This choice: Go to bed; tomorrow is another day • Go Back...Chapter #44Equations with Multiple Solutions by: Seuzz   Maybe it's coincidence, but you run into Ursula near your locker before first period the next morning. You call to her as she passes, but she just rolls her eyes.
First period is math: remedial algebra. You drop heavily into a chair at the front and scratch your cheek with a pretended air of ruefulness. Ian Carpenter, the captain of the basketball team, is the teacher's aide in here, but he's careful to keep "team" and "class" business separated. So when he sits at Mr. Jones's desk, and looks up to find you staring back at him with a mouth opening and shutting like a suffocating fish, it will be the first time today he alludes to your poor study habits: "You forget to do your homework again, Joe?"
You groan and thrash in the desk. "It's not my fault! Frank challenged me to a game of touch football in the back yard last night, said he'd do it for me if I won."
"So what's the problem?"
"I won! Naturally. But he welshed on the bet, said I had to do it myself anyway."
"So why didn't you?"
"I'm not going to let him get away with that kind of bullshit." You cross your arms. "Son of a bitch is going to do it for me one way or another."
"I don't think you can make him do it for you," Ian sighs. "And it would be wrong anyway."
"It's wrong of him to welsh on a bet!"
Ian wilts. "You should be on the debate team," he says. "Your logic is cockeyed, but it's always irrefutable."
You'd retort, but you hear a noise behind you, and shut him out. You slide forward in your seat and drop your head onto the desk behind. "Hi, Becky," you grin up at the girl who's just sat down.
She peers down into your upside-down face. "Hi, Joe," she mimics back in the same singsong tone. She runs her fingertips through your hair and tickles your ears. You raise your legs and waggle them in mid-air.
"Up straight, Durras." Mr. Jones strides past and slaps hard at your knee. You slip down with an "Oof!", then struggle back into an upright position. As the teacher goes to the blackboard, you turn around and look Becky direct in the bosom. "What are you doing for lunch?" you ask her breasts.
She grasps your chin and forces your head up. "Hanging out. You?"
You shift all the way around, crouching backward on your knees and resting your elbows on her desk. "Wanna go across the street, nibble on something sweet?" You lean in close.
A hand grabs the back of your shirt and tugs; you make melodramatic choking noises as you're dragged back. Reluctantly, you turn around. "I put you up front so you'd pay attention, Durras," Jones says. He jerks his chin at the blackboard. "Up there, if you please."
"You had me do the problems yesterday," you protest.
"Yes, and what a hit it was with the class." Titters run through the room. "Never change a winning formula. Up."
Heavily, you trudge to the front and pick up the chalk. Behind the teacher, Ian cups his chin in his palm and leans back with a smile. You give him a dirty look.
"Two a minus seven b equals thirteen," says Jones. "Write it out." You comply, and stand back to regard it with an agonized expression. "Four a plus two b equals--" You erase the equation and start writing the new one. "What are you doing?"
"I wrote it down wrong."
"You had it right. This is the other part." He gives you both equations, to your apparent puzzlement. "Now solve."
"Both of them?" you exclaim in horror. The chalk slips from your fingers and shatters on the floor.
"It's one problem," Jones says, his own voice rising in frustration. "Haven't you been paying attention for the past month?"
"I wanna lawyer before I answer that," you mutter. The front row breaks out in guffaws.
He shows you how to do it, and asks you to do it again on your own. On your first try you transpose the letters; on your second you manage to introduce "d" as a third term; on the last try, you step back with a triumphant proof that thirteen times seven is equal to twenty-eight. "I wouldn't believe it if I didn't see it," Jones sighs as he studies the mess of figures. By now he looks even more agonized than you.
"Do you get this stuff," you whisper to Becky as class ends.
She scrunches her face up and shakes her head. "I can do the simple stuff, but when you start getting things like more than one letter in a problem, I just totally lose it. Maybe we could start studying together?"
"Leave him to me, Miss Torres," Jones says from a few feet back. "If he baffles me, heaven only knows what he'll do to you."
"I know what I'd like to do to you," you mutter at him in a voice low enough that only Becky will hear it.
She manages to misunderstand in a delightful way. "What would you like to do to me, Joe?" she giggles.
You put your hand on her ass. "I'd like to have lunch with you. Munsons. I'll get rid of Frank."
* * * * *
"I wonder what it's like being smart," Becky says after you've sat at a table at the bakery across the street from the school. She's contented herself with an ice tea while you play with the cinnamon roll with your fork. "Like, knowing everything that's going on."
"You just feel dumb about other things," you reply. You scrape up a little frosting. "Frank looks as dumb as me with that calculus stuff."
"It would be nice to have smarter things to be dumb about," she says. "You know?"
You put the fork to her mouth. She shakes her head, but you brush the frosting onto her lips. She grimaces and licks it off. You give an exasperated sigh and repeat the trick. Before she can lick it off again, you lean in and kiss it off for her.
"I guess you're not so dumb where it counts," a voice says from behind, and you look up to see Ian and Alyssa Randal.
"I'm smarter than some people," you grumble as they join you.
"You know, Geoff thinks it's just an act with you," Alyssa says in a knowing tone. She takes half of the sandwich off her plate, and pushes the other half over to Ian. "He thinks you play it up because of your brother."
"Dunholm's so smart," you mutter. "If I had most of his brain I'd still only be half as smart as him."
There's silence as Ian runs the arithmetic through his head. "Yeah," he says with a slow sigh. "A lot of people wouldn't quarrel with that approximation."
"When's the next quiz," Becky asks nervously. Ian shrugs. "Because--"
She goes on to complain about her parents and her grades, but your eye is caught by Alyssa: She has noticeably stiffened, and you follow her gaze. Outside, Lawrence Farmer is talking with Lisa Rickover. You watch them until they part. Lawrence disappears, but Lisa comes in. She nods coolly at Alyssa before going up to the counter. You execute a series of complex mental equations with a rapidity that would leave Jones lost and dumbfounded.
"So what's going on with Hannah and Jordan," you ask Alyssa. "Because at practice today he was--" Someone kicks you under the table. It could have been any of the other three, but it was probably Ian.
"I don't know, Joe," Alyssa says with casual indifference.
"Oh, come on," you protest. "If his head isn't together by the time--" Another, sharper kick. "Well, put it this way," you say, regrouping. "Would Frank have a chance with her?"
"Is Frank interested in Hannah?" Alyssa asks, and she jumps a little in her chair. Yes, it must be Ian sending subterranean messages.
"I wish Frank would get interested in someone," you grumble. "It would get him out of the house and out of my hair. Hi Lisa!" you call to the girl. She flashes a tight smile and sails out the door with a brown bag. "Why is she so cold?"
"She knows when she's not welcome," Alyssa says.
And there's the missing term: One of Alyssa's little foot soldiers has been telling tales out of school, and has just been caught at it. "I should talk to her," you say. "Maybe she knows what's going on with Hannah and--"
Three kicks, all at once. Ian, Alyssa, and Becky exchange startled glances. You grab the edge of Becky's chair and drag her close. "Flirt," you say in a teasingly accusatory tone.
"So who is Frank interested in," Alyssa asks. "Hannah? Really?"
"I dunno. Ask Geoff." You concentrate on Becky. "Maybe he'll say Frank pretends to be dumb about girls because he's so intimidated by me."
There's another one of those pauses. "You know the word 'intimidated'?" Ian asks.
"Did I say something wrong?" you ask in a panic.
"No, you said it too damn right."
* * * * *
"So what's going on with Hannah and Jordan," you had asked Alyssa. Simultaneously, inside your head:
Becky wonders what it is like being smart. Lawrence is Alyssa's great "gossip" rival at the school. You've got a mask of Darcy, who is smart. Lawrence would love to have a spy inside Alyssa's ring. Let Becky try on Darcy's mask; tempt her with other goodies. He'd love to have a source that's more reliable than Lisa; tempt him with possibilities. Becky would be one recruit. You can look for two more. Lawrence would be one recruit. You can look for two more.
Solution: Recruit both Becky and Lawrence, but separately.   indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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