Sky Jumpers Series, Book 1 Read Online Free PDF Page B

wished I could tell her about my morning, but she didn’t know we ever jumped through the Bomb’s Breath. Like everyone else, merely mentioning it made her twitchy.
    As I carried my invention, I almost dropped it when someone knocked into me. I knew before I even turned to see him place his invention on the desk in front of Carina that it was Brock. He might keep to himself, but he always let me know when he was nearby—usually with a shove, a punch in the arm, or a stomp on my foot.
    Aaren, Carina, and I walked to a wall together and sat down. Aaren and I were starting to be friends with Brock, but it was still hard to figure out if Brock wanted to join us or not. He pushed his way past some people and sat beside Carina. I guess today he did want to. With such strong, squarish shoulders, Brock seemed confident, but half the time his shoulders drooped, like worries weighed them down. And then there was the way his almost-black hair fell to his green eyes that made him look shy. I could never figure out which he really was—shy or worried or confident. He pushed the hair off his forehead and leaned against the wall.
Confident
. Smug, even.
    It made me want to gloat about the jump I made. As soon as I opened my mouth to speak, though, Mrs. Romanek said, “Sam Beckinwood. Please come show us your invention.”
    I stared at Brock until he looked at me. I kept my eyes on his as I dramatically pulled out the band that held my hair, then grabbed my ponytail with one hand and swept the fallen hair back into it with the other hand. I did it as slowly and meaningfully as possible, but it still took him a moment to catch on to why my hair had been such a mess.
    I could tell the second he figured out that I’d completed the double front flip, because he sat straight up and looked away from me. Not before I saw frustration on his face, though.
    It felt like victory all over again.
Brock Sances
, I thought as I leaned back and smiled,
who’s wearing the smug look now?
    My smile didn’t fade as I tuned in to Sam explaining his invention. He said it was his farm’s turn to grow peas this year, and he hated to shell them. He placed five pea-pods, unopened, each into a separate shaft of the invention he held. With his other hand, he pushed a lever and all five pods opened and the peas fell into a bowl. He said he’d made a bigger one at home, one that would do twenty pods at once. Mrs. Romanek and Mr. Hudson asked a few questions, gave a suggestion, and told him he did a great job.
    Everyone in class cheered for him, especially me. It had been our turn for peas two years ago, and since then I’d always felt bad for anyone who was assigned peas.
    Mrs. Romanek and Mr. Hudson walked to the second desk and called Ellie Davies. Ellie picked up the metal case on her desk, then opened it to reveal a bunch of cylinders. She explained how the metal case clamped on to the pipes that came from the water tanks behind our fireplaces, and as the warm water passed through the pipes, it heated the cylinders. She said she then wrapped the cylinders in her hair until they cooled, and it made her hair curly.
    “I used to have to put curlers in my hair when it was wet,” Ellie said, “and then wear them to bed. It’s so hard to sleep in curlers! With my invention, you can put them in dry hair, and it only takes a few minutes to curl. As you can see”—Ellie bobbed her head to make her curls bounce—“they work perfectly!”
    Mrs. Romanek smiled, complimented Ellie, suggested a way she could alter the clamp to make it sturdier, then moved on.
    That was pretty much how it went at every desk. Each student was called over, showed his or her invention, got praise and suggestions, then everyone clapped. As they worked closer to my desk, I got more and more excited. We saw Paige Davies’s machine for separating the grainfrom the chaff using beaters and a bellows, Holden Newberry’s model of an adjustable boat propeller that made steering into the