Millicent Min, Girl Genius

by Lisa Yee

  Wait! He’s coming back and he looks pleased. I wonder if Mr. Glick changed his mind about flunking me. Or maybe Mr. Glick made a mistake and I didn’t flunk after all.

  “It’s settled,” my father says, smiling.

  Suddenly I am starving. I pick up a drumstick and tear into it. “Well, I’m glad that’s over,” I tell him. “Thanks, Dad.”

  “Stanford.” His voice is serious. “I talked Mr. Glick into taking you in his summer-school class. You’ll start on Wednesday.”

  “Summer school?” I try not to choke on my chicken. “Summer school?”

  “Mr. Glick said you hardly ever handed in your homework and that you never paid attention in class.”

  “And you believed him?”

  “Yes.”

  My dad believes everything teachers tell him.

  “Wha … what about basketball camp?”

  “I told you. There isn’t going to be any basketball camp. You’re lucky Mr. Glick agreed to take you for summer school.” Dad picks up a piece of chicken and salts it. “I hope it’s not too late to get a refund from camp.”

  Then it hits me. No camp? School all summer long? Whoaaa … this is way, way too much to take in. “Mommmmm,” I yell. “Mom!” My mother rushes to my side. “Dad says I have to go to summer school. He says there’s not going to be any basketball camp.”

  She looks at Dad. He gives her a little nod. He’s trying to hypnotize her! “Stanford, your father is right,” she says. “I’m sorry, but school comes first. Maybe you can go to camp next year.”

  He did hypnotize her! They never see things the same way, and suddenly they’re ganging up on me. I push my chair away from the table, grab my basketball, and run out, slamming the door behind me.

  LISA YEE’s award-winning novels include Millicent Min, Girl Genius; Stanford Wong Flunks Big-Time (an ALA Notable Book); So Totally Emily Ebers; Bobby vs. Girls (Accidentally); Bobby the Brave (Sometimes); Warp Speed; Absolutely Maybe; and The Kidney Hypothetical. Please visit her website at www.lisayee.com.

  Text copyright © 2003 by Lisa Yee.

  All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Press, a division of Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. SCHOLASTIC, SCHOLASTIC PRESS, and the LANTERN LOGO are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Yee, Lisa.

  Millicent Min, girl genius / by Lisa Yee.

  1st ed. p. cm.

  Summary: In a series of journal entries, eleven-year-old child prodigy Millicent Min records her struggles to learn to play volleyball, tutor her enemy, deal with her grandmother’s departure, and make friends over the course of a tumultuous summer.

  ISBN 0-439-42519-0

  [1. Genius–Fiction. 2. Gifted children–Fiction. 3. Friendship–Fiction. 4. Chinese Americans–Fiction. 5. Diaries–Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.Y3638Mi 2003

  [Fic]–dc21 2003003747

  First edition, October 2003

  e-ISBN 978-0-545-88022-0

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.