My Brilliant Idea (And How It Caused My Downfall) Read Online Free PDF Page B

falling in outer space when I see my way clear to how I can convince Elsie to make generous with her Objective-C skills. After that, I can’t pretend I listen to Baldy Baine much more. My leg’s bouncing and I’m watching the clock, looking for it to perform some of those properties of acceleration Baine had been talking about earlier. It seems to be going in more for the opposite thing. The immovable force meeting the unsomethingable something.
    But finally it gets there, and I’m up out of my seat before Baine has even reached the end of his “dismissed.” I streak out like Tom Murdoch did during our first-ever fire drill, letting no woman or child stand in my way.
    Elsie Green isn’t difficult to find in the school corridors. All you have to do is follow the trail of giggling first-years who’ve already passed her, and let them lead you all the way to the source. The fresher the laughter, the closer you’re getting. I hunt around in the new block, then the old one, till I find what I’m looking for, and I follow the laughter up the stairs to the second floor. It doesn’t take me long to spot her. She’s passing the language labs, and I turn and run back down the stairs again so I can come up the middle staircase and make it look as if I’ve bumped into her by accident. I’m kind of breathless by the time I get there, but I manage it and meet her just as she reaches the top of the stairs.
    â€œHi, Elsie,” I say, all kind of surprised, but she just sort of frowns.
    â€œWhat do you want?” she asks me, not particularly warmly considering the present I gave her earlier.
    â€œI’m just saying hello,” I say, and she looks at me suspiciously again. “What have you got next?” I ask her.
    â€œDouble Latin,” she says.
    By then I’m already walking beside her, not quite sure what classrooms are along in this direction, and not quite sure what to say if she asks me where I’m going. She doesn’t, though. She doesn’t seem to care where I’m going.
    I watch some of the younger kids staring at her as we walk, but she’s oblivious to their attention. And to the laughter that starts as soon as she’s passed.
    â€œBy the way,” I say, as if it’s just suddenly occurred to me, “you know what you were saying about Drew Thornton at lunchtime?”
    She turns to look at me with narrowed eyes. It’s pretty much the first time she’s turned to look at me since I accosted her, so I take it as a good sign.
    â€œHow can you even dare to speak his name?” she asks me. “You should be struck dumb.”
    â€œYes,” I say, taking a lesson from the bookshop bampot. It doesn’t faze her the way it fazed me, though. I’m not even sure she’s noticed I spoke. “Anyway,” I continue, “were you serious about what you said?”
    She does the narrowed eyes again. “I’m always serious,” she says. She’s right. Seriously mental. “Especially when I’m talking about Drew.”
    I nod.
    â€œGood to know,” I say. “So you meant it?”
    â€œMeant what? That he makes me want to live a better life?”
    â€œNot that,” I say. “When you said you’d give anything to . . . to see him . . . I forget exactly how you put it.”
    â€œIs this one of your schemes?” she asks me, and I shake my head. She screws her face up as if she’s just sucked on a lemon. “What, exactly, are you after?”
    We’ve reached her classroom by then. She stops walking and turns to face me close to the open door. She looks inside the room and then back at me.
    â€œI just thought I might be able to help you,” I say, “now that we’re friends.”
    â€œFriends?”
    â€œWell, now that we’re on speaking terms.”
    â€œI don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says.