Geek High

by Piper Banks

  The rest of the Mu Alpha Theta team was already assembled in Mr. Gordon’s classroom when I arrived. Sanjiv Gupta—a gangly kid with enormous brown eyes and a prominent Adam’s apple—was writing out equations on the dry-erase board with a black marker. Mr. Gordon, Leila Chang, Kyle Carpenter, and Nicholas Pruitt were all sitting at desks facing the board.

  Mr. Gordon brightened when he saw me. “Hello, Miranda,” he said, so warmly I immediately knew that he’d had nothing to do with Headmaster Hughes’s blackmail plot. “I’m so glad you changed your mind about being on the team.”

  “Thanks,” I said. I slid my knapsack off my shoulder and sat down at a desk. Sanjiv continued to write out equations with a fierce concentration.

  “Sanjiv came across a series of math theorems on a Mu Alpha Theta Web site that he thought would be good for us to practice on,” Mr. Gordon explained to me.

  “And don’t give away the answers before we get a chance to solve them, Miranda,” Sanjiv said, pushing his thick glasses up his nose as he turned around. He capped the marker.

  “I don’t do that,” I protested.

  Kyle snorted. “Are you kidding?” he asked.

  Kyle was a squat, heavy boy with a hairline that started a half inch over his eyebrows that made him look like the Wolfman. He wasn’t a math whiz—his biggest academic strength was chemistry—so he always had to work hard on the Mu Alpha Theta drills. I’d gotten the definite feeling that he resented how easily math came to me.

  “You do sort of jump on the answer quickly,” Leila said in a much less friendly tone than usual.

  I looked around at my teammates, getting the distinct impression that none of them appreciated my return to the team. In fact, the only one of the group who wasn’t eyeing me with barely concealed antagonism was Nicholas, a freshman who hadn’t been on Mu Alpha Theta last year. He was a short, thin kid with dark curly hair cut close to his head. I smiled warmly at him, and he turned bright red and dropped his pencil. Puzzled, I watched him for a moment, but he suddenly seemed fascinated in his notebook…which, from where I was sitting, looked blank.

  “Why all the hostility?” I asked.

  Kyle and Leila exchanged a look.

  “What?” I asked.

  “You bailed on us,” Kyle said bluntly.

  “We saw the Geek High blog, Miranda. We know you didn’t want to be on the team,” Leila said.

  “And that Headmaster Hughes made you rejoin,” Kyle said.

  “No, he didn’t.” Yes, this was a lie, but telling them the truth would just make them even angrier. “But before, when I didn’t join right away…that wasn’t because of you guys,” I protested. “I just wanted to try something else.”

  Kyle and Leila looked at me. Clearly, they saw my defection as a personal insult.

  “Look, I’m sorry,” I mumbled, thinking that when I next saw Finn, I’d wring his scrawny neck.

  “All right, people, let’s get to work and solve these theorems,” Sanjiv said, clapping his hands and saving me from having to explain myself further to my teammates. I never thought I’d actually be grateful for one of Sanjiv’s officious interruptions, which just goes to show that life is always full of surprises.

  I glanced at the theorems on the board, and jotted down my solutions. Everyone else was still working, so I pulled out my planning book for the Snowflake and started to go over my to-do list again. We still had to find a band. Morgan continued to push for Snake’s garage band, but I wasn’t committing until I at least heard their demo. We had to figure out a budget for decorations and snacks, and start working on posters to hang around school announcing the new Snowflake.

  One task we had completed was to come up with a theme: the Black-and-White Ball. It was based on Truman Capote’s famous ball of the same name that he hosted at the Plaza in New York City.

  It was my idea, and I had to admit I was pretty proud of it. Even Felicity had loved it. Everyone would wear black or white, and we’d fill the school auditorium with black and white balloons. And Charlie had the great idea of blowing up black-and-white photographs of old movie stars and hanging them on the walls. It would be drop-dead elegant, and totally romantic.

  “Miranda?”

  I looked up, and the rest of the team was looking at me.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Did you finish the theorems?” Sanjiv asked.

  “Yeah. Do you want the answers?” I asked.

  “No,” Sanjiv said, exasperated. “I just wanted your attention so we could go over the solutions together. As a group.”

  “I have a question,” I said. “Why exactly are we practicing with written theorems?”

  “It’s practice. Obviously,” Kyle said. Sanjiv could be annoying, but Kyle was even worse. He was so argumentative, I wanted to bop him over the head with my spiral notebook.

  “What I meant,” I said slowly for Kyle’s benefit, “was: What’s the point? In the competitions, all of the problems are given verbally. Shouldn’t we be practicing the same way?”

  “Just because you can do these in your head, Miranda, doesn’t mean the rest of us can,” Leila said.

  “Or, even if we can,” Sanjiv quickly interjected, “it’s still good practice.”

  I knew I was the thorn of Sanjiv’s life. He loved math. In fact, his dream was to be hired as a code breaker for the NSA. And were it not for me, he’d be the math star of Geek High.

  “I think Miranda’s right,” Nicholas said. “If the competitions are all oral, that’s how we should practice.”

  He shot me a quick, shy glance, and I smiled at him again, glad that at least someone on the team was on my side. His eyes—which were the color of root beer—widened, and he quickly looked back down at his notebook, hunching his shoulders up to his ears. I frowned. Why was he acting so frightened of me? I wasn’t a scary person. Miranda Bloom, friend to all, that’s my motto. Well. Except for Hannah. And Avery. And Felicity and Morgan. Okay, new motto: Miranda Bloom, friend to all who deserve it.

  I turned my attention back to Sanjiv and his theorems. “All I’m saying is that what wins competitions is the ability to solve the problems in your head. Sure, you could take the time to write it out and solve it on paper, but unless the other side is doing the same thing, you’ll lose too much time. If you want to win, you have to wean yourself off of using a pen and paper,” I explained. “And I guarantee that if we actually do make it to the state finals, none of the other teams will be writing down the problems.”

  “She has a point,” Leila said. “I read on Austin Strong’s MySpace page that he’s trained himself to solve all of the problems in his head.”

  “Really?” Sanjiv asked, looking impressed.

  “Austin Strong is going to be tough to beat,” Kyle said.

  Which, I had to admit, annoyed me. When I suggest it, they all roll their eyes, but if Austin Strong recommends it, they think it’s a great idea? It was as though they were all forgetting that we’d beaten Austin Strong and his St. Pius team last year. So I decided to remind them.

  “Don’t worry about Austin. We beat him last year, and we’re going to beat him this year,” I said, trying to rally the troops.

  “We only beat St. Pius last year because the rest of their team stank. But on Austin’s Web site, he said they have a great team this year. They even have a Chinese exchange student,” Kyle said, and the others groaned.

  “You guys! You shouldn’t assume that just because someone’s Chinese that they’re good at math,” I said, outraged at the assumptions they were leaping to. “You can’t make stereotypes just on someone’s ethnicity or country of origin!”

  “But Austin said the guy was a math champion at home. He even went to an accelerated Chinese school for it. And now that he’s in the U.S., he’s studying math at the college level,” Leila said.

  The others groaned. Sanjiv looked like he might throw up right there on his desk.

  “So what? Some of us are studying at the college level, too,” I
said. Okay, just me, but they were already touchy enough as it was.

  “I think that maybe we should focus on our own practice, rather than on what St. Pius is doing,” Mr. Gordon suggested.

  “I agree,” I said.

  “Me, too,” Nicholas said, and his dark eyes darted over toward me. He was reminding me of someone…but I wasn’t sure who.

  But then suddenly it came to me…and I knew exactly who he reminded me of. Me. Those were the exact same sort of looks I’d been darting at Emmett for the past two years.

  Oh, no, I thought with a start, as I turned away from Nicholas, staring down hard at my desk. Oh, no no no no no no no. This wasn’t good…not at all.

  Chapter 20

  My white short-sleeved TSE cashmere sweater is missing,” Peyton announced over dinner.

  We were having pizza, which Dad had picked up on his way home from work. Despite the house’s enormous kitchen outfitted with professional-grade appliances, no one in residence house ever cooked. It almost made me miss Sadie’s bizarre concoctions, even the disasters, like her microwaved baked Alaska or her grape-jelly-coated Crock-Pot shrimp (which was so disgusting, I haven’t been able to stomach the smell of grape jelly ever since).

  “Maybe it’s at the dry cleaners’,” Dad suggested.

  “It’s not,” Peyton insisted. “I even called the cleaner’s and double-checked. But I knew it wasn’t there. I specifically remember taking it out of the cleaner bag and setting it in the right-hand drawer in my closet.”

  “Well, I’m sure it’s in there somewhere,” Dad said, sounding unconcerned. I didn’t blame him. Peyton’s closet is enormous, nearly the same size as their master bedroom. It would be easy for a little scrap of cashmere to get lost in one of the dozens of built-in drawers and cabinets.

  Peyton dropped the fork that she’d been using to push her pizza around on her plate, and stared at my father with ill-concealed irritation.

  “No,” she said, overpronouncing her words, “it’s not. I just told you, I looked. And my sweater isn’t there.”

  My dad raised his eyebrows. “Well, Peyton, I doubt that it sprouted legs and walked out of the closet on its own,” he said. His voice was testy, which wasn’t at all like him. Normally he was Mr. Jolly around Peyton.

  “I agree. I think it’s much more likely that someone took it,” Peyton said.

  “It wasn’t me; I swear,” Hannah said quickly.

  “I know, sweetheart. I’m not blaming you,” Peyton said.

  At that moment I was bending over to take a sip of Coke, and was trying to decide whether Peyton’s head was freakishly large, or if it was just that her neck was so spindly that the head looked big in comparison, when it hit me that everything had suddenly gotten weirdly quiet. My dad crossed his arms and frowned, Hannah shifted uncomfortably in her chair, and Peyton was staring hard at me. I looked up, my lips still puckered around the straw.

  “What?” I said. And then I understood exactly what Peyton was implying. “Wait…you think I took it?” I asked, too stunned to be indignant.

  And, weirdly, even though I hadn’t taken her sweater, I suddenly felt uneasy. Guilty even. It was as though the accusation itself tainted me. But what did I have to feel guilty over? It wasn’t my fault the sweater had gone missing.

  “Did you?” Peyton asked icily.

  “Miranda, you don’t have to answer that. Peyton, you’re out of line,” Dad snapped.

  “I never had clothes go missing before Miranda moved in,” Peyton said. “So doesn’t that make her the most likely culprit?”

  “First of all, you don’t know that the sweater is actually missing. It’s just not where you think you put it,” Dad said. “And second, even if it is missing, it’s unfair to blame Miranda without any proof.”

  “I haven’t heard her deny it,” Peyton said, pursing her lips.

  “I didn’t take it!” I exclaimed. “I wouldn’t do that!”

  And I’m not the one in the house who’s obsessed with designer clothes, I added silently, stealing a look at Hannah. She was staring down at her plate, a troubled look on her face. Was it guilt? Or concern about the number of fat grams in a slice of pizza? With Hannah, one could never be sure.

  “There. Now you have your answer,” Dad said. He picked up his napkin, dabbed away a spot of tomato sauce from the corner of his mouth, and then abruptly stood. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some work to finish up in my office.” And with that, he turned and walked out of the room.

  Peyton’s face pinched with anger as she watched my dad leave. Uh-oh, I thought. The Demon was angry. She flung a filthy look at me, and then stood and stalked off. I could hear her stilettos clicking angrily down the marble hall toward the master bedroom. Hannah and I sat in silence for a moment, neither of us eating. I’d been starving before dinner, but Peyton’s accusation had soured my appetite.

  I glanced up at Hannah. She was still sitting with her head bowed, her face clouded. Waves of guilt seemed to rise up from her. She knows something, I thought, and the realization was like a slap across the face. But why would she lie? Peyton wouldn’t care if Hannah had borrowed her sweater.

  “Do you know anything about this missing sweater?” I asked her.

  She shook her head once, but a hand flickered up to her cheek. Got you, I thought. People always touch their face when they lie. It’s called a “tell.” Finn read about it in the sociology class he took as an elective last year. Finn, being Finn, used the knowledge to mask his own tells, so he could lie more effectively when Headmaster Hughes questioned him about his latest prank.

  “I don’t believe you,” I said.

  Hannah looked up sharply. “I didn’t take it,” she insisted.

  “Well, I didn’t take it,” I said. “And it’s not like there’s anyone else…. Wait a second.” I stopped, suddenly remembering. Avery had been over yesterday. And I could have sworn I heard her and Hannah going into the master bedroom. I thought they were just trying on Peyton’s Chanel lipsticks…but had they been going through her closet, too?

  “Did Avery happen to try on a certain cashmere TSE sweater yesterday?” I asked quietly.

  Hannah looked stricken. She’d make a terrible spy. Now there was a truly scary thought: Hannah as a secret agent. Just wave a Sephora bag in front of her, and she’d pour out every state secret she knew.

  “Yes, but…Avery wouldn’t have taken it,” Hannah said. “She just wouldn’t do that.”

  “Are we talking about the same Avery who borrowed your new bracelet without asking, and still hasn’t given it back? I saw her wearing it just yesterday,” I pointed out.

  “This is different,” Avery insisted.

  “At some point borrowing becomes stealing if you don’t return what you borrowed,” I said.

  But Hannah resisted this stellar bit of logic. She shook her head obstinately. “I’m telling you, Avery wouldn’t have taken it,” she said. But I could tell from the quaver in her voice that she wasn’t really so sure.

  “Are you going to tell Peyton that Avery was trying on her sweater?” I asked quietly.

  “I can’t! Mom would freak out. She has this weird obsessive-compulsive thing about her closet. She wigs if anything’s ever out of place. And besides, I don’t have any proof that Avery was the one who took it,” Hannah bleated.

  “Lack of proof didn’t stop Peyton from blaming me,” I said, sounding as bitter as I felt.

  “Just don’t say anything. Please. I’ll think of something. Maybe Avery just put the sweater back in the wrong drawer. I’ll ask her,” Hannah said.

  “Well. Okay. Ask her. But if the sweater doesn’t turn up, you’re going to have to tell Peyton the truth,” I said.

  It wasn’t that I’d developed any loyalty toward Peyton, and I certainly didn’t care one way or other about the sweater. Peyton had a closet full of clothes, all of them expensive. But I didn’t like being thought of as a thief and a sneak. And even if it didn’t matter what Peyton thought of me…wel
l, I just didn’t want my dad to ever think that I’d do anything so dishonest.

  I still hadn’t talked to my mom, even though more than two months had passed since she’d left for England. I had, however, finally started responding to her e-mails. First, I’d kept my replies brief, to make it clear that I was still angry at her. But as the weeks crawled along, I’d been slowly defrosting. And if there was anyone who would appreciate just how horrible the Demon was to accuse me of thievery, it would be Sadie.

  As soon as I got back to the guest room, I pulled out my laptop, opened my e-mail program, and began writing. I detailed the Saga of the Missing TSE Sweater, and how Peyton had accused me of taking it while I thought Avery was the culprit, and how Dad had stood up for me. I read over the e-mail, and when I was satisfied, I hit the send button. I knew I wouldn’t get a response from Sadie that night—it was two in the morning in London—but I had to admit, I felt better. I missed Sadie…more than I’d thought I had.

  I spent the next hour working on a new short story that I was hoping to submit to the Ampersand. I normally wouldn’t have had the guts to do it, since most of the articles published in the school magazine are written by upperclassmen, but Mrs. Gordon’s response to the short story I’d written for mod lit had bolstered my confidence. Plus, the editorial staff of the Ampersand would be picking which sophomores would be invited to join the journal staff soon, and I was hoping that my story would make a good enough impression that they’d pick me.

  The story was about a teenage girl who had the ability to read other people’s minds—which sounds like a gift, but was actually slowly ruining her life, especially once the evil headmaster of her private school set about exploiting her superpowers for his own gain. I figured that after this year I had a special insight into manipulative headmasters.

  And just as I was starting to yawn and my hand was cramping up, my computer gave a little electronic bleep, signaling that I had a new e-mail. I pulled my laptop closer, and maximized the window the e-mail was running in. It was from Sadie! But it was three in the morning her time. What was she still doing up?