Invasion Read Online Free PDF Page B

than I do, but…”
    At that moment the door opened. Cassy turned, hoping to see the competent Mrs. Edelman. Instead the situation took a turn for the worse. In walked Mr. Partridge, the principal.
    Cassy panicked. Mr. Partridge was a dour man and a strict disciplinarian. Cassy had only met him once when her group of student teachers was going through their orientation. He’d made it very clear that he was not fond of the student-teaching program and only agreed to it under duress.
    “Good morning, Mr. Partridge,” Cassy managed. “Can I help you in some way?”
    “Just carry on!” Mr. Partridge snapped. “I’d been informed of Mrs. Edelman’s delay, so I thought I’d stop by to observe for a moment.”
    “Of course,” Cassy said. She turned her attention back to the stony students and cleared her throat. “Jonathan Sellers,” she called out. “Perhaps you could start the discussion.”
    “Sure,” Jonathan said agreeably.
    Cassy let out an imperceptible sigh of relief.
    “William Faulkner was a major American writer,” Jonathan said, trying to sound extemporaneous.
    Cassy could tell he was reading off his LCD screen, but she didn’t care. In fact, she was grateful for his resourcefulness.
    “He’s known for his vivid characterizations and, like, his convoluted style…”
    Tim Appleton sitting across from Jonathan tried vainly to suppress a laugh since he knew what Jonathan was doing.
    “Okay,” Cassy said. “Let’s see how that applies to the story you all were asked to read for today.” She turned to the blackboard and wrote “vivid characters” and next to it “complex story structure.” Then she heard the door to the hall open and close. Glancing over she was relieved to see that gloomy Partridge had already departed.
    Facing the class again she was pleased to see several hands up of people willing to get involved in a discussion. Before she called on one of them, Cassy gave Jonathan a tiny but grateful smile. She wasn’t sure but she thought she caught a blush before the boy looked back down at his laptop.

3

    11:15 A.M.
    OLGAVEE HALL WAS ONE OF THE LARGEST TIERED LECTURE halls in the business school. Although not a graduate student, Beau had been given special permission to take an advanced marketing course that was extremely popular with the business school students. In fact, it was so popular it needed the seating capacity of Olgavee. The lectures were exciting and stimulating. The course was taught in an interactive style with a different professor each week. The downside was that each class required a lot of preparation. One had to be prepared to be called on at any moment.
    But Beau was finding it uncharacteristically hard to concentrate at today’s lecture. It wasn’t the professor’s fault. It was Beau’s. To the dismay of his immediate neighbors as well as himself, he couldn’t stop fidgeting in his seat. He’d developed uncomfortable aches in his muscles that made it impossible to get comfortable. On topof that he had a dull headache behind his eyes. What made everything worse was that he was sitting in the center of the hall four rows back and directly in the line of sight of the lecturer. Beau always made it a point to get to lecture early to get the best seat.
    Beau could tell that the speaker was getting annoyed, but he didn’t know what to do.
    It had started on his way to Olgavee Hall. The first symptom had been a stinging sensation somewhere up inside his nose causing a wave of violent sneezes. It wasn’t long before he was blowing his nose on a regular basis. Initially he’d thought he’d caught a cold. But now he had to admit that it had to be more. The irritation rapidly progressed from his sinuses into his throat, which was now sore, especially when he swallowed. To make matters worse, he began to cough repeatedly, which hurt his throat as much as swallowing.
    The person sitting directly in front of Beau turned and gave him a dirty look after Beau let out a