Colin Fischer Read Online Free PDF Page B

going?” Wayne asked.
    Colin faced Wayne, reminding himself which step he was on so he would not lose count. “Hello, Wayne. I’m going to algebra. I’m missing a lecture on identity matrices, which I think are very interesting.”
    With a last look into the sunlit, open parking lot behind Wayne, Colin continued on his way. He hated to miss anything interesting—especially math.
    3 The problem is an illustration of fundamental principles of algebra. To determine the time
X
, one needs to plug in values for distance and speed, then resolve for both sides of the equation. What matters is not when each train leaves the station, but the distance between the two trains at the start of the problem and the end of the problem. Finding the solution is a simple matter of calculating the moment when the distance covered by each train relative to its speed is exactly equal. Colin once illustrated this to his parents by placing two electric trains on a track and predicting the exact moment he would crash them together. His father was impressed with Colin’s math, but less so by the damage to his favorite trains.

CHAPTER FOUR:
THE KULESHOV EFFECT
         My parents say it’s hard to know what I’m thinking because most of the time I maintain a very blank expression. This is not something I try to do; it is just the way that I am. My father jokes that I “play my cards close to the vest,” but this isn’t true. It is just my face, whether or not I am playing cards, or any other competitive game.
         As it turns out, however, the hardest facial expression for another human being to read is a perfectly blank face. This was demonstrated nearly a hundred years ago by a Russian director. After the 1917 Revolution, film stock was hard to come by in Moscow, so filmmakers would experiment with short pieces of scrap film. One director used his bits and pieces to demonstrate how editing could be used to manipulate human emotion.
         First, he filmed an actor after instructing him to keep an absolutely neutral expression on his face. When the director followed the image of the actor with a shot of a roast chicken, audiences said, “Look how hungry that man is.”
         When he substituted a picture of a coffin, audiences thought the man was sad. If the image portrayed a beautiful woman, they said the actor was pining for his beloved.
         This phenomenon is called “the Kuleshov Effect,” after the director who conducted the experiments. What it demonstrated is that you can never tell what a blank face means until you know the context.
    Colin smelled the inside of the gymnasium before he saw it. Stale human sweat, mildew, the faint aroma of urine from a leaky toilet in the boys’ locker room, all unsuccessfully masked by an acrid, pine-based cleaning product. Colin tried to breathe through his mouth instead of his nostrils as he entered, but realized he could taste the cleaning solution on his tongue. An unfortunate consequence of the close relationship between the senses of taste and smell.
    Colin focused instead on his sense of hearing as he padded across the empty gym.
Scrape
.
Scrape
. A tall, lean teacher hauled a massive net filled with basketballs across the hardwood floor.
    “Mr. Turrentine?” Colin’s voice echoed in thegym’s hard acoustics as the teacher looked up and met Colin’s blue eyes with his own gray ones. Colin studied Mr. Turrentine’s impressively bristly mustache. It reminded him of a silent movie cowboy villain or perhaps Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.
    “You’re early,” Mr. Turrentine said, “and you’re scuffing my floors with those shoes.” He pointed to Colin’s black dress shoes, the laces double-knotted for safety. “We’re not off to a good start.”
    Colin handed Mr. Turrentine a carefully folded slip of paper—a note from his parents. Colin was counting on it to exempt him from PE class. Mr. Turrentine scanned the note once, then twice, his face perfectly