Out of This World Read Online Free PDF

live with you, and I see how you solve problems. You get puns and jokes faster than anyone in my class. And you even beat me at Boggle sometimes.” Zachary grimaced. He was so competitive that even the memory of these losses was painful. “And no-one else ever has. Not even Mom or Dad.”
    “Zachary, this is too important for you to lie to me. Yeah, I get lucky at Boggle sometimes, but you know you’re a ton brighter than I am. You’ll do much better alone.”
    Zachary stared into her eyes. How had he not seen how little she thought of her own abilities? His insults must have been even sharper than he had thought. And the poor kid was in his shadow at school. And if he did say so himself, he was an incredibly tough act to follow. It would be hard on anyone , no matter how impressive, to be compared to him every day, he thought.
    But he had made this even harder for her by telling her she was an idiot so often. A sick feeling gripped his stomach. How badly had he messed her up? Was he totally responsible for her lack of confidence?
    Maybe he was. His parents had told him recently they worried he was arrogant—which meant that he had a lot of confidence, but in a bad way. They worried he was too full of himself to even notice the struggles of others. This sure seemed to be true in Jenna’s case. And it had taken a disaster—the disappearance of their parents—for him to see it.
    His parents had also used the word “smug,” and said that this quality could cause people not to like him, even though he was clever and the star pitcher on the baseball team. He had thought they were crazy, but maybe there was some truth to what they had said. Jenna had been right after he had won the card trick bet. He didn’t have many friends. And he never seemed to keep the ones he had for very long. Which was surprising, since you’d think everyone would want to be friends with someone as impressive as he was.
    He wanted to think about this longer, but there was no time. “Okay,” he said to his sister. “I get why you’d have trouble believing what I say. But what about Mom and Dad? They’re always telling you how talented you are. All your life.”
     Jenna frowned. “Yeah, but they don’t really mean it. Saying stuff like that is just their way of trying to be good parents.”
    “Come on, Jen. That laser you built with Dad won the science fair competition at school. What about that?”
    “Big deal. With Dad’s help, of course I’m gonna win.” She shook her head. “Look, Zack, even if I’m not a total idiot—and I can’t believe I’m about to admit this—I’m not even close to being in your league. Come on Zack, you know I’m not.”
    Zachary paused, deep in thought, for what seemed like an eternity. “All right,” he said, and a change came over him, as though he had finally decided to share the ultimate secret. “You’re right. You’re not in my league. But that's not because I'm better than you. It's because you're younger. And because— ”
    He paused, as if searching for the right words.
    “Because what?” said Jenna. “Because I'm a moron?”
    “No. Because . . . well, because my natural abilities have been getting a little help the last few years. From one of Mom and Dad’s inventions.”
    “What are you talking about?”
    “Look, I don't have time for long explanations. You know Mom and Dad do top secret work. Well, I found out about one of their projects a few years ago. They discovered how to generate some kind of new electromagnetic waves—ones you can’t feel—just like radio and TV waves that are always hitting us but we don't know it. But when these waves hit you, they improve you. I convinced Mom and Dad to let me be one of the test subjects. I've been carrying around a tiny generator one day a week for two years now. That's why I do better than you in school and that's why you're not in my league.”
    Jenna snorted. “I may be gullible, Zachary, but evenI'm not that gullible.