper published amused accounts of magic stunts he promoted and staged for as many of his fellow students as would come watch.These feats included driving a car around campus while he was blindfolded and hooded, a stunt that Berkeley’s police chief apparently approved of, but found dangerous enough to comment “on the dangers both to Kelley and passing traffic in downtown districts.”Kelley emulated Harry Houdini in public demonstrations by escaping from handcuffs while encased in a mail sack and an ironclad sea chest, performed magic at club events and dinners, and printed business cards promoting his skills at sleight of hand. Later he served aspresident of the San Francisco Society of Magicians. As Kelley himself noted later,working as a magician strengthens the performer’s self-confidence and gives him a feeling of superiority over his audience. He soon learned that well-educated people—those trained to accept suggestions from others, surrender their attention, and arrive at conclusions from observation—were the most astounded folks in the audience at a magic show when a trick defied their expectations. He also glimpsed the downside of the illusion: the audience enjoyed the marvel, but the magician carried the knowledge that it was no more than a trick, a clever deceit.
    As Douglas matured, he drew ever closer to his mother’s commanding personality and fell out of his father’s orbit.