Contents ( 64)
- A Letter from the Author
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
- FORTY-TWO
- FORTY-THREE
- FORTY-FOUR
- FORTY-FIVE
- FORTY-SIX
- FORTY-SEVEN
- FORTY-EIGHT
- FORTY-NINE
- FIFTY
- FIFTY-ONE
- FIFTY-TWO
- FIFTY-THREE
- FIFTY-FOUR
- FIFTY-FIVE
- FIFTY-SIX
- FIFTY-SEVEN
- FIFTY-EIGHT
- FIFTY-NINE
- SIXTY
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR
- ONE
Megara Clark, please attend Student in the Spotlight mentoring with Mr Curtis today, 12.30, H4.
Relief sweeps through me. Student in the Spotlight is just some mentoring thing everyone in Year Ten has to do.
‘Urrgh!’ says Annie, crumpling up her note. ‘Are you serious, Sir?’
He smiles at her. ‘Deadly serious. I’m afraid this is non-optional, Annie, even for you.’
‘I don’t care how “non-optional” it is,’ she says, throwing the screwed-up note in the direction of the bin. ‘I’m not going.’ She gets back into her wheelchair and heads towards the door. ‘I’d rather stick needles in my eyes … blunt needles … hot blunt needles.’
‘Annie,’ says Mr Curtis, ‘are you going to pick up the note? It missed the bin.’
She drops one hand over the side of her wheelchair and makes a half-hearted attempt to reach for the piece of paper. She smiles at him. ‘Sorry, Sir, can’t reach it.’
‘As you’re choosing not to pick it up,’ says Sir, ‘shall we see you back here in detention tomorrow?’
‘Why not?’ says Annie, then she shoots out of the room. There’s a crash as a door slams open further down the corridor.
Mr Curtis looks over at me. ‘Meg,’ he says, ‘pick up the note on your way out.’
THIRTEEN
I actually manage to forget about Mum and Elsa during maths. We’re doing simultaneous equations and my brain is blissfully occupied with numbers. Soon my book is filled with sums and green ticks (I always mark in green) and as soon as I finish the first lot of work, I start the extension task.
As Sir passes me another sheet, Ed King glances at my book. Just like in English and science, he’s sitting next to me.
‘You’ve given yourself a tick, but number twelve is wrong,’ he says, tapping my pen on my book.
I check my answer again. He’s right … How could I have made such a simple mistake? With an annoying smile on his face, Ed watches as I correct it, then he says in a low voice, ‘You don’t want to be making mistakes like that when you do your NASA speech.’
‘Oh, I won’t,’ I say. Then I put my Tippex away in my pencil case and do up the zip with a decisive tug.
Ed laughs. I move my book slightly away from him, write Polynomials at the top of a new page, switch to a new, sharper pencil and get started.
Next thing I know, Ed’s got his hand up. ‘Sir.’ His voice is loud in the quiet classroom. ‘I need more work. I’ve finished the extension.’
After maths, I head off to H4 for Student in the Spotlight. Even though I know the group will be small, I still feel nervous. The word ‘mentoring’ tells me we’re going to have to talk in a sharey way as a group and I just know that my words will vanish from my lips when it’s my turn to speak. Before I go in, I check my phone and see that I’ve got a text from Grandad: Hope Little Acorns was OK. All good here except Pongo killed a chicken! (Don’t worry, it was a mangy one.) Grandad 