Geek High (4 page)

“Tired?” I asked as we headed up to the school.

“I couldn't sleep last night. As soon as I got in bed, I had this amazing idea for a painting. It's an upside-down office building, only totally abstract, so that the lines are all blurred. I had to start working on it right away. I painted all night,” she said.

Charlie was talking really, really fast, as she always does when she's on one of her manic swings. But she's sensitive about anyone pointing it out to her, so I never mention it.

“Cool,” I said. “I can't wait to see it.”

“Good morning, ladies,” Finn said as we reached the stairs leading up to the school's entrance. He was standing in front of the ornate double wooden doors, oblivious to the students pushing past him, beaming down at us.

Finn was tall, even taller than me—which is saying something, because I'm five feet ten inches in my stocking feet—and thin as a rail. He's super pale, since he spends all his time indoors messing around on his computer (and by messing around, I mean inventing computer games that he then sells for millions of dollars) and is rarely ever out during daylight hours. He has shaggy brown hair, pale blue eyes, and a scar over his mouth, left over from the surgery he had as a baby to correct a cleft palate.

“Are we ready for another year of academic brilliance?” Finn asked.

Finn was a bit miffed that his parents had forced him to return to Geek High this year, considering that he earns about ten times what they—both orthodontists—make. But they insisted, and so Finn finally caved, only after they agreed to let him buy some really expensive computer thingy that he insisted he needed to have. (They make him put all of his earnings in a high-interest money-market account.) And even then, Finn said he's only coming back to be a subversive influence within the school. I had no idea what he meant by that, but I had to admit…it made me a little nervous. It's never wise to underestimate Finn. He's not the most morally centered person in the world.

“As always,” Charlie replied, yawning again.

“My thoughts exactly,” Finn said. “
Yawn
. But not for long!”

He looked smugly pleased with himself. Charlie looked at him sharply.

“What does that mean?” she asked suspiciously. “What are you up to?” “Wait and see, grasshopper. Wait and see,” Finn said, grinning deviously.

“Don't call me grasshopper. And whatever it is that you're planning, just make sure you don't get caught. You know that Headmaster Hughes is gunning for you this year,” Charlie cautioned.

“Me? Get caught?” Finn asked, affronted. “It'll never happen. I'm far too wily.”

“You're far too something,” Charlie muttered as the three of us went into the school together.

As I walked into Geek High, I drew in a deep breath and felt a sense of calm for the first time since Sadie had announced she was leaving for London. Returning to the school was like coming home after a long trip away. It was the first place I'd ever felt normal. Sure, I might not like everyone I went to school with—Felicity and Morgan, for example—but this was the one place where I wasn't considered a weirdo or a freak for being smart. Everyone at the school was a genius, so here I was one geek among many. And, yes, many of my classmates could be a little odd at times. We were, after all, the square pegs who hadn't fit in at a normal school.

The three of us walked into the front hall, with its worn carpets and huge glass case featuring trophies won by Geek High students over the years. The awards were all for academics—the state science fair, writing contests, Mu Alpha Theta—with the exception of one small silver cup that a boy named Roger McNeil won in a local golf tournament in 1991. But, then, kids don't attend Geek High for its sports program.

Even though everything looked the same and sounded the same—the squeak of new sneakers, familiar voices calling out greetings—it took my nose a few minutes to adjust to the smell of the place—the mingling of old wood, ancient Oriental carpets, lemon oil, and hair spray.

Straight ahead was the dining room, filled with dark wood tables and chairs, and oil paintings of big-money donors hanging on the walls. We turned left just before reaching the dining room. The floor changed from hardwood to industrial tile, signaling that we'd entered the high school wing. It was one long locker-lined hallway where all of the upper classes were held.

“Hi, Miranda,” Leila Chang called out as she passed by.

“Hey, Leila. How was your summer?” I asked.

Leila was a junior. She had a round, pretty face, and hair that she'd cut into a short bob like flappers wore in the 1920s. Purple-framed cat's eye glasses were perched on her nose.

“Too short,” she said with a grin. She gestured toward Mr. Gordon's classroom, which was just to my left. “Are you taking AP Calculus?”

“No, I took it two years ago,” I said. “You?”

“Yup. Lucky me,” Leila said, rolling her eyes. “Hey, did you hear that someone's started a blog about the school?”

“No. What kind of a blog?” I asked.

“It's all gossip! There're just a few items up now, but it's promising to dig up dirt on everyone. Students, teachers, the administration. Check it out—the URL is geekhigh.com,” she said.

“I will,” I said, intrigued.

“See you later,” Leila said, ducking into the math room.

Finn and Charlie had been so immersed in their discussion of a French movie they'd seen the night before—I hadn't gone with them, since I refuse to watch movies I have to read—they hadn't noticed I'd stopped to talk to Leila. I sped up to catch them…and nearly careened right into a scrawny figure that suddenly loomed before me.

“Whoa!” I exclaimed, coming to an abrupt stop just in time.

“Hello, Miranda. How was your summer?” The voice was almost robotic in its monotone, and it belonged to Christopher Frost, a fellow sophomore. He had thin sandy hair and pale watery eyes that stared unblinkingly from behind thick glasses. Christopher wasn't a bad guy, although he lacked even the most basic people skills. Now he didn't wait for my response to his quasi-question. “I went to Arizona to visit my grandparents. They took me to see the Grand Canyon. Did you know that the Grand Canyon spans nineteen hundred and four square miles? And at its deepest point, it has a mile-long drop? And it's home to seventy-five species of mammals, fifty species of reptiles and amphibians, and more than three hundred species of birds…?”

It was futile to wait for Christopher to stop talking; he wouldn't. He'd prattle on and on and on, listing off one statistic after another, until I stopped him.

“That sounds really great. I'm glad you had fun,” I said. “I'll talk to you later, okay? I have to get to class.”

Christopher blinked at me, his expression unchanged.

“Bye,” I said, moving past him.

Charlie and Finn were now well down the hallway.

“Charlie,” I called. “Wait up!”

I jogged to catch up with them. And that was when it happened: I tripped. For a long, terrible moment everything seemed to unfold in slow motion. My feet—which had been safely on the ground a moment earlier—were suddenly Scooby-Dooing under me. I pitched slowly forward. Up ahead, Charlie pivoted around as my voice reached her. I saw her mouth turn into an O as she watched me fall.

And just then—just as I was in a free fall, about to face-plant on the hard tile floor—that's when I saw him: Emmett Dutch. He was leaning against a locker, talking to Isaac Hanson, and looking every bit as beautiful as I remembered. The blond hair curling back from his handsome face had lightened over the summer, and he was sporting a golden tan. His sea blue eyes were vivid in his face, and his teeth flashed white as he grinned.

And then a moment later I was sprawled on the floor, feeling a sharp, stabbing pain in my wrist. Not to mention my pride. I was completely and utterly humiliated.

“Miranda, are you okay?” Charlie asked, hurrying back to help me up. Finn was a step behind her.

“Nice,” he said. “A few points off for the dismount, but I'd still give you a solid seven-point-two.”

“Finn,” Charlie hissed, elbowing him in the side.

I was too mortified to speak. My fall had not gone unnoticed. The tittering was rising up around me as though I were a one-woman comedy act.

“Not used to the gravity on this planet, Miranda?” Felicity asked sweetly as she glided by with Morgan in tow. They both sniggered.

Charlie and Finn helped me to my feet, and the whole time, all I could think was,
Please don't let him have seen me, please don't let him have seen me, please please please please please…

But when I finally got the nerve to glance in the direction where Emmett had been standing a moment earlier, he wasn't there. Relief coursed through me.

“He didn't see,” I breathed.

“Actually…he did,” Charlie said.

She knew exactly who I was talking about. I'd been in love with Emmett Dutch for the past two years, and Charlie's had to listen to me obsess over every last detail of our nonexistent relationship.

“Oh, no,” I whispered. “Did he laugh? Please tell me he didn't laugh.”

This was a disaster. A complete and total disaster.

“He didn't laugh,” Charlie said. I felt marginally better. Charlie never lies, not even to make me feel better.

“Who didn't laugh?” Finn asked. Finn was as clueless as Charlie was perceptive.

“Nobody. Nothing. Never mind,” I gabbled. “Come on; let's get to class. We're going to be late for astronomy.”

I
spent all of astronomy with my head down, reliving the fall over and over again. I tried to pry some more information out of Charlie on Emmett's reaction—did he smile? look concerned? disgusted? repulsed?—but she clammed up and refused to say anything other than, “I will not enable your unhealthy obsession,” in an annoyingly superior voice. All the while Finn—who was ignoring us while he checked his e-mail on his laptop—would occasionally glance up with a confused expression, and say, “Who are you guys talking about?”

Our astronomy teacher, Mr. Keegan—who wore socks with his Birkenstocks and insisted that we call him “Doug”—gave us an overview of the syllabus, and then got into a long and incredibly boring debate with Tate Metcalf, whose life ambition is to become a nuclear physicist, on a new five-dimensional theory of gravity that some researchers at Duke were working on. It wasn't until the end of the period, when my fingers were cramping from how fast I'd had to type to take down all the information, that Mr. Keegan told us that none of what we'd covered in class that day would be on the final.

“I thought astronomy would be heavier on the time-space continuum stuff,” Finn said after the period ended. We left the classroom and joined the tide of students moving down the hallway. “Doug didn't even mention the Prime Directive. Isn't that supposed to be the cornerstone of mankind's philosophy on space travel?”

“I think maybe someone's watched a little too much
Star Trek
,” I said.

“Just you wait and see.
Star Trek
will help me ace that class,” Finn said confidently.

“I should have taken advanced physics,” Charlie grumbled.

“Why didn't you?” I asked.

“Because Forrester is teaching it,” she said. No further explanation was necessary. I got stuck with Forrester for biology last year, and had to chew chocolate-covered espresso beans all period just to stay awake. He's just that boring.

“What do you have next?” Charlie asked.

I consulted my schedule. “Modern literature with Mrs. Gordon.”

“Cool. Me too,” Charlie said.

Finn was too busy texting someone on his BlackBerry to respond—he was in the middle of selling a game he'd developed called
Terrorist X
—but he followed us down the hall to Mrs. Gordon's room, so I assumed he was probably in our class, too.

We filed into mod lit and sat down at desks arranged in a horseshoe formation. There were seven other kids already there. Felicity and Morgan were in the class—gag—as were Tate Metcalf, Padma Paswan, Sanjiv Gupta, Christopher Frost, and Tabitha Stone. Tabitha has a long, angular face, dark skin, super-short hair, prominent teeth, and takes herself very, very seriously. She's the school's resident English lit prodigy. Last year she published a book of cryptic post-postmodern poetry, none of which I understood, but it was a huge deal around the school.

“Miranda, we need to talk about Mu Alpha Theta. Mr. Gordon scheduled the first meeting two weeks from Wednesday,” Sanjiv called across the classroom.

Mu Alpha Theta was our school's math team, and it competed against other schools across the state. I'd been on the team ever since I started at Geek Middle. In fact, at twelve, I was the youngest student in the school ever to compete on Mu Alpha Theta.

“Actually…” I hesitated, knowing that my next words were sure to send Sanjiv into a tailspin. “…I'm not going to be on the team this year.”

Sanjiv gaped at me as his eyes widened in shock. “You're not going to be on the team? But
why
?” he stuttered.

Mrs. Gordon came in then, saving me from having to respond.

“Welcome back!” she said, beaming at us.

Math may be my best subject, but English lit was by far my favorite…and Mrs. Gordon was my favorite teacher. She's short and sort of dumpling-shaped, with wispy brown hair that's always falling out of a messy bun. We sometimes joked that she looks like the quiet spinster secretary on one of those cheesy cable movies, who all of a sudden takes off her glasses, shakes out her hair, and turns into a sex goddess in order to seduce her boss. When, really, nothing could be farther from the truth. Besides, Mrs. Gordon was married to Mr. Gordon, the math teacher, and I'd lose all respect for her if she tried to seduce Headmaster Hughes.

We pulled out our laptops while we waited for the bell to ring. And then just a minute before it sounded, the door opened again…and Emmett Dutch walked in. I inhaled quickly, sucking my breath in loudly enough that Charlie shot me a sidewise glance.

I'd never had a class with Emmett before. He was a junior, and so mostly took advanced-level courses. But the Geek High curriculum is like a college—every course is open to anyone who has the prerequisites for it. So it wasn't at all uncommon to have an upperclassman or two pop up in an elective course.

Emmett slid into the seat that was at the end of the horseshoe closest to the door, just as Mrs. Gordon began to speak: “Welcome to modern literature! We're going to have a very exciting year reading some of my favorite books of all time,” she said happily.

I tried to listen to her; I really did. But I couldn't pay attention, not when Emmett Dutch was sitting
just over there
. I kept pretending to look out the door, as though idly seeing who was passing by (nobody), so that I could secretly admire him. Today, Emmett was wearing a green Lacoste shirt, threadbare chino shorts, and Tevas, for the preppy boho look he favored. Tall, and broad-shouldered, with strong arms and a narrow waist, Emmett was the least geeky-looking guy enrolled at Geek High. And, best of all, he was
brilliant
. He'd won the state science fair three years in a row, and placed second in nationals last year for developing a technique for purifying water in third-world countries. He was, in short, a god.

“Miranda!” It was Charlie, hissing in my ear.

“What?” I whispered back.

“Stop. Staring. At. Him.”

I turned bright red and began fumbling with my laptop, quickly opening up Microsoft Word to start taking notes on
The Stranger
by Albert Camus, the first book Mrs. Gordon was assigning us. But even as I began typing away about the background she was giving us on Algiers, where
The Stranger
was set, I could feel someone's eyes resting on me. I looked up, my heart pounding, wondering if it was…could it possibly be…?

But, no. Emmett was busy typing away on his own laptop, seemingly transfixed by Mrs. Gordon's intro to
The Stranger
. I glanced to my left, and then to my right…and right into Felicity Glen's soulless green eyes. She cocked her eyebrows at me, and then looked pointedly at Emmett before flashing me with what can only be described as a truly evil smile.

Oh, no,
I thought.
Oh, no no no no no no.
The Felimonster knew I was interested in Emmett. And I knew her well enough to know that she'd somehow use this knowledge against me.

Technically, we're not supposed to use instant messaging during class. But since we're all supposed to be super-students obsessed with academics, no one ever bothers to monitor it. So I quickly pulled up my IM, and tapped a message to Charlie.

Suddenly Finn popped into our conversation. I have no idea how he does this. He could probably hack into the CIA's secret computer files if he wanted to. In fact, he probably already had.

Finn's favorite movie was the cult classic
Heathers
. He idolized Christian Slater's character, J.D. Charlie and I both found this more than a bit disturbing, considering that J.D. was a homicidal crackpot.

In the trauma over tripping, I'd forgotten all about the Geek High blog Leila had told me about. I closed out of my IM program and clicked on the icon for my Firefox Mozilla browser—Finn is very anti-Microsoft, and starts to lecture me whenever I use Explorer—and then surfed over to geekhigh.com.

Just as Leila had said, it was a blog written anonymously by someone who signed him-or herself
Sam Spade
. There were only two entries up so far, but
Sam Spade
promised daily updates.

The first entry was a blind item:

“Do you know who's writing this?” I whispered to Finn.

“Ms. Bloom, did you have something you want to share with the class?” Mrs. Gordon asked loudly.

Argh.

My face turned the color of a ripe tomato. I was actually going to have to speak in front of Emmett. I desperately tried to think of something—
anything
—I might know about
The Stranger
, but I'd never read the book. I have enough existential angst in my own life without including it in my recreational reading.

“No, no. I'm just really excited about reading
The Stranger
,” I lied. “Big fan of the Cure.”

“What is she babbling about?” Felicity asked loudly to the room at large.

“The Cure did a song back in the seventies called ‘Killing an Arab' that was based on
The Stranger
,” I said.

“Very good, Ms. Bloom. And next time we meet, I'm going to play the song for you,” Mrs. Gordon said, twinkling with pleasure. This is why I loved her. I don't know anything about the stupid book, other than that the Cure wrote a song about it, but Mrs. Gordon still managed to make me feel like something other than a complete moron.

Plus, it's always fun to know something that Felicity doesn't. At Mrs. Gordon's praise, Felicity's mouth twisted into a pout. I sneaked a glance at Emmett, but he was intently typing away on his laptop.

Mrs. Gordon turned to write,
Example of an Absurdist Theme
on the blackboard. When she turned back around, Tabitha raised her hand.