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The Hollow - Agatha Christie

    "Gerda had not been happy at school. At school there had been even less reassurance than elsewhere. Home had been better. But even home had not been very good. For they had all, of course, been quicker and more clever than she was. Their comments, quick, impatient, not quite unkind, had whistled about her ears like a hailstorm: 'Oh, do be quick, Gerda.' 'Butterfingers, give it to me!' 'Oh, don't let Gerda do it, she'll be ages. 'Gerda never takes in anything...'
     Hadn't they seen, all of them, that that was the way to make her slower and more stupid still? She'd got worse and worse, more clumsy with her fingers, more slow-witted, more inclined to stare vacantly when something was said to her.
     Until, suddenly, she had reached the point where she had found a way out... Almost accidentally, really, she found her weapon of defence (sic).
     She had grown slower still, her puzzled stare had become even more blank. But now, when they said impatiently, 'Oh, Gerda, how stupid you are, don't you understand that?' she had been able, behind her blank expression, to hug herself a little in her secret knowledge... For she wasn't quite as stupid as they thought... Often, when she pretended not to understand, she did understand. And often, deliberately, she slowed down in her task of whatever it was, smiling to herself when someones impatient fingers snatched it away from her.
     For, warm and delightful, was a secret knowledge of superiority. She began to be, quite often, a little amused... Yes, it was amusing to know more than they thought you knew. To be able to do a thing, but not let anybody know that you could do it.
     And it had the advantage, suddenly discovered, that people often did things for you. That, of course, saved you a lot of trouble. And, in the end, if people got into the habit of doing things for you, you didn't have to do them at all, and then people didn't know that you did them badly. And so, slowly, you came round again almost to where you started. To feeling that you could hold your own on equal terms with the world at large."

pg. 36-37